Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Image registration for quality assessment of projection displays

In the full reference metric based image quality assessment of projection displays, it is critical to achieve accurate and fully automatic image registration between the captured projection and its reference image in order to establish a subpixel level mapping. The preservation of geometrical order as well as the intensity and chromaticity relationships between two consecutive pixels must be maximized. The existing camera based image registration methods do not meet this requirement well. In this paper, we propose a markerless and view independent method to use an un-calibrated camera to perform the task. The proposed method including three main components: feature extraction, feature expansion and geometric correction, and it can be implemented easily in a fully automatic fashion. The experimental results of both simulation and the one conducted in the field demonstrate that the proposed method is able to achieve image registration accuracy higher than 91% in a dark projection room and above 85% with ambient light lower than 30 Lux.
Effects of swimming on metabolic recovery from anoxia in the painted turtle

SUMMARY Anoxic submergence in the Western painted turtle results in a severe metabolic acidosis characterized by high plasma lactate and depressed arterial pH, a response similar to that seen in other vertebrates following exhaustive exercise. We tested the hypothesis that 1 or 2 h of aerobic swimming following anoxic submergence would enhance the rate of lactate disappearance from the blood just as sustained aerobic exercise does in mammals and fishes following strenuous exercise. Following 2 h of anoxic submergence at 25° C and 1 h of recovery, the pattern of plasma lactate disappearance in turtles previously trained to swim in a flume and swum aerobically (2–3× resting V̇O2) for 1 or 2 h did not differ significantly from that in trained and untrained non-swimming turtles. Turtles were fully recovered by 7–10 h post-anoxia. The response patterns also did not differ between treatments for arterial PO2, PCO2, pH, and plasma glucose and HCO3–. Blood pH and plasma HCO3– recovered by 1 and 4 h, respectively. Despite the large lactate load, painted turtles are able to sustain periods of continuous swimming for at least 2 h without compromising metabolic recovery. Although this activity did not consistently enhance recovery, the rate of lactate disappearance was positively correlated with oxygen consumption rate in actively and passively recovering turtles. We suggest that active recovery was not a more important enhancer of recovery either because swimming may have had an inhibitory effect on hepatic gluconeogenesis or that there is variation in fuel utilization during the swimming period.
Multiband perceptual modulation analysis, processing and synthesis of audio signals

The decomposition of audio signals into perceptually meaningful multiband modulation components opens up new possibilities for advanced signal processing. The signal adaptive analysis approach proposed in this paper will be shown to provide a powerful handle on the signal's perceptual properties: pitch, timbre or roughness can be manipulated straight forward. Additionally a synthesis method is specified providing high subjective perceptual quality. Furthermore, as an application example, a novel audio processing technique is proposed which changes the key mode of a given piece of music e.g. from major to minor key or vice versa.
Mining Subjective Data on the Web

In the past years we have witnessed Sentiment Analysis and Opinion Mining becoming increasingly popular topics in Information Retrieval and Web data analysis. With the rapid growth of the user-generated content represented in blogs, wikis and Web forums, such an analysis became a useful tool for mining the Web, since it allowed us to capture sentiments and opinions at a large scale. Opinion retrieval has established itself as an important part of search engines. Ratings, opinion trends and representative opinions enrich the search experience of users when combined with traditional document retrieval, by showing more insights about a subject. Opinion aggregation over product reviews can be very useful for product marketing and positioning, revealing the customers’ attitude to a product and its features along different dimensions, such as time, geographical location, and experience. Tracking how opinions or discussions evolve over time can help us identify interesting trends and patterns and better understand the ways that information is propagated in the Internet. In this study, we review the development of Sentiment Analysis and Opinion Mining during the last years, and also discuss the evolution of a relatively new research direction, namely, Contradiction Analysis. We give an overview of the proposed methods and recent advances in these areas, and we try to layout the future research directions in the field.
Privacy-Sensitive VM Retrospection

The success of cloud computing leads to large, centralized collections of virtual machine (VM) images. The ability to retrospect (examine the historical state of) these images at a high semantic level can be valuable in many aspects of IT management such as debugging and troubleshooting, software quality control, legal establishment of data or code provenance, and cyber forensics such as malware tracking and licensing violations. In this paper, we explore the privacy implications of VM retrospection. We argue that retrospection will worsen current concerns about privacy in cloud computing. We develop privacy-sensitive requirements for the design of a retrospection mechanism, and then show how they can be met in a functional prototype.
Widening Inclusion for Gay Women Foster Carers — A Literature Review of the Sociological, Psychological and Economic Implications

