Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multiscale MAP filtering of SAR images

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images are disturbed by a multiplicative noise depending on the signal (the ground reflectivity) due to the radar wave coherence. Images have a strong variability from one pixel to another reducing essentially the efficiency of the algorithms of detection and classification. We propose to filter this noise with a multiresolution analysis of the image. The wavelet coefficient of the reflectivity is estimated with a Bayesian model, maximizing the a posteriori probability density function. The different probability density function are modeled with the Pearson system of distributions. The resulting filter combines the classical adaptive approach with wavelet decomposition where the local variance of high-frequency images is used in order to segment and filter wavelet coefficients.
As-awareness in Tor path selection

Tor is an anonymous communications network with thousands of router nodes worldwide. An intuition reflected in much of the literature on anonymous communications is that, as an anonymity network grows, it becomes more secure against a given observer because the observer will see less of the network. In particular, as the Tor network grows from volunteers operating relays all over the world, it becomes less and less likely for a single autonomous system (AS) to be able to observe both ends of an anonymous connection. Yet, as the network continues to grow significantly, no analysis has been done to determine if this intuition is correct. Further, modifications to Tor's path selection algorithm to help clients avoid an AS-level observer have not been proposed and analyzed. Five years ago a previous study examined the AS-level threat against client and destination addresses chosen a priori to be likely or interesting to examine. Using an AS-level path inference algorithm with improved accuracy, more extensive Internet routing data, and, most importantly, a model of typical Tor client AS-level sources and destinations based on data gathered from the live network, we demonstrate that the threat of a single AS observing both ends of an anonymous Tor connection is greater than previously thought. We look at the growth of the Tor network over the past five years and show that its explosive growth has had only a small impact on the network's robustness against an AS-level attacker. Finally, we propose and evaluate the effectiveness of some simple, AS-aware path selection algorithms that avoid the computational overhead imposed by full AS-level path inference algorithms. Our results indicate that a novel heuristic we propose is more effective against an AS-level observer than other commonly proposed heuristics for improving location diversity in path selection.
Rapid Synchronous Acquisition of Geometry and Appearance of Cultural Heritage Artefacts

In order to produce visually appealing digital models of cultural heritage artefacts, a meticulous reconstruction of the 3D geometry alone is often not sufficient, as colour and reflectance information give essential clues of the object's material. Standard texturing methods are often only able to overcome this fact under strict material and lighting condition limitations. The realistic reconstruction of complex yet frequently encountered materials such as fabric, leather, wood or metal is still a challenge. In this paper, we describe a novel system to acquire the 3Dgeometry of an object using its visual hull, recorded in multiple 2D images with a multi-camera array. At the same time, the material properties of the object are measured into Bidirectional Texture Functions (BTF), that faithfully capture the mesostructure of the surface and reconstruct the look-and-feel of its material. The high rendering fidelity of the acquired BTF texture data with respect to reflectance and self-shadowing also alleviates the limited precision of the visual hull approach for 3D geometry acquisition.
Design and Implementation of Emergy-Based Sustainability Decision Assessment System for Protected Grape Cultivation

The characteristic “high input and output” in protected production has caused some environmental and ecological issues. Hence, emergy-based sustainability assessments are necessary and valuable. However, traditional emergy analysis is time consuming, tedious, and inefficient. Such disadvantages can be addressed by the integration of emergy analysis with information technology. This paper reports the development of the emergy-based sustainability decision assessment system (ESDAS) for protected grape cultivation systems. This system was established by first analyzing the business process, users, and requirements through survey, and the findings of which were used to design the system’s function, architecture, database, model base, and knowledge base with a combination of emergy methods. The results showed that ESDAS passed the system test and achieved the real-time calculation of emergy data and the automatization of emergy analysis. Therefore, this research is a beneficial attempt to apply information technology in improving the efficiency of sustainability assessments. The results also revealed that the protected grape cultivation system is characterized by a heavy dependence on purchased and non-renewable resource emergy, lower emergy yield ratio, higher emergy investment rate and environmental loading ratio, and lower emergy sustainability index. Some suggestions were made to improve the sustainability of the protected grape system.
Fast-TIPL Occurs for Salient Images without a Memorization Requirement in Men but Not in Women

