Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Near-field imaging of the surface displacement on an infinite ground plane

This paper is concerned with the inverse diffraction problem for an unbounded obstacle which is a ground plane with some local disturbance. The data is collected in the near-field regime with a distance above the surface displacement that is smaller than the wavelength. In this regime, the evanescent modes carried by the scattered wave are significant, which makes it different from the far-field measurement. We formulate explicitly the connection between the evanescent wave modes and the high frequency components of the surface displacement, and present a new numerical scheme to reconstruct the surface displacement from the boundary measurements. By extracting the information carried by the evanescent modes effectively, it is shown that the resolution of the reconstructed image is significantly improved in the near field. Numerical examples show that images with a resolution of $\lambda/10$ are obtained.
ovel initialization scheme for Fuzzy C-Means algorithm on color image egmentation

This paper presents a novel initialization scheme to determine the cluster number and obtain the initial cluster centers for Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) algorithm to segment any kind of color images, captured using different consumer electronic products or machine vision systems. The proposed initialization scheme, called Hierarchical Approach (HA), integrates the splitting and merging techniques to obtain the initial-
Enhancing message-oriented middleware capability and flexibility for dynamic service composition in context-aware distributed systems

Subject of this paper is the advancement of the middleware capabilities and configuration flexibility in complex context-aware distributed systems, according to the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) paradigm. Results are presented on an ongoing work concerned with the architecting, design and development of a message-oriented middleware for atomic and composite service brokering, named SAI middleware. The SAI middleware aims at flexibly offering a set of features for service brokering and dynamic composition across different application scenarios, while also guaranteeing loose coupling between service providers and consumers and relaxing the prerequisites for service providers to publish their capabilities in an interoperability domain. Our basic contribution consists in addressing these issues in a holistic way, as required to effectively support the SOA vision in context-aware application scenarios, while not optimizing single aspects yet, but demonstrating capability of easily matching requirements in different application scenarios.
On the User Equipment Antenna Performance

In this paper the explicit (“obvious”) relation between mean effective gain of an antenna and its radiation efficiency has been pointed out. Introduction The user equipment (UE) is a vital element in UMTS networks which performance has a critical bearing on the overall system performance. In fact UE exhibiting poor performance will have a negative effect on the link quality, giving rise not only to isolated unsatisfied users but the performance of the whole network will be affected [1]. And the antenna is certainly one of the components of the UE. Measuring it performance has conventionally been focused on the antenna itself detached from the real context in which the UE is intended to work. However, it is well known that wireless communications takes place in highly multipath environments and close to the user’s body and surrounding objects, where the polarization and spatial distribution of the transmitted and received electromagnetic waves varies in space and time subjected to different propagation mechanisms that make the link communication quality very sensitive to these factors. A comprehensive measure of the antenna performance should therefore consider all those aspects as well. Hence, the better the antenna will “match” the spatial and polarization properties of the radio channel and lower the losses are the better will be the communication link quality and consequently, the more satisfied the users will be. Several parameters may be used to quantify the performance of UE with the antenna e.g. radiation efficiency, total radiated power (TRP), mean effective gain (MEG) and it variations. However, it seems that there is still little understanding about their relevance to the system performance and how they actually relate to each other. Therefore our aim is to provide a brief explanation of these figures of merit of the antenna performance in order to devise a reliable yet simple test method that ensures the quality of UE exposed to UMTS cellular networks. Antenna Efficiency (Radiation Efficiency or Total Radiated Power Gain) Antenna efficiency or radiation efficiency is defined as the ratio of the power radiated into space to the net power accepted from the connected transmitter [2], ( ) ( ) ( ) π φ θ φ θ φ θ 4 , , ∫ Ω + = = d G G P P e
Design of Optimization of Diaphragm Chamber Based on Finite Element Method