This literature review explores the psychological, political and societal influences and barriers facing gay women applying to become foster carers. In this review I have focused on three areas which have emerged as separate but intertwined themes, which can result in intersectionality excluding lesbians and bisexual women from applying and becoming foster carers. Firstly, I discuss the emergence of Independent Foster Agencies in order to introduce an element of social policy to the review. This examines the economic, market-driven aspect of fostering provision and, in the drive to place children at the lowest price, can result in less diversity of carers. Secondly, I explore the question: do perceptions of a higher incidence of mental illness in gay and bisexual women contribute to their difficulties in being accepted as a foster carer? This aspect, it can be argued, is a legacy from the 1960s and 70s, when homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder. This view potentially raises negative stereotypes amongst policy-makers and social workers alike, seriously affecting the chances of successful application to fostering agencies. Nevertheless, Minority Stress Theory suggests that in some Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual (LGB) sufferers of Minority Stress, this could impact negatively on their ability to care for children who are struggling with their identity, or who have experienced sexual abuse. This theory, it can be argued, makes the assessment of gay foster carers yet more complex and challenging for the assessing social worker. Thirdly, I examine evidence relating to child development in lesbian and gay families; whether perceptions of gender identity development could affect perceptions of social workers and managers during the assessment. Finally, I discuss foster carer assessment, historical perceptions of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) parents and how this potentially exacerbates the shortage of quality foster care placements for children and young people.
Associations between Maternal and Infant Morbidities and sRAGE within the First Week of Life in Extremely Preterm Infants

Background Soluble RAGE (sRAGE) has been associated with multiple inflammatory responses including maternal chorioamnionitis and preeclampsia. Analysis of umbilical cord blood levels have also indicated that sRAGE levels in the infant are affected by maternal inflammation. S100b is a ligand for RAGE and increases in circulating S100b levels are associated with poor neurological outcome in preterm infants. The objective of this study was to determine whether sRAGE or s100b levels in plasma samples from extremely preterm infants at the end of the first week of life were correlated with infant morbidities and whether sRAGE and s100b levels at this time point were still associated with maternal inflammation. Methods Plasma samples were collected from 130 preterm infants (≤28 weeks) at days of life 5, 6, or 7. sRAGE and s100b levels were measured by ELISA and data were analyzed by Pearson’s correlation or Generalized Estimating Equations. Results sRAGE was negatively correlated with development of sepsis (p=0.024), the FiO2 requirement of the infant at the time of sampling (p=0.030), as well as maternal preeclampsia (p=0.046), and positively correlated with maternal chorioamnionitis (p=0.006). s100b levels were positively associated with maternal chorioamnionitis (p=0.039). No correlations were observed with other infant morbidities. Conclusion These data indicate that sRAGE could potentially be a biomarker of early severe inflammatory responses in the preterm infant. However, more studies are needed to confirm the present findings.
Modulation of the Plasminogen Activator Activity of a Transformed Cell Line by Cell Density

The effects of variations in cell density on the expression of the plasminogen activator activity of a tumorigenic rat cell line were analyzed. At low cell densities, the plasminogen activator activity per cell was high and independent of cell density. As the cell density increased, the plasminogen activator activity per cell decreased until it eventually became inversely proportional to cell density. Inhibition of the plasminogen activator activity per cell by increases in cell density was not the result of the presence of a soluble inhibitor but seemed to require cell-to-cell contact. The Vmax per cell for the activation of plasminogen changed at high cell densities, but the Km did not change. This change in the Vmax per cell was in part the result of a change in the catalytic rate constant for the conversion of plasminogen to plasmin. This was inferred from studies on the kinetics of inhibition of plasminogen activator activity by diisopropyl fluorophosphate as a function of cell density. For cells growing at high densities, the rate of inhibition was constant, exhibiting a second-order rate constant of 2.6 × 10−2M−1 s−1. For cells growing at low densities, the plasminogen activator activity was inhibited at two different rates, one exhibiting a second-order rate constant of 2.6 × 10−2M−1 s−1 and the other exhibiting a second-order rate constant of 9.4 × 10−2M−1 s−1. We discuss the importance of cell density in assays of the plasminogen activator activity of cells, the use of this cell line to study the biochemical basis of the density dependence of plasminogen activator activity, and the density-dependent role of plasminogen activator activity in tumor formation and metastasis.
VERIFIED SOLUTION FOR A SIMPLE TRUSS STRUCTURE WITH UNCERTAIN NODE LOCATIONS

We consider a structural truss problem where all of the physical model parameters are uncertain: not just the material values and applied loads, but also the positions of the nodes are assumed to be inexact but bounded and are represented by intervals. Such uncertainty may typically arise from imprecision during the process of manufacturing or construction, or round-off errors. In this case the application of the ﬁnite element method results in a system of linear equations with numerous interval parameters which cannot be solved conventionally. Applying a suitable variable substitution, an iteration method for the solution of a parametric system of linear equations is ﬁrstly employed to obtain initial bounds on the node displacements. Thereafter, an interval tightening (pruning) technique is applied, ﬁrstly on the element forces and secondly on the node displacements, in order to obtain tight guaranteed enclosures for the interval solutions for the forces and displacements.
Topological Approach to Automatic Symbolic Macromodel Generation for Analog Integrated Circuits

