Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multi-Temporal DInSAR to Characterise Landslide Ground Deformations in a Tropical Urban Environment: Focus on Bukavu (DR Congo)

Landslides can lead to high impacts in less developed countries, particularly in tropical environments where a combination of intense rainfall, active tectonics, steep topography, and high population density can be found. However, the processes controlling landslide initiation and their evolution through time remains poorly understood. Here we show the relevance of the use of the multi-temporal differential radar interferometric (DInSAR) technique to characterise ground deformations associated with landslides in the rapidly-expanding city of Bukavu (DR Congo). We use 70 COSMO-SkyMed synthetic aperture radar images acquired between March 2015 and April 2016 with a mean revisiting time of eight days to produce ground deformation rate maps and displacement time series using the small baseline subset approach. We find that various landslide processes of different ages, mechanisms, and states of activity can be identified. Ground deformations revealed by DInSAR are found consistent with field observations and differential GPS measurements. Our analysis highlights the ability of DInSAR to grasp landslide deformation patterns affecting the complex tropical-urban environment of the city of Bukavu. However, longer time series will be needed to infer landside responses to climate, seismic, and anthropogenic drivers.
Distributed optimal tracking control for second-order multi-agent systems

In this paper, we study the optimal tracking problem for the multi-agent systems in which both the cost function and the tracking time are considered. The tracking problem is considered in two patterns: the first one has a virtual leader which is the root of the information graph; the second one has a time-varying leader whose dynamics is given in advance. Both of the patterns are on the condition that only a portion of the agents can get the state information of the leader. For the required tracking time, an open-loop optimal controller is obtained using Pontryagins minimum principle and only depends on the relative information with respect to the neighboring agents. Considering the disturbance in the initial conditions or in the control input, it is necessary to convert the open loop control into the feedback optimal control by regarding the initial state as the current state and setting the initial time equal to the current time. Finally, the validity of the result is illustrated through some numerical examples.
AMGKQ: An Efficient Implementation of Adaptive Multivariate Gauss-Kronrod Quadrature for Simultaneous Integrands in Octave/MATLAB

The algorithm AMGKQ for adaptive multivariate Gauss-Kronrod quadrature over hyper-rectangular regions of arbitrary dimensionality is proposed and implemented in Octave/MATLAB. It can approximate numerically any number of integrals over a common domain simultaneously. Improper integrals are addressed through singularity weakening coordinate transformations. Internal singularities are addressed through the use of breakpoints. Its accuracy performance is investigated thoroughly, and its running time is compared to other commonly available routines in two and three dimensions. Its running time can be several orders of magnitude faster than recursively called quadrature routines. Its performance is limited only by the memory structure of its operating environment. Included with the software are numerous examples of its invocation.
Vision in high-level football officials