Recent research of task-irrelevant perceptual learning (TIPL) demonstrates that stimuli that are consistently presented at relevant point in times (e.g. with task-targets or rewards) are learned, even in the absence of attention to these stimuli. However, different research paradigms have observed different results for how salient stimuli are learned; with some studies showing no learning, some studies showing positive learning and others showing negative learning effects. In this paper we focused on how the level of processing of stimuli impacts fast-TIPL. We conducted three different experiments in which the level of processing of the information paired with a target was manipulated. Our results indicated that fast-TIPL occurs when participants have to memorize the information presented with the target, but also when they just have to process this information for a secondary task without an explicit memorization of those stimuli. However, fast-TIPL does not occur when participants have to ignore the target-paired information. This observation is consistent with recent models of TIPL that suggest that attentional signals can either enhance or suppress learning depending on whether those stimuli are distracting or not to the subjects' objectives. Our results also revealed a robust gender effect in fast-TIPL, where male subjects consistently show fast-TIPL, whereas the observation of fast-TIPL is inconsistent in female subjects.
International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity International Physical Activity Questionnaire (ipaq) and New Zealand Physical Activity Questionnaire (nzpaq): a Doubly Labelled Water Validation

Background: Accurate measurement of physical activity is a prerequisite for monitoring population health and for evaluating effective interventions. The International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) is used as a comparable and standardised self-report measure of habitual physical activity of populations from different countries and socio-cultural contexts. The IPAQ has been modified to produce a New Zealand physical activity questionnaire (NZPAQ). The aim of this study was to validate the IPAQ and NZPAQ against doubly labelled water (DLW). Method: Total energy expenditure (TEE) was measured over a 15-day period using DLW. Activity-related energy expenditure (AEE) was estimated by subtracting the energy expenditure from resting metabolic rate and thermic effect of feeding from TEE. The IPAQ (long form) and NZPAQ (short form) were completed at the end of each 7-day period. Activity-related energy expenditure (IPAQ AEE and NZPAQ AEE) was calculated from each questionnaire and compared to DLW AEE .
Nkx genes are essential for maintenance of ventricular identity

Establishment of specific characteristics of each embryonic cardiac chamber is crucial for development of a fully functional adult heart. Despite the importance of defining and maintaining unique features in ventricular and atrial cardiomyocytes, the regulatory mechanisms guiding these processes are poorly understood. Here, we show that the homeodomain transcription factors Nkx2.5 and Nkx2.7 are necessary to sustain ventricular chamber attributes through repression of atrial chamber identity. Mutation of nkx2.5 in zebrafish yields embryos with diminutive ventricular and bulbous atrial chambers. These chamber deformities emerge gradually during development, with a severe collapse in the number of ventricular cardiomyocytes and an accumulation of excess atrial cardiomyocytes as the heart matures. Removal of nkx2.7 function from nkx2.5 mutants exacerbates the loss of ventricular cells and the gain of atrial cells. Moreover, in these Nkx-deficient embryos, expression of vmhc, a ventricular gene, fades, whereas expression of amhc, an atrial gene, expands. Cell-labeling experiments suggest that ventricular cardiomyocytes can transform into atrial cardiomyocytes in the absence of Nkx gene function. Through suggestion of transdifferentiation from ventricular to atrial fate, our data reveal a pivotal role for Nkx genes in maintaining ventricular identity and highlight remarkable plasticity in differentiated myocardium. Thus, our results are relevant to the etiologies of fetal and neonatal cardiac pathology and could direct future innovations in cardiac regenerative medicine.
Challenging formal specifications by mutation: a CSP security example

When formal modelling is done we must validate both the model and the assumptions. Formal techniques tend to concentrate on the former. We examine how fault injection (specification mutation) and model checking can help address the latter, in particular, the effects of failure. We find that, in contrast with software testing, where they are a problem, "equivalent mutants" are valuable for specification validation.
A 600 nA, 0.7 ppm/°C CMOS voltage reference circuit without resistors

A new voltage reference circuit based only on MOS and vertical substrate PNP transistors is described. The circuit designed in 130 nm CMOS standard process operates in the temperature range [-40… +125] °C with supply voltages from 2.0 V to 3.0 V. It consumes 600 nA at 2.5 V and 27°C in the typical corner and occupies 0.0063 mm<sup>2</sup> area. The reference voltage is 1.0094 V ±35μV from 0°C to 100°C at 2.5V supply in the typical corner. A line sensitivity of 245 μV/V in the supply voltage range [2.25… 3.0] V is achieved. The power supply rejection ratio at 10 Hz is −71 dB.
Relationship Between β-Cell Mass and Fasting Blood Glucose Concentration in Humans

36.5 5.3 kg/m 2 ). We only included people with type 2 diabetes who were not taking insulin or glucose-lowering oral medications, both of which would have influenced the measured blood glucose concentrations and the relationship of these with -cell volume. The relationship between fractional -cell volume and fasting blood glucose concentration was analyzed by nonlinear regression analysis to establish the best monoexponential fit of the relationship between the fasting blood glucose (dependent variable) and the -cell volume (independent variable); y span exp(k X) plateau and the point of inflection of the hyperbole. ANOVA was used to test for the effect of -cell volume on fasting blood glucose. RESULTS— There was a significant relationship between the -cell volume and fasting blood glucose concentration, with a point of inflection at x 1.1 0.1%. This relationship is curvilinear (Fig. 1) so that -cell deficiency beyond 1.1% is associated with a steep increase in blood glucose with each further decrement in -cell mass.
TSV-Aware Analytical Placement for 3-D IC Designs Based on a Novel Weighted-Average Wirelength Model

