Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Robust O(n) Solution to the Perspective-n-Point Problem

We propose a noniterative solution for the Perspective-n-Point ({\rm P}n{\rm P}) problem, which can robustly retrieve the optimum by solving a seventh order polynomial. The central idea consists of three steps: 1) to divide the reference points into 3-point subsets in order to achieve a series of fourth order polynomials, 2) to compute the sum of the square of the polynomials so as to form a cost function, and 3) to find the roots of the derivative of the cost function in order to determine the optimum. The advantages of the proposed method are as follows: First, it can stably deal with the planar case, ordinary 3D case, and quasi-singular case, and it is as accurate as the state-of-the-art iterative algorithms with much less computational time. Second, it is the first noniterative {\rm P}n{\rm P} solution that can achieve more accurate results than the iterative algorithms when no redundant reference points can be used (n\le 5). Third, large-size point sets can be handled efficiently because its computational complexity is O(n).
Attacking Binarized Neural Networks

Neural networks with low-precision weights and activations offer compelling efficiency advantages over their full-precision equivalents. The two most frequently discussed benefits of quantization are reduced memory consumption, and a faster forward pass when implemented with efficient bitwise operations. We propose a third benefit of very low-precision neural networks: improved robustness against some adversarial attacks, and in the worst case, performance that is on par with full-precision models. We focus on the very low-precision case where weights and activations are both quantized to $\pm$1, and note that stochastically quantizing weights in just one layer can sharply reduce the impact of iterative attacks. We observe that non-scaled binary neural networks exhibit a similar effect to the original defensive distillation procedure that led to gradient masking, and a false notion of security. We address this by conducting both black-box and white-box experiments with binary models that do not artificially mask gradients.
Estimation of Continuous-Time Processes via the Empirical Characteristic Function

This article examines the class of continuous-time stochastic processes commonly known as affine diffusions (AD's) and affine jump diffusions (AJD's). By deriving the joint characteristic function, we are able to examine the statistical properties as well as develop an efficient estimation technique based on empirical characteristic functions (ECF's) and a generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation procedure based on exact moment conditions. We demonstrate that our methods are particularly useful when the diffusions involve latent variables. Our approach is illustrated with a detailed examination of a continuous-time stochastic volatility (SV) model, along with an empirical application using S&P 500 index returns.
Behavioral variation and reproductive success of male baboons (Papio anubis × Papio hamadryas) in a hybrid social group

We take advantage of an array of hybrid baboons (Papio anubis × Papio hamadryas) living in the same social group to explore the causes and consequences of different male mating strategies. Male hamadryas hold one‐male units and exhibit a sustained, intense interest in adult females, regardless of the latter's reproductive state. Anubis baboons, by contrast, live in multi‐male, multi‐female groups where males compete for females only when the latter are estrous. These two taxa interbreed to form a hybrid zone in the Awash National Park, Ethiopia, where previous work has suggested that hybrid males have intermediate and ineffective behavior. Here, we first examine male mating strategies with respect to morphological and genetic measures of ancestry. We found significant relationships between behavioral measures and morphology; males with more hamadryas‐like morphology had more hamadryas‐like behavior. However, genetic ancestry was not related to behavior, and in both cases intermediates displayed a previously unreported level of behavioral variation. Furthermore, male behavior was unrelated to natal group. Second, we evaluated reproductive success by microsatellite‐based paternity testing. The highest reproductive success was found for individuals exhibiting intermediate behaviors. Moreover, over nine years, some genetically and morphologically intermediate males had high reproductive success. We conclude that the behavior of hybrid males is therefore unlikely to be an absolute barrier to admixture in the region. Am. J. Primatol. 70:136–147, 2008. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Implementation and analysis of an area efficient low power SQ-CSA in MCML technique

Adders play a vital role in various applications that need fast arithmetic operations. Square root carry select adder is among the fast adders and also has the possibilities of modification. This paper presents the implementation of proposed Square root carry select adder using MCML technique which results in reduced area and power. Analysis is done on the basis of area and power. Simulations are performed in T-SPICE using 16nm CMOS technology parameters. The results have been compared with the regular Square root Carry Select Adder. Results concludes that proposed MCML Square root Carry Select Adder has less area and power in comparison to regular Square root Carry Select Adder.
Approximations of the Homoclinic Orbits Near a Double-Zero Bifurcation with Symmetry of Order Two