Officiating in football depends, at least to some extent, upon adequate visual function. However, there is no vision standard for football officiating and the nature of the relationship between officiating performance and level of vision is unknown. As a first step in characterising this relationship, we report on the clinically-measured vision and on the perceived level of vision in elite-level, Portuguese football officials. Seventy-one referees (R) and assistant referees (AR) participated in the study, representing 92% of the total population of elite level football officials in Portugal in the 2013/2014 season. Nine of the 22 Rs (40.9%) and ten of the 49 ARs (20.4%) were international-level. Information about visual history was also gathered. Perceived vision was assessed using the preference-values-assigned-to-global-visual-status (PVVS) and the Quality-of-Vision (QoV) questionnaire. Standard clinical vision measures (including visual acuity, contrast sensitivity and stereopsis) were gathered in a subset (n = 44, 62%) of the participants. Data were analysed according to the type (R/AR) and level (international/national) of official, and Bonferroni corrections were applied to reduce the risk of type I errors. Adopting criterion for statistical significance of p<0.01, PVVS scores did not differ between R and AR (p = 0.88), or between national- and international-level officials (p = 0.66). Similarly, QoV scores did not differ between R and AR in frequency (p = 0.50), severity (p = 0.71) or bothersomeness (p = 0.81) of symptoms, or between international-level vs national-level officials for frequency (p = 0.03) or bothersomeness (p = 0.07) of symptoms. However, international-level officials reported less severe symptoms than their national-level counterparts (p<0.01). Overall, 18.3% of officials had either never had an eye examination or if they had, it was more than 3 years previously. Regarding refractive correction, 4.2% had undergone refractive surgery and 23.9% wear contact lenses when officiating. Clinical vision measures in the football officials were similar to published normative values for young, adult populations and similar between R and AR. Clinically-measured vision did not differ according to officiating level. Visual acuity measured with and without a pinhole disc indicated that around one quarter of participants may be capable of better vision when officiating, as evidenced by better acuity (≥1 line of letters) using the pinhole. Amongst the clinical visual tests we used, we did not find evidence for above-average performance in elite-level football officials. Although the impact of uncorrected mild to moderate refractive error upon officiating performance is unknown, with a greater uptake of eye examinations, visual acuity may be improved in around a quarter of officials.
Revisiting the Family Investment Model with Longitudinal Data: The Earnings Growth of Immigrant and U.S.-Born Women

Historical, longitudinal data are used to track the earnings of cohorts of immigrant and U.S.- born women over time. The longitudinal data circumvent potential cohort biases that afflict cross-sectional analyses of immigrant earnings growth and biases due to immigrant emigration and other issues that affect synthetic cohort analyses. Their historical nature permits the analysis of numerous cohorts. The central result to emerge from the multi-cohort study inspires revisiting the Family Investment Model. Less attention has been paid to the earnings of immigrant women than immigrant men despite the prominent role women’s earnings play in family income differences across ethnic groups (Reimers, 1984). There are also compelling reasons why the earnings profiles of immigrant women may differ from those of immigrant men. Thus to understand immigrant economic assimilation we must also understand immigrant women’s earnings. Using longitudinal data on individuals to describe the earnings profiles of multiple foreign- and U.S.-born cohorts, we discover a profound historical shift in the earnings patterns of foreignborn women. This central result, bolstered by several sensitivity tests, prompts revisiting a key model in the nascent literature on immigrant women’s labor force behavior.
A Review of Conceptual Barriers and Opportunities facing Health Systems Research to inform a Strategy from the World Health Organization

5 1. Conceptualizing Health Systems 6 2. The Promise of Health Systems Research 10 3. Conceptualizing Health Systems Research 12 3.1 Characteristics of Health Systems Research 12 3.2 Boundaries of Health Systems Research 14 3.3 Defining Health Systems Research 19 3.4 Study Designs and Methods Used in Health Systems Research 19 4. Conceptual Barriers for Health Systems Research to Improve Health Outcomes 20 4.1 Epistemology Challenge 21 4.2 Applicability Challenge 21 4.3 Diversity Challenge 22 4.4 Comparativity Challenge 23 4.5 Priority-Setting Challenge 23 5. Strengthening the Contributions of Health Systems Research 23 5.1 Supporting Health Systems Research as a Field of Scientific Endeavour 24 5.1. 1 Need for a Common Language 24 5.1. 2 Need for Cross-Disciplinary and Cross-Jurisdictional Learning 24 5.1. 3 Need for Leadership 24 5.2 Building National Capacity for Health Systems Research 25 5.2. 1 Individual-Level Capacities 25 5.2. 2 Organization-Level Capacities 26 5.2. 3 System-Level Capacities 26 5.3 Embedding Health Systems Research as a Core Function of Health Systems 27 6. Conclusion 27 Appendix 1: Tabular Comparison of 41 Health System Frameworks 29 Appendix 2: Brief Summaries of 41 Health System Frameworks 42 Appendix 3: Institutional Partners of the Alliance for Health Policy & Systems Research 73 Appendix 4: Do You Know Your Health Systems Definitions? 80 Appendix 5: Taxonomy of the Health Systems Evidence Database 81
A principal component approach to measuring investor sentiment in China