Through-silicon vias (TSVs) are required for transmitting signals among different dies for the 3-D integrated circuit (IC) technology. The significant silicon areas occupied by TSVs bring critical challenges for 3-D IC placement. Unlike most published 3-D placement works that only minimize the number of TSVs during placement due to the limitations in their techniques, this paper proposes a new 3-D cell placement algorithm that can additionally consider the sizes of TSVs and the physical positions for TSV insertion during placement. The algorithm consists of three stages: 1) 3-D analytical global placement with density optimization and whitespace reservation for TSVs; 2) TSV insertion and TSV-aware legalization; and 3) layer-by-layer detailed placement. In particular, the global placement is based on a novel weighted-average (WA) wirelength model, giving the first published model that can outperform the well-known log-sum-exp wirelength model theoretically and empirically. Also, a scheme is proposed to enhance the numerical stability of the WA wirelength model. Furthermore, 3-D routing can easily be accomplished by traditional 2-D routers since the physical positions of TSVs are determined during placement. Experimental results show the effectiveness of our algorithm. Compared with state-of-the-art 3-D cell placement works, our algorithm can achieve the best routed wirelength, TSV counts, and total silicon area, in shortest running time.
Comparative Evaluation of Three Chromogenic Media Combined with Broth Enrichment and the Real-Time PCR-Based Xpert MRSA Assay for Screening of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus in Nasal Swabs

Background We evaluated the performance of three chromogenic media (Brilliance agar I [Oxoid, UK], Brilliance agar II [Oxoid], and ChromID MRSA [Biomérieux, France]) combined with broth enrichment and the Xpert MRSA assay for screening of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Methods We obtained 401 pairs of duplicate nasal swabs from 321 patients. One swab was suspended overnight in tryptic soy broth; 50-µL aliquots of suspension were inoculated on the three chromogenic media. Brilliance agar I and II were examined after 24 hr, and ChromID MRSA, after 24 and 48 hr. The paired swab was processed directly using real-time PCR-based Xpert MRSA assay. Results True positives, designated as MRSA growth in any of the culture media, were detected with the prevalence of 17% in our institution. We report the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of MRSA growth as follows: 92.3%, 94.0%, 75.9%, and 98.4% in Brilliance agar I (24 hr); 92.7%, 97.9%, 90.0%, and 98.5% in Brilliance agar II (24 hr); 95.6%, 95.8%, 82.3%, and 99.1% in ChromID MRSA (24 hr); 100%, 92.5%, 73.1%, and 100% in ChromID MRSA (48 hr); 92.6%, 96.7%, 85.1%, and 98.5% in Xpert MRSA assay. The agreement between the enriched culture and Xpert MRSA assay was 96.0%. Conclusions Three chromogenic culture media combined with enrichment and Xpert MRSA assay demonstrated similar capabilities in MRSA detection. The Xpert MRSA assay yielded results comparable to those of culture methods, saving 48-72 hr, thus facilitating earlier detection of MRSA in healthcare settings.
Characterisation of Low-cost Optical Flow Sensors

This paper presents the development and characterisation of a low-cost optical sensor module, to be used for localisation. The modules contain CMOS sensors found in optical mice with modified optics. The sensory data has been characterised against distance to objects and image quality. We propose a mathematical model to transform the sensory data into data suitable for sensor fusion. Tests show that the transformation successfully removes error bias, and the model also allows the variance of residual errors to be estimated. This allows data with lower image quality to still be useful for estimation, extendin g the useful range of distances of the optical sensor module, and allowing more accurate estimation of velocity.
Visualising Computational Intelligence Through Converting Data into Formal Concepts

Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) is an emerging data technology that complements collective intelligence such as that identified in the Semantic Web by visualising the hidden meaning in disparate and distributed data. The paper demonstrates the discovery of these novel semantics through a set of FCA open source software tools FcaBedrock and In-Close that were developed by the authors. These tools add computational intelligence by converting data into a Boolean form called a Formal Context, prepare this data for analysis by creating focused and noise-free sub-Contexts and then analyse the prepared data using a visualisation called a Concept Lattice. The Formal Concepts thus visualised highlight how data itself contains meaning, and how FCA tools thereby extract data’s inherent semantics. The paper describes how this will be further developed in a project called CUBIST, to provide in-data-warehouse visual analytics for RDF-based triple stores.
Optimising the Application of Multiple-Capture Traps for Invasive Species Management Using Spatial Simulation