In the field of analog integrated circuit (IC) design, small-signal macromodels play indispensable roles for developing design insight and sizing reference. However, the subject of automatically generating symbolic low-order macromodels in human readable circuit form has not been well studied. Traditionally, work has been published on reducing full-scale symbolic transfer functions to simpler forms but without the guarantee of interpretability. On the other hand, methodologies developed for interconnect circuits (mainly resistor-capacitor-inductor (RCL) networks) are not suitable for analog ICs. In this work, a topological reduction method is introduced that is able to automatically generate interpretable macromodel circuits in symbolic form; that is, the circuit elements in the compact model maintain analytical relations of the parameters of the original full circuit. This type of symbolic macromodel has several benefits that other traditional modeling methods do not offer: First, reusability, namely that designer need not repeatedly generate macromodels for the same circuit even it is re-sized or re-biased; second, interpretability, namely a designer may directly identify circuit parameters (in the original circuit) that are closely related to the dominant frequency characteristics, such as dc gain, gain/phase margins, and dominant poles/zeros. The effectiveness and computational efficiency of the proposed method have been validated by several operational amplifier (opamp) circuit examples.
Exploring the human genome with functional maps Material

License Commons Creative . http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ described at as a Creative Commons License (Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License), ). After six months, it is available under http://genome.cshlp. org/site/misc/terms.xhtml for the first six months after the full-issue publication date (see This article is distributed exclusively by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
The Role of Lipid Raft Aggregation in the Infection of Type II Pneumocytes by Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Dynamic, cholesterol-dense regions of the plasma membrane, known as lipid rafts (LR), have been observed to develop during and may be directly involved in infection of host cells by various pathogens. This study focuses on LR aggregation induced in alveolar epithelial cells during infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) bacilli. We report dose- and time-dependent increases in LR aggregation after infection with three different strains at multiplicities of infection of 1, 10 and 100 from 2–24 hr post infection (hpi). Specific strain-dependent variations were noted among H37Rv, HN878 and CDC1551 with H37Rv producing the most significant increase from 15 aggregates per cell (APC) to 27 APC at MOI 100 during the 24 hour infection period. Treatment of epithelial cells with Culture Filtrate Protein, Total Lipids and gamma-irradiated whole cells from each strain failed to induce the level of LR aggregation observed during infection with any of the live strains. However, filtered supernatants from infected epithelial cells did produce comparable LR aggregation, suggesting a secreted mycobacterial product produced during infection of host cells is responsible for LR aggregation. Disruption of lipid raft formation prior to infection indicates that Mtb bacilli utilize LR aggregates for internalization and survival in epithelial cells. Treatment of host cells with the LR-disruption agent Filipin III produced a nearly 22% reduction in viable bacteria for strains H37Rv and HN878, and a 7% reduction for strain CDC1551 after 6 hpi. This study provides evidence for significant mycobacterial-induced changes in the plasma membrane of alveolar epithelial cells and that Mtb strains vary in their ability to facilitate aggregation and utilization of LR.
Oblivious transfer and polynomial evaluation

We describe efficient constructions for two oblivious twoparty computation problems: l-out-of-N Oblivious Transfer &d ‘Oblivious Poly&nial Evaluation. The oblivious polynomial evaluation protocol is based on a new intractability assumption which is closely related to noisy polynomial re construction. A direct corollary of the l-out-of-N OT protccol is an efficient transformation of any Private Information Retrieval (PIR) protocol to a Symmetric PIR (SPIR) prctow1 without increasing the number of databases. The new construction for l-out-of-N OT is highly efficient it requires only log N executions of a l-out-of-2 OT protocol. We also present a construction for k-out-of-N OT which is more efficient than k repetitions of l-out-of-N OT. The efficiency of the new OT protocols makes them useful for a variety of applications. These include oblivious sampling which can be used to securely compare the sizes of web search engines, protocols for privately solving the list intersection problem and for mutually authenticated key exchange based on (possibly weak) passwords, and protocols for anonymity preserving web usage metering.
Antioxidant enzyme profile and lipid peroxidation products in semen samples of testicular germ cell tumor patients submitted to orchiectomy