This paper develops a new investor sentiment index for the Chinese stock market. The index is constructed via the principal component approach (PCA), taking six important economic and market factors into consideration. The sentiment index serves as a threshold variable in a threshold autoregressive model to identify the stock market regimes. Our findings show that the Chinese stock market can be divided into three regimes: namely, a high-return volatile regime, a low-return stable regime and a neutral regime. The sentiment index is shown to have good out-of-sample predictability.
Pulse frequency in pilsed brachytherapy based on tissue repair kinetics

Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva. nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible.
Synthesis of WO3@Graphene composite for enhanced photocatalytic oxygen evolution from water

Nano tungsten oxide (WO3) particles were synthesized on the surface of graphene (GR) sheets by using a simple sonochemical method. The obtained composite, WO3@GR, was characterized by X-ray diffraction, N2adsorption/desorption analysis, thermo-gravimetric analysis, Raman spectroscopy and UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectra measurements. It was found that chemical bonds between the nano WO3 particles and the GR sheets were formed. The average particle size of the WO3 was evidenced to be around 12 nm on the GR sheets. When used as photocatalyst for water splitting, the amount of evolved O2 from water for the WO3@GR composite with 40 wt% GR inside was twice and 1.8 times as much as that for pure WO3 and mixed-WO3/GR, respectively. The excellent photocatalytic property of the WO3@GR composite is due to the synergistic effects of the combined nano WO3 particles and GR sheets. The sensitization of WO3 by GR enhances the visible light absorption property of WO3@GR. The chemical bonding between WO3 and GR minimizes the interface defects, reducing the recombination of the photo-generated electron–hole pairs. Furthermore, the GR sheets in the WO3@GR composite enhance electrons transport by providing low resistance conduction pathways, leading to improved photo-conversion efficiency. The methodology opens up a new way of obtaining photoactive GR-semiconductor composites for photodissociating water under visible light.
Whose partnership? Regional participatory arrangements in CBC programming on the Finnish–Russian border*

ABSTRACT Cross-border cooperation (CBC) serves as a tool to combat peripherality of border regions and integrate formerly disconnected borderlands. Resting on the principles of partnership and multi-level governance, CBC activities are deemed by the European Union (EU) to include local/regional authorities, economic and social partners at various stages of the cooperation process. Even at the EU's external borders, where EU regional development principles of CBC are endorsed in an often uneasy combination with external policy principles, joint cross-border administrative arrangements and regional programme designs have been introduced through successive administrative reforms. Analysing the preparations for the European Neighbourhood Instrument Karelia CBC (2014–2020), it is argued that in order to promote regional development goals the priorities of CBC programmes should be in line with the aims of local/regional stakeholders, which requires resilient consultation and participatory processes throughout the programming cycle. Participant observation of the Finnish–Russian Karelia CBC programme preparations helped the authors pinpoint achievements and weaknesses of current joint programming solutions and investigate ways in which the partnership principle is put into practice in the preparatory processes. In the current political climate, it is interesting to note that CBC was not included by the EU or Russia in sanctions/countersanctions that were the result of the crisis in Ukraine.
Optimal robust control and a separation principle for polytopic time-inhomogeneous Markov jump linear systems

Markov-jump linear systems (MJLSs) allow representing linear systems subject to abrupt parameter changes modeled as a Markov chain, and are useful in many application domains. In most real cases the transition probabilities between operational modes of such systems cannot be computed exactly and are time-varying. We take into account this aspect by considering MJLSs where the underlying Markov chain is polytopic and time-inhomogeneous, i.e. its transition probability matrix is varying over time with variations that are arbitrary within a polytopic set of stochastic matrices. We address and solve for this class of systems the finite horizon optimal control and filtering problems. In particular, we show that the optimal controller having only partial information on the continuous state can be obtained from two types of coupled Riccati difference equations (CRDEs), one associated to the control problem, and the other one associated to the filtering problem.
New Modalities in the Treatment of Refractory Alopecia Areata