Internationally, invasive vertebrate species pose a significant threat to biodiversity, agricultural production and human health. To manage these species a wide range of tools, including traps, are used. In New Zealand, brushtail possums (Trichosurus vulpecula), stoats (Mustela ermine), and ship rats (Rattus rattus) are invasive and there is an ongoing demand for cost-effective non-toxic methods for controlling these pests. Recently, traps with multiple-capture capability have been developed which, because they do not require regular operator-checking, are purported to be more cost-effective than traditional single-capture traps. However, when pest populations are being maintained at low densities (as is typical of orchestrated pest management programmes) it remains uncertain if it is more cost-effective to use fewer multiple-capture traps or more single-capture traps. To address this uncertainty, we used an individual-based spatially explicit modelling approach to determine the likely maximum animal-captures per trap, given stated pest densities and defined times traps are left between checks. In the simulation, single- or multiple-capture traps were spaced according to best practice pest-control guidelines. For possums with maintenance densities set at the lowest level (i.e. 0.5/ha), 98% of all simulated possums were captured with only a single capacity trap set at each site. When possum density was increased to moderate levels of 3/ha, having a capacity of three captures per trap caught 97% of all simulated possums. Results were similar for stoats, although only two potential captures per site were sufficient to capture 99% of simulated stoats. For rats, which were simulated at their typically higher densities, even a six-capture capacity per trap site only resulted in 80% kill. Depending on target species, prevailing density and extent of immigration, the most cost-effective strategy for pest control in New Zealand might be to deploy several single-capture traps rather than investing in fewer, but more expense, multiple-capture traps.
Matters of resilience: mattering relationships and renegotiated masculinity in resilient college males with histories of child sexual abuse

Reticence of child sexual abuse (CSA) survivors to disclose abuse is well documented (Alaggia, 2004). One particularly silent group throughout the course of CSA research has been males (Finkelhor, 1983; Hopper, 2010; Watkins & Bentovim, 1992). As a result, much of what is known about males with CSA histories today is limited. Recently, however, researchers qualitatively examined small samples of males with CSA histories to discover processes of recovery salient to males' experiences (Andersen, 2008; Hunter, 2007; Kia-Keating, Grossman, Sorsoli, & Epstein, 2005; Kia-Keating, Sorsoli, & Grossman, 2010). Several themes emerged from these narratives with enough consistency that cross-validation via quantitative investigation in larger samples is indicated in the interest of furthering knowledge in this field of research. Themes included (a) existence of a safe place relationship; (b) rejection of traditional norms of masculinity, adoption of a new notion of masculinity and acceptance of self within that new definition; and (c) reaching out to others in a spirit of altruism. This study sought to investigate the extent to which these variables were evidenced in a sample of college men reporting CSA. Fifty-five college-enrolled males with histories of child sexual abuse were surveyed to determine to what extent these variables impact the development of resilience. The Stressful Life Events Screening Questionnaire--Revised (SLESQ-R) was used to determine presence of CSA experiences. The Resilience Scale (RS) was used to measure the dependent variable. Independent variables were measured using Mattering to Others Questionnaire (MTOQ), Male Role Attitudes Scale (MRAS) and the Hoffman Gender Scale (HGS). Results indicated that mattering and altruism bore no significant relation to the development of resilience. Gender self-acceptance (HGS subscale), however, was found to predict significantly the development of resilience. Neither respondent demographic descriptors, nor the variety of criterion upon which inclusion in the study was based, was found to be significantly related to resilience.
A run-length based connected component algorithm for FPGA implementation

This paper introduces a real-time connected component labelling algorithm designed for field programmable gate array (FPGA) implementation. The algorithm run-length encodes the image, and performs connected component analysis on this representation. The run-length encoding, together with other parts of the algorithm, is performed in parallel; sequential operations are minimized as the number of runs are typically less than the number of pixels. The architecture is designed mainly on Block RAM (i.e. internal RAM) of the FPGA. A comparison with the multi-pass algorithm in hardware and software is presented to show the advantages of the algorithm. The algorithm runs comfortably in real-time with reasonably low resource utilization, making integration with other real-time algorithms feasible.
Design of Efficient Han-Carlson-Adder

In digital VLSI systems binary addition is the most significance arithmetic function. To a great extent adders are used as DSP lattice filter where the ripple carry adders are substituted by the parallel prefix adder to reduce delay. The requirement of adder is that it is fast and it has area efficient and low power consumption. In this the parallel prefix adder is introduced as speculative HanCarlson adder for differ binary addition of the most significant arithmetic function. In this method has wider word length and the parallel prefix adder is replaced as speculative Han-Carlson adder is introduced as variety stages of Brent-Kung and Kogge-Stone adders reduces the complexity of adder design. The design of Verilog code is simulated using ModelSim and implemented in Xilinx.