The two-dimensional system of differential equations corresponding to the normal form of the double-zero bifurcation with symmetry of order two is considered. This is a codimension two bifurcation. The associated dynamical system exhibits, among others, a homoclinic bifurcation. In this paper, we obtain second order approximations both for the curve of parametric values of homoclinic bifurcation and for the homoclinic orbits. To perform this task, we reduce first the normal form to a perturbed Hamiltonian system, using a blow-up technique. Then, by means of a perturbation method, we determine explicit first and second order approximations of the homoclinic orbits. The solutions obtained theoretically are compared with those obtained numerically for several cases. Finally, an application of the obtained results is presented.
Differential induction of CD 38 expression by TNF-in asthmatic airway smooth muscle cells

Jude JA, Solway J, Panettieri RA Jr, Walseth TF, Kannan MS. Differential induction of CD38 expression by TNFin asthmatic airway smooth muscle cells. Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol 299: L879–L890, 2010. First published August 6, 2010; doi:10.1152/ajplung.00021. 2010. —The ADP-ribosyl cyclase activity of CD38, a membrane protein expressed in human airway smooth muscle (ASM) cells, generates cyclic ADP-ribose (cADPR), a Ca mobilizing agent. cADPR-mediated Ca responses to agonists are augmented in human ASM cells by TNF. CD38-deficient mice fail to develop airway hyperresponsiveness following intranasal TNFor IL-13 challenge, suggesting a role in asthma. The role of CD38 in human asthma remains unknown. We hypothesized that CD38 expression will be elevated in ASM cells from asthmatic donors (ASMA cells). CD38 mRNA and ADP-ribosyl cyclase activity were measured in cells maintained in growth-arrested conditions and exposed to vehicle or TNF(10–40 ng/ml). TNF-induced induction of CD38 expression was greater in ASMA than in ASM cells from nonasthmatic donors (ASMNA). In four of the six donors, basal and TNF-induced ERK and p38 MAPK activation were higher in ASMA than ASMNA cells. JNK MAPK activation was lower in ASMA than ASMNA cells. Nuclear NFB (p50 subunit) and phosphorylated c-Jun were comparable in cells from both groups, although nuclear c-Fos (part of the AP-1 complex) levels were lower in ASMA than ASMNA cells. NFB or AP-1 binding to their consensus sequences was comparable in ASMNA and ASMA cells, as are the decay kinetics of CD38 mRNA. The findings suggest that the differential induction of CD38 by TNFin ASMA cells is due to increased transcriptional regulation involving ERK and p38 MAPK activation and is independent of changes in NFB or AP-1 activation. The findings suggest a potential role for CD38 in the pathophysiology of asthma.
Observational Study

Thus, observational methods (sometimes called “un-manipulated studies”) entail merely observing phenomena that are already underway. For a study of long-term effects of brain damage, for example, researchers have to use patients with pre-existing brain damage or their medical records. An observational study can then make inferences from that small sample to the general population, helping neuroscientists understand any new instances of that kind of brain damage.
A new splitting-merging paradigm for distributed localization in wireless sensor networks

This paper proposes a new merging (stitching) scheme for distributed localization of wireless sensor networks. In splitting-merging localization techniques, the network is first split into small sub-networks and each sub-network self-localizes itself, possibly in its own rather than a global coordinate basis. Then by using a stitching strategy they are merged back to compute the position of the nodes in a global coordinate basis. Unlike the existing techniques in which the stitchable sub-networks must have at least 3 nodes in common for the stitching to succeed, the proposed method can systematically address all possible scenarios (even when the two sub-networks are disjoint) while keeping the computational complexity fairly low. The scheme puts the idea of four-bar linkage mechanism and bilateration together in tackling the problem. Therefore, theoretically the proposed method can localize a broader class of networks which are localizable by any splitting-stitching technique. Simulation comparisons with trilateration and wheel graphs show a considerably higher percentage of the localized nodes in this technique. This technique in conjunction with some existing distributed splitting technique, provides a total distributed localization algorithm.
Quantitative EEG analysis in minimally conscious state patients during postural changes

Mobilization and postural changes of patients with cognitive impairment are standard clinical practices useful for both psychic and physical rehabilitation process. During this process, several physiological signals, such as Electroen-cephalogram (EEG), Electrocardiogram (ECG), Photopletysmography (PPG), Respiration activity (RESP), Electrodermal activity (EDA), are monitored and processed. In this paper we investigated how quantitative EEG (qEEG) changes with postural modifications in minimally conscious state patients. This study is quite novel and no similar experimental data can be found in the current literature, therefore, although results are very encouraging, a quantitative analysis of the cortical area activated in such postural changes still needs to be deeply investigated. More specifically, this paper shows EEG power spectra and brain symmetry index modifications during a verticalization procedure, from 0 to 60 degrees, of three patients in Minimally Consciousness State (MCS) with focused region of impairment. Experimental results show a significant increase of the power in β band (12 - 30 Hz), commonly associated to human alertness process, thus suggesting that mobilization and postural changes can have beneficial effects in MCS patients.
Lipopolysaccharide Improves Cardiomyocyte Survival and Function after Serum Deprivation*