ABSTRACT Purpose To determine enzymatic antioxidant and lipid peroxidation levels in seminal plasma of patients orchiectomized for testicular tumors. Materials and Methods The study included 52 patients: 26 control men and 26 orchiectomized patients for testicular tumor, of which 12 men had seminoma tumor and 14 men non-seminoma tumor. After semen analysis performed according to the WHO guidelines, an aliquot of semen was centrifuged and the seminal plasma was collected. Lipid peroxidation was performed by thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) assay and antioxidant profile was assessed by analyzing catalase, glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and superoxide anion (SOD) activities using colorimetric assays with a standard spectrophotometer. Data were tested for normality and compared using one-way ANOVA (p<0.05). Results Seminoma and non-seminoma groups presented lower sperm concentration and morphology when compared to control group (p=0.0001). Both study groups (seminoma and non-seminoma) presented higher TBARS levels when compared to control group (p=0.0000013). No differences were observed for SOD (p=0.646) andGPx (p=0.328). It was not possible to access the enzymatic activity of catalase in any group. Conclusion Patients with testicular tumor present increased semen oxidative stress, but no differences were observed in antioxidant levels, even after orchiectomy. This indicates that most likely an increased generation of oxidative products takes place in these patients.
Design of downlink training sequences for FDD massive MIMO systems

In the massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) system, a large number of transmit antennas are deployed at base stations. The massive MIMO has been proposed as one of the key technologies for the next generation of wireless communication systems. A major problem in practice to realize the capacity improvement promised by the massive MIMO technology is the availability of the channel state information in downlink at the base station. In frequency division duplexing (FDD) massive MIMO systems, the overhead of the training sequences could overwhelm the precious downlink resources due to the large number of transmit antennas. Therefore, a training sequences design approach that exploits the channel spatial correlation is proposed to reduce the overhead of training sequences. The optimal training sequence structure is analyzed and the length of optimal training sequence which could maximize the achievable data rate is evaluated by the Monte Carlo simulations in this paper. It is shown that the overhead is significantly reduced and a trade-off between accuracy of channel estimation and the system achievable data rate is achieved simultaneously by the proposed training sequences design method.
Procedural Justice in Training and Development: Development of a Scale

Despite the considerable amount of organizational justice literature, the application in the domain of training and development was neglected. This study explores the concept of procedural justice in training and development, and uses psychometric procedures for scale development, called the Training and Development Procedural Justice Scale (TDPJS). Items were initially developed following deductive and inductive approaches. Content analysis was applied to delete items, and data was collected, from the bank and security industries. Exploratory factor and confirmatory factor analyses were applied for development the scale. Additionally, the validity information was provided in this study. TDPJS includes two dimensions, system factor and interactional factor, totally in 15 items. In addition to the convergent and divergent validity, TDPJS explains variance in job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment, normative organizational commitment, trust, perceived organizational support, and distributive justice.
Outer Synchronization between Fractional-Order Complex Networks: A Non-Fragile Observer-based Control Scheme

This paper addresses the global outer synchronization problem between two fractional-order complex networks coupled in a drive-response configuration. In particular, for a given fractional-order complex network composed of Lur’e systems, an observer-type response network with non-fragile output feedback controllers is constructed. Both additive and multiplicative uncertainties that perturb the control gain matrices are considered. Then, using the stability theory of fractional-order systems and eigenvalue distribution of the Kronecker sum of matrices, we establish some sufficient conditions for global outer synchronization. Interestingly, the developed results are cast in the format of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs), which can be efficiently solved via the MATLAB LMI Control Toolbox. Finally, numerical simulations on fractional-order networks with nearest-neighbor and small-world topologies are given to support the theoretical analysis.
Optimal coordinating control for the overlapping shift of a seamless 2-speed transmission equipped in an electric vehicle

For a novel seamless 2-speed transmission specially equipped in the electric vehicles, the optimal coordinating control problem of the motor and the friction clutch with complex constraints on both the state and control variables during the overlapping shifts is investigated in this article. First, the shift principle and the dynamic models of the overlapping shifts between the friction clutch and the one-way clutch are analyzed. Next, the parameters for evaluating the shift quality are analyzed. The jerks in process and at the key moments (speed synchronization moments of the friction clutch or the one-way clutch) are distinguished and selected as the constraints and the objective function’s terminal items, respectively. Finally, an integral optimal coordinating controller is proposed to optimize the shift trajectories and improve the overlapping shift quality. The linear feed-forward coordinating control strategy is used in the torque phase to regulate the motor torque with the engaging or disengaging process of the friction clutch to maintain the jerk within the permissible range, and the optimal control strategy based on the principle of the minimum is used to optimize the shift trajectories with complex constraints on both the control and state variables in the inertia phase. The effectiveness of the proposed optimal coordinating controller on addressing the coordinating control problem of the motor and the friction clutch during the overlapping shifts and establishing a solid foundation for the application of the seamless 2-speed transmission in electric vehicles have been verified by the simulation and experimental test-bench results.