Diaphragm Chamber is a critical component in fluid end of large scale diaphragm pump. Static strength failure and fatigue failure of diaphragm chamber are caused by high pressure of slurry flowing which is transported by diaphragm pump. It is necessary to analyze the inferences of different boundary shapes of diaphragm chamber on its static strength. In this paper, diaphragm chamber was simulated by finite element analysis program ADINA. Inferences of different boundary dimensions of diaphragm chamber on its strength are studied. Stress distribution graphs of diaphragm chamber can be obtained from analysis results. Maximum stresses of diaphragm chamber affected by different boundary shapes of diaphragm chamber are summarized. The analysis results in the paper provide some theoretical guidance for structure optimum of diaphragm chamber and manufacturing cost reduction.
Fatigue's lack of effect on thigh-muscle activity in anterior cruciate ligament-reconstructed patients during a dynamic-landing task.

CONTEXT As individuals returning to activity after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLr) likely experience fatigue, understanding how fatigue affects knee-muscle activation patterns during sport-like maneuvers is of clinical importance. Fatigue has been suggested to impair neuromuscular control strategies. As a result, fatigue may place ACLr patients at increased risk of developing posttraumatic osteoarthritis (OA). OBJECTIVE To determine the effects of fatigue on knee-muscle activity post-ACLr. DESIGN Case control. SETTING University laboratory. PARTICIPANTS 12 individuals 7-10 mo post-ACLr (7 male, 5 female; age 22.1 ± 4.7 y; 1.8 ± 0.1 m; mass 77.7 ± 11.9 kg) and 13 controls (4 male, 9 female; age 22.9 ± 4.3 y; 1.7 ± 0.1 m; mass 66.9 ± 9.8 kg). INTERVENTIONS Fatigue was induced via repetitive sets of double-leg squats (n = 8), which were interspersed with sets of single-leg landings (n = 3), until squats were no longer possible. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES 2 × 2 repeated-measures ANOVA was used to detect the main effects of group (ACLr, control) and fatigue state (prefatigue, postfatigue) on quadriceps:hamstring cocontraction index (Q:H CCI). RESULTS All subjects demonstrated higher Q:H CCI at prefatigue compared with postfatigue (F(1,23) = 66.949, P ≤ . 001). Q:H CCI did not differ between groups (F(1,23) = 0.599, P = . 447). CONCLUSIONS The results indicate that regardless of fatigue state, ACLr individuals are capable of restoring muscle-activation patterns similar to those in healthy subjects. As a result, excessive muscle cocontraction, which has been hypothesized as a potential mechanism of posttraumatic OA, may not contribute to joint degeneration after ACLr.
ESTIMATING A POLYNOMIALREGRESSION WITH MEASUREMENTERRORS IN THE STRUCTURAL ANDIN THE FUNCTIONAL CASE { ACOMPARISON

SUMMARY Two methods of estimating the parameters of a polynomial regression with measurement errors in the regressor variable are compared to each other with respect to their relative eeciency and robustness. One of the two estimators (SLS) is valid for the structural variant of the model and uses the assumption that the true regressor variable is normally distributed, while the other one (ALS and also its small sample modiication MALS) does not need any assumption on the regressor distribution. SLS turns out to react rather strongly on violations of the normality assumption as far as its bias is concerned but is quite robust with respect to its MSE. It is more eecient than ALS or MALS whenever the normality assumption holds true.
The capacity of cognitive ad-hoc networks with carrier sensing errors

We analyze the capacity of cognitive ad-hoc networks under the effects of sensing errors: false alarm and missed detection. We present an ad-hoc network model overlaid on a primary system from which a cognitive node exploits spectrum holes for retransmissions. We derive per-link capacity, the indicator of the network's capacity, by considering statistics of the primary users' (PUs) channel occupancy and sensing errors. Our analysis shows that the capacity scaling law is kept unchanged, O(1/√log n) by the number of nodes n, even after sensing errors are introduced. It also shows how the capacity depends on the PUs' channel occupancy and sensing errors.
Do Reminders of Substitutes and Budget Constraints Influence Contingent Valuation Estimates