Alopecia areata (AA) is a common and complex T-cell–mediated inflammatory disorder. It may be patchy (localized), involve the entire scalp (alopecia totalis) or entire body (alo pecia universalis). Alopecia totalis and universalis are often difficult to treat. Although many therapeutic options currently exist in alopecia areata, none of them are curative or preventive. Besides, none of them are approved by Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The disease unfortunately has an unpredictable course. The factors indicating a poor prognosis are the extent of hair loss at the presentation, long duration of the disease, and ophiasis pattern of hair loss. There are only a few randomized controlled studies conducted on recalcitrant AA. Recent research on immunology of hair follicle and recent developments in immunopathogenesis, together with the shared pathways of the disease with other autoimmune disorders, led investigators to focus on novel therapies that tar - get specific immunological pathways. Herein, we will review shortly the current treat ment options in recalcitrant alopecia areata based on recently published studies and then will focus on the recently developed broad-spectrum and targeted therapeutics.
An improved mixed H/sub 2//H/sub /spl infin// control design for hard disk drives

In this brief, we propose a new mixed H/sub 2//H/sub /spl infin// control design via a linear matrix inequality (LMI) based approach. By an equivalent transformation of Lyapunov matrix inequality, additional slack variables are introduced to characterize both the H/sub 2/ and H/sub /spl infin// performances. Based on the characterization, a new mixed H/sub 2//H/sub /spl infin// control design is proposed where the introduced slack variables add in additional degree of freedom in optimizing the mixed H/sub 2//H/sub /spl infin// performance, resulting in equal or better performance than existing LMI based methods. The proposed control algorithm is applied in the control design for hard disk drives (HDDs) where the problem of minimizing track misregistration (TMR) in the presence of unmodeled dynamics of voice-coil motor (VCM) is formulated as a mixed H/sub 2//H/sub /spl infin// control problem. The simulation and implementation results of the new control design for the VCM actuator demonstrate the significant performance improvement of TMR over the existing method of while ensuring robust stability under unmodeled dynamics of VCM.
cis-acting sequences of the rat troponin I slow gene confer tissue- and development-specific transcription in cultured muscle cells as well as fiber type specificity in transgenic mice

Transcription of the genes coding for troponin I slow (TnIslow) and other contractile proteins is activated during skeletal muscle differentiation, and their expression is later restricted to specific fiber types during maturation. We have isolated and characterized the rat TnIslow gene in order to begin elucidating its regulation during myogenesis. Transcriptional regulatory regions were delineated by using constructs, containing TnIslow gene sequences driving the expression of the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) reporter gene, that were transiently transfected into undifferentiated and differentiated C2C12 cells. TnIslow 5'-flanking sequences directed transcription specifically in differentiated cells. However, transcription rates were approximately 10-fold higher in myotubes transfected with constructs containing the 5'-flanking sequences plus the intragenic region residing upstream of the translation initiation site (introns 1 and 2), indicative of interactions between elements residing upstream and in the introns of the gene. Deletion analysis of the 5' region of the TnIslow gene showed that the 200 bp upstream of the transcription initiation site is sufficient to confer differentiation-specific transcription in C2C12 myocytes. MyoD consensus binding sites were found both in the upstream 200-bp region and in a region residing in the second intron that is highly homologous to the quail TnIfast enhancer. Transactivation experiments using transfected NIH 3T3 fibroblasts with TnI-CAT constructs containing intragenic and/or upstream sequences and with the myogenic factors MyoD, myogenin, and MRF4 showed different potentials of these factors to induce transcription. Transgenic mice harboring the rat TnI-CAT fusion gene expressed the reporter specifically in the skeletal muscle. Furthermore, CAT levels were approximately 50-fold higher in the soleus than in the extensor digitorum longus, gastrocnemius, or tibialis muscle, indicating that the regulatory elements that restrict TnI transcription to slow-twitch myofibers reside in the sequences we have analyzed.
Consensus-Based Parallel Extreme Learning Machine for Indoor Localization