Toll-like receptor-4 (TLR4) and its signaling molecule interleukin-1 receptor-associated kinase (IRAK-1) play an important role in host defense and tissue inflammation. Intriguingly, systemic administration of lipopolysaccharide (LPS), the agonist for TLR4, confers a cardio-protective effect against ischemic injury. However, the mechanisms leading to the cardiac protection remain largely unknown. The present study was designed to investigate the role of TLR4 activation by LPS in protecting cardiomyocytes (CM) against apoptosis in an in vitro model of ischemia and to explore the downstream mechanisms leading to the protective effect. Incubation with LPS led to activation of IRAK-1 and protected CMs against serum deprivation (SD)-induced apoptosis as demonstrated by DNA laddering, histone-DNA fragment enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and activation of caspase-3. Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/Akt, extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2, and IκB kinase β appear to contribute to the anti-apoptotic effect of LPS since the specific inhibitors, wortmannin, PD98059, and dominant negative IKKβ transgene expression reversed the LPS effect. To assess whether LPS improves CM function, we examined intracellular Ca2+ transients and cell shortening in single adult rat CMs. SD for 6 h dramatically inhibited Ca2+ transients and CM contractility. LPS at 500 ng/ml significantly improved the [Ca2+]i transients and enhanced contractility in control CMs as well as in CMs subjected to SD. Importantly, transient ischemia led to rapid activation of IRAK-1 in cultured CMs and in adult rat myocardium. Adenovirus-mediated transgene expression of IRAK-1 but not its kinase-deficient mutant IRAK-1(K239S) protected CMs against SD-induced apoptosis. Taken together, these data suggest an important role of TLR4 signaling via IRAK-1 in protecting against SD-induced apoptosis.
Secure Co-resident virtualization in multicore systems by VM pinning and page coloring

Cloud computing adoption and diffusion are threatened by unresolved security issues that affect both the cloud provider and the cloud user. In case of cloud, data from potentially competing sources could reside on the same disk or same memory structure, and a computer process can violate its virtual boundary to access the competitor's data. Current Virtual Machine Monitors (VMMs) used in cloud provide a good isolation in high level computing resources viz. memory, CPU, I/O devices. However, when looking at usage of shared cache, it may happen that one virtual machine (VM) interferes with another co-resident virtual machine due to uncontrolled cache sharing. Here performance isolation cannot be guaranteed and one VM may extract sensitive information from another VM. The proposed solution is intended to isolate the usage of shared cache by co-resident VMs and thus ensure no inter-VM interference.
Design of a high resolution image cytometer with open software architecture.

A relatively inexpensive, non-proprietary high resolution color pathology workstation is described. Hardware consists of a JVC frame capture camera with adjustable resolution up to 4416 x 3456, matching frame grabber and a Unix workstation. Analytic software was developed using Khoros 1.0. 5, a powerful and flexible system for the development of image analysis applications that is based on a visual programming language. Applications have been developed for DNA ploidy, quantitative immunohistochemistry and texture and shape analysis. The instrument's software is uniquely extensible and transparent, and has been made publicly available over the Internet.
- 033 Corporate Investment and Uncertainty : An empirical analysis

A great deal of the relevant literature mentions that one of the reasons for the 1990s recession in Japan is increasing “uncertainty. ” To clarify the effect of uncertainty, this study demonstrates the relationship between uncertainty of productivity growth and investment using Japanese firm-level panel data from FY1986-FY2004. It is found that increasing uncertainty of firm-level productivity growth has a negative effect on investment, and especially higher uncertainty in the shifting of a technological frontier has had a larger impact on investment since the mid-1990s. It is also found that such a negative effect is weakened in industries with higher expected growth of demand.
Effects of Folic Acid Fortification on Twin Gestation Rates