A test is performed of the recommendation by the NOAA panel on contingent valuation that respondents be reminded about other substitute resources and their budget constraint prior to answering the willingness-to-pay (WTP) question. The context for this experiment is a CVM study of the benefits from reducing fire hazards to old-growth forests in Oregon. The test was performed using two mail surveys that were otherwise identical except for the inclusion of reminder statements prior to the WTP question. The dichotomous choice logit equations were not statistically different between versions and the mean WTP results were identical.
Absence of NF- B subunit p50 improves heart failure after myocardial infarction

Background: NF kappa B (NFB) is a ubiquitous transcription factor activated by various stimuli implicated in heart failure progression including reactive oxygen species (ROS), hypoxia, and inflammatory cytokines. Although NFB is involved in ischemic preconditioning, unstable angina pectoris, and atherogenesis, its role in heart failure has not been determined. Therefore, we investigated left ventricular remodeling in mice with a targeted deletion of the NFB subunit p50/NFB1 after myocardial infarction. Methods and results: p50 knockout (KO) and wild-type (WT) animals underwent coronary artery ligation. Transthoracic echocardiography was performed at days 0, 21, and 56 at midpapillary levels. Early mortality was significantly lower in KO than in WT animals. Moreover, p50 KOs exhibited significantly reduced ventricular dilatation over 8 wk compared to WT controls (end-systolic diameters by transthoracic echocardiography, WT vs. KO, 0.55 0.04 vs. 0.34 0.03 cm) and preserved left ventricular contractility. Collagen content and matrixmetalloproteinase (MMP) -9 expression were significantly lower in KO mice after myocardial infarction and may account for improved left ventricular remodeling. Conclusions: Absence of the NFB subunit p50 improves early survival and reduces left ventricular dilatation after myocardial infarction. NFB might therefore be an attractive target to treat heart failure. —Frantz, S. , Hu, K. , Bayer, B. , Gerondakis, S. , Strotmann, J., Adamek, A. , Ertl, G. , Bauersachs, J. Absence of NFB subunit p50 improves heart failure after myocardial infarction. FASEB J. 20, E1309–E1314 (2006)
Neural pathways for visual speech perception

This paper examines the questions, what levels of speech can be perceived visually, and how is visual speech represented by the brain? Review of the literature leads to the conclusions that every level of psycholinguistic speech structure (i.e., phonetic features, phonemes, syllables, words, and prosody) can be perceived visually, although individuals differ in their abilities to do so; and that there are visual modality-specific representations of speech qua speech in higher-level vision brain areas. That is, the visual system represents the modal patterns of visual speech. The suggestion that the auditory speech pathway receives and represents visual speech is examined in light of neuroimaging evidence on the auditory speech pathways. We outline the generally agreed-upon organization of the visual ventral and dorsal pathways and examine several types of visual processing that might be related to speech through those pathways, specifically, face and body, orthography, and sign language processing. In this context, we examine the visual speech processing literature, which reveals widespread diverse patterns of activity in posterior temporal cortices in response to visual speech stimuli. We outline a model of the visual and auditory speech pathways and make several suggestions: (1) The visual perception of speech relies on visual pathway representations of speech qua speech. (2) A proposed site of these representations, the temporal visual speech area (TVSA) has been demonstrated in posterior temporal cortex, ventral and posterior to multisensory posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS). (3) Given that visual speech has dynamic and configural features, its representations in feedforward visual pathways are expected to integrate these features, possibly in TVSA.
Adaptive Fourier Decomposition based automatic stock movement forecasting system