In the era of Internet of Things, WiFi fingerprinting based indoor positioning system (IPS) has been recognized as the most promising IPS for indoor location-based service. Fingerprinting-based algorithms critically rely on a fingerprint database built from machine learning methods, and extreme machine learning (ELM) is preferred for its fast training speed. However, traditional WiFi based IPS usually requires a central server to collect and process data, which is tremendously vulnerable to server breakdown and communication link failure. To address this issue, we propose Consensus-based Parallel ELM (CPELM) to enhance the robustness by distributing the data on different computation nodes. Specifically, each node keeps updating the corresponding terms in the ELM regression equation as a weighted average of those from neighboring nodes based on the distributed consensus iterative scheme. Upon the agreement of the regression equation within the network, the output weight of ELM can be calculated on some nodes and propagated to other nodes. Extensive simulation with real data has demonstrated that CPELM is able to produce same level of localization accuracy as centralized ELM without incurring additional computational cost, and in the meanwhile provides more robustness to the entire IPS in case of server breakdown and link failures.
Ultra High-Dimensional Nonlinear Feature Selection for Big Biological Data

Machine learning methods are used to discover complex nonlinear relationships in biological and medical data. However, sophisticated learning models are computationally unfeasible for data with millions of features. Here, we introduce the first feature selection method for nonlinear learning problems that can scale up to large, ultra-high dimensional biological data. More specifically, we scale up the novel Hilbert-Schmidt Independence Criterion Lasso (HSIC Lasso) to handle millions of features with tens of thousand samples. The proposed method is guaranteed to find an optimal subset of maximally predictive features with minimal redundancy, yielding higher predictive power and improved interpretability. Its effectiveness is demonstrated through applications to classify phenotypes based on module expression in human prostate cancer patients and to detect enzymes among protein structures. We achieve high accuracy with as few as 20 out of one million features—a dimensionality reduction of 99.998 percent. Our algorithm can be implemented on commodity cloud computing platforms. The dramatic reduction of features may lead to the ubiquitous deployment of sophisticated prediction models in mobile health care applications.
Real-time Human Body Correspondences for Motion Tracking

Non-rigid human surface tracking systems have many important applications in virtual reality and mixed reality. However, current systems can hardly be applied to interactive scenarios for their performance or accuracy limitations. One of the biggest challenges is efficiently estimating accurate correspondences between the template human model and tracking data. To bridge the gap, we propose a hierarchical feature matching framework for computing accurate dense correspondences between human shapes in real-time. For input human mesh model and depth scan, we train a fully convolutional network to produce dense feature descriptors with local similarity on human surface. Base on that, correspondences are found by performing fast hierarchical matching on segmented human body. Our approach is robust to large motion and deformation, its efficiency is validated in related real-time scenarios, while its accuracy has been proven comparable to state-of-the-art offline methods.
Cost Efficiency of the Banking Sector in Vietnam: A Bayesian Stochastic Frontier Approach with Regularity Constraints

This paper investigates the cost efficiency of the Vietnamese banking industry. To obtain an appropriate estimate of cost efficiency, monotonicity and concavity constraints are incorporated in the estimation of the cost frontier using the Bayesian approach. Overall, the level of cost efficiency of Vietnam's banking sector is relatively high, around 87 percent. The findings reveal minor and insignificant differences in the cost efficiency of different groups of banks classified by ownership. Furthermore, throughout the estimation period, the industry faced a slight decrease in cost efficiency. This could be explained by increases in the costs of managing diverse activities, the enlargement of branch networks and the upgrading of the banking technology platform. Copyright 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation 2010 East Asian Economic Association and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.