OBJECTIVE: Previous studies have reported an increase in twinning of as much as 40% associated with folic acid–containing supplements, and folic acid fortification of enriched cereal grains was authorized in 1996. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether twinning rates have increased since that time. METHODS: We used United States birth and fetal death records to calculate twin gestation rates from 1990 through 2000. To eliminate the influence of fertility treatments, our analysis was limited to nulliparous women aged 16–19. We compared time trends in twin gestation rates before and after folic acid fortification in 1996. RESULTS: A total of 25,065 twin and 3,362,245 singleton pregnancies were included. Twin gestation rates were stable from January 1990 through December 1996, at 7.2 per 1,000, and then began a steady increase, averaging 2.4% (95% confidence interval 0.1–4.2%, P = .006) per year, which continued through 2000 and reached 8.2 per 1,000. This translates to 2 additional twin pregnancies per 10,000 gestations per year. Twin rates continued to increase well beyond 1998, when the maximal fortification effect on folate status had been reached. CONCLUSION: Although twin gestation rates in women not using fertility treatments increased after food fortification with folic acid, they rose by much less than the 40% rate previously reported; the observed pattern of increase in twin gestation rates is not consistent with a folic acid fortification effect. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: II-2
Asking and answering questions about unfamiliar APIs: An exploratory study

The increasing size of APIs and the increase in the number of APIs available imply developers must frequently learn how to use unfamiliar APIs. To identify the types of questions developers want answered when working with unfamiliar APIs and to understand the difficulty they may encounter answering those questions, we conducted a study involving twenty programmers working on different programming tasks, using unfamiliar APIs. Based on the screen captured videos and the verbalization of the participants, we identified twenty different types of questions programmers ask when working with unfamiliar APIs, and provide new insights to the cause of the difficulties programmers encounter when answering questions about the use of APIs. The questions we have identified and the difficulties we observed can be used for evaluating tools aimed at improving API learning, and in identifying areas of the API learning process where tool support is missing, or could be improved.
Line-based SLAM Considering Directional Distribution of Line Features in an Urban Environment

In this paper, we propose a line-based SLAM from an image sequ ence captured by a vehicle in consideration with the directional distribution of line features that det ected in an urban environments. The proposed SLAM is based on line segments detected from objects in an urban en vironment, for example, road markings and buildings, that are too conspicuous to be detected. We use ad ditional constraints regarding the line segments so that we can improve the accuracy of the SLAM. We assume that the ngle of the vector of the line segments to the vehicle’s direction of travel conform to four-compon ent Gaussian mixture distribution. We define a new cost function considering the distribution and optimiz e the relative camera pose, position, and the 3D line segments by bundle adjustment. In addition, we make dig ital maps from the detected line segments. Our method increases the accuracy of localization and revises t ilt d lines in the digital maps. We implement our method to both the single-camera system and the multi-camer a system. The accuracy of SLAM, which uses a single-camera system with our constraint, works just as we ll as a method that uses a multi-camera system without our constraint.
Linking Service-Learning With Sense of Belonging: A Culturally Relevant Pedagogy for Heritage Students of Spanish

A growing number of colleges and universities in the United States offer Spanish classes intended to meet specific needs of heritage speakers. In predominantly White institutions, beyond the language focus, these classes can also provide Latino students with a unique place on campus to strengthen their sense of belonging in ways that might not be possible in other classroom settings. This article examines the role of service-learning as a culturally relevant pedagogy for supporting heritage students.
Genetically Determined Phenotype Covariation Networks Control Bone Strength

To identify genes affecting bone strength, we studied how genetic variants regulate components of a phenotypic covariation network that was previously shown to accurately characterize the compensatory trait interactions involved in functional adaptation during growth. Quantitative trait loci (QTLs) regulating femoral robustness, morphologic compensation, and mineralization (tissue quality) were mapped at three ages during growth using AXB/BXA Recombinant Inbred (RI) mouse strains and adult B6‐iA Chromosome Substitution Strains (CSS). QTLs for robustness were identified on chromosomes 8, 12, 18, and 19 and confirmed at all three ages, indicating that genetic variants established robustness postnatally without further modification. A QTL for morphologic compensation, which was measured as the relationship between cortical area and body weight, was identified on chromosome 8. This QTL limited the amount of bone formed during growth and thus acted as a setpoint for diaphyseal bone mass. Additional QTLs were identified from the CSS analysis. QTLs for robustness and morphologic compensation regulated bone structure independently (ie, in a nonpleiotropic manner), indicating that each trait may be targeted separately to individualize treatments aiming to improve strength. Multiple regression analyses showed that variation in morphologic compensation and tissue quality, not bone size, determined femoral strength relative to body weight. Thus an individual inheriting slender bones will not necessarily inherit weak bones unless the individual also inherits a gene that impairs compensation. This systems genetic analysis showed that genetically determined phenotype covariation networks control bone strength, suggesting that incorporating functional adaptation into genetic analyses will advance our understanding of the genetic basis of bone strength. © 2010 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research