The stock market is a complex system. Over the years, people have made unremitting studies in predicting the stock price movements. A novel automatic stock movement forecasting system is proposed in this paper, which is based on a newly developed signal decomposition approach - adaptive Fourier decomposition (AFD). AFD can effectively extract the signal primary trend, which is specifically suitable in the Dow theory based automatic technique analysis. The main functions of the system include: (1) data management, which can read and display the data downloaded from the Internet; (2) data process, which can decompose and reconstruct the signal through AFD; (3) forecasting the primary trend, which can automatically identify the bull or bear markets based on the Dow theory; (4) predicting the shock movement, which can predict the detailed movement by using BP neural network. An experiment is conducted based on the stock market data of Shanghai composite index. Effectiveness of the proposed approach is assessed through the comparison with the direct BP approach and manual observation. The result is proved to be promising.
Moral Hazard in the Credit Market When the Collateral Value is Stochastic

This theoretical paper explores the effects of costly and non-costly collateral on moral hazard, when collateral value may fluctuate. Given that all collateral is costly, stochastic collateral will entail the same positive incentive effects as nonstochastic collateral, provided the variation in collateral value is modest. If it is large, the incentive effects are smaller under stochastic collateral. With non-costly collateral, stochastic collateral entails positive incentive effects or no effects, if the variation in collateral value is modest. If it is large, the incentive effects may be positive or negative. Thus, collateral can increase moral hazard. The findings are related to the topical subprime crisis and the fluctuating value of real estate collateral. ​
Body-structure based feature representation for person re-identification

Person re-identification is valuable for intelligent video surveillance and has drawn wide attention. Although person re-identification research is making progress, it still faces some challenges such as varying poses, illumination and viewpoints. As a major aspect of person re-identification, feature representation has been widely researched. Low-level descriptors are generally used in existing works, which do not take full advantage of body structure information and result in low discrimination. In this paper, body-structure based mid-level feature representation is proposed, which introduces body structure pyramid for codebook learning and feature pooling. Additionally, low computational LLC is used to encode mid-level features. Experimental results on two challenging datasets VIPeR and CUHK01 have demonstrated that our approach outperforms the state-of-the-art methods.
Enhancement of Radiograph Images Based on Chaos Optimization

How to select the parameters of high-frequency emphasis filtering (HFEF) in order to enhance radiograph images, this paper presents an enhancing method based on chaos optimization algorithms (COA). Based on the properties of ergodicity, stochastic property and regularity of chaos, the chaos optimization method can get global solution with low computational load. Firstly, an X-ray image is sharpened with HFEF, at the same time, the controllable and improved COA can optimize the parameters so that the optimal clarity of the image may be got, then the contrast of it is enhanced with histogram equalization to visually enhance the medical radiograph images to solve the questions: blurring and dark nature, which radiograph images generally tend to have. Experimental results show the proposed approach is effective and gets competitive visual effects.
'Make it move': playing cause and effect games with a robot companion for children with cognitive disabilities

Play is one of the most important activities in child development. Children with special needs are often excluded from play activities due to the nature of their impairments. This paper describes the use of two types of robots with very different configurations, one humanoid robot (KASPAR) and one mobile robotic platform (IROMEC), in a six month long-term study with children with different levels of cognitive and social disabilities. In this study we tested the effectiveness of KASPAR and IROMEC. IROMEC was designed for children with special needs in order to encourage them to be engaged in play activities. KASPAR was developed to facilitate social interaction, including applications designed to help children with autism. We examined whether these two robots can support the achievement of fundamental therapeutic and educational objectives for the cognitive and social development of these children. We performed similar play scenarios with both robots and monitored their effects on the behaviour of the children. In this paper we focus on the cause and effect game called Make it move. A preliminary analysis of the data shows very encouraging results. The interaction with the robots seemed to have in general positive influence on the development of the children's social skills. The level of success achieving the different objectives varied from child to child depending on the level and nature of their disability.
Object Class Recognition Using NEAT-Evolved Artificial Neural Network

Object class recognition is a highly challenging area in computer vision and machine learning. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach to object class recognition using Neuro Evolution of Augmenting Topologies (NEAT) to evolve artificial neural networks (ANN) capable of taking advantage of the robust SIFT feature based descriptor histograms. We claim that NEAT can produce ANN classifier which exhibits outstanding ability of learning from only afew training examples without sacrificing accuracy. Our empirical evaluations against the performance of state of the art statistical machine learning method such as support vector machine show that NEAT-evolved ANN classifier outperforms by an average of 9.96% higher accuracy when presented with very small training set proving its superior ability to generalize its learning.
Inspirational Leadership: Destiny, Calling and Cause

Inspirational Leadership offers a radical theory of leadership based on the leadership practices of some of the greatest leaders of all time as well as many inspiring leaders of organizations today. There are seven steps that comprise the practice of Inspirational Leadership: achieve pure clarity about one's destiny; define and champion a Cause; reaffirm a commitment to a calling and coach others to find and master theirs; align the calling with the Cause; ask the parcener--a person who shares jointly with others in an inheritance--"How may I serve you? "; guide the parceners' contribution of brilliance; and create an environment that encourages parceners to inspire the leader. The applicability of Inspirational Leadership is not limited to corporations, but is equally relevant in families, churches, governments, health care, law enforcement agencies, educational organizations, and communities.
The association of smoking with medical treatment adherence in the workforce of a large employer

Purpose Prior descriptive epidemiology studies have shown that smokers have lower compliance rates with preventive care services and lower chronic medication adherence rates for preventive care services in separate studies. The goal of this study was to perform a more detailed analysis to validate both of these findings for current smokers versus nonsmokers within the benefit-covered population of a large US employer. Patients and methods This study involved the analysis of incurred medical and pharmacy claims for employee and spouse health plan enrollees of a single US-based employer during 2010. Multivariate regression models were used to compare data by active or never-smoker status for preventive care services and medication adherence for chronic conditions. Analysis controlled for demographic variables, chronic condition prevalence, and depression. Results Controlling for demographic variables and comorbid conditions, smokers had significantly lower cancer screening rates, with absolute reductions of 6%–13%. Adherence to chronic medication use for hypertension was also significantly lower among smokers, with nearly 7% fewer smokers having a medication possession ratio of ≥80%. Smokers were less adherent to depression medications (relative risk =0.79) than nonsmokers (P=0.10). While not statistically significant, smokers were consistently less adherent to all other medications than nonsmokers. Conclusion Current smokers are less compliant with recommended preventive care and medication use than nonsmokers, likely contributing to smoking-related employer costs. Awareness of these care gaps among smokers and direct management should be considered as part of a comprehensive population health-management strategy.
The Correction of Aberration on Measurement Based on Image

In the planar measurement based on image, the size of objects’ image cannot keep linearity with their real size due to the aberration of lens and CCD. This paper use a new simple method to eliminate them. Firstly, the coordinate system are set and their transforms are modeled. Then, a separating parameter method is provided to simplified the course of measurement. So several separated parameters needed in measurement are acquired and the image are corrected using those parameters. Thought the proportional relations built by them, the measurement based on image can be completed. The largest distortion of the image is about 7 pixels, after correction, it decreased to 0.6 pixels, and relative distortion converted from 1.2% to 0.1%. Compared to other measurement methods, the method used in this paper involves in less parameters which are independent each other and simpler calculation process. It can be adopted to all of the CCD’s surface imaging measurement about planar images.
Representing the Classical Sequent Calculus in the π-calculus

We study theπ-calculus, enriched with pairing and non-blocking input, and define a notion of type assignment that uses the type c onstructor→. We encode the circuits of the calculus X into this variant ofπ, and show that all reduction (cut-elimination) and assignable types are pres erv d. SinceX enjoys the Curry-Howard isomorphism for Gentzen’s calculus LK , this implies that all proofs inLK have a representation in π.