Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Script-Independent Text Line Segmentation in Freestyle Handwritten Documents

Text line segmentation in freestyle handwritten documents remains an open document analysis problem. Curvilinear text lines and small gaps between neighboring text lines present a challenge to algorithms developed for machine printed or hand-printed documents. In this paper, we propose a novel approach based on density estimation and a state-of-the-art image segmentation technique, the level set method. From an input document image, we estimate a probability map, where each element represents the probability that the underlying pixel belongs to a text line. The level set method is then exploited to determine the boundary of neighboring text lines by evolving an initial estimate. Unlike connected component based methods ( [1], [2] for example), the proposed algorithm does not use any script-specific knowledge. Extensive quantitative experiments on freestyle handwritten documents with diverse scripts, such as Arabic, Chinese, Korean, and Hindi, demonstrate that our algorithm consistently outperforms previous methods. Further experiments show the proposed algorithm is robust to scale change, rotation, and noise.
Omnistereo Video Textures without Ghosting

An omni stereo pair of images provides depth information from stereo up to 360 degrees around a central observer. A method for synthesizing omni stereo video textures was recently introduced which was Based on blending of overlapping stereo videos that were filmed several seconds apart. While it produced loop able omni stereo videos that can be displayed up to 360 degrees around a viewer, ghosting was visible within blended overlaps. This paper presents a stereo stitching method to render these overlaps without any ghosting. The stitching method uses a graph-cut minimization. We show results for scenes with differents types of motion, such as water flows, leaves in the wind and moving people.
Implementation of treatment integrity procedures

This systematic review evaluates the implementation of treatment integrity procedures in outcome studies of youth interventions targeting behavioral problems. The Implementation of Treatment Integrity Procedures Scale (ITIPS), developed by Perepletchikova, Treat, and Kazdin (2007), was adapted (ITIPS-A) and used to evaluate 32 outcome studies of evidence-based interventions for youths with externalizing behavioral problems. Integrity measures were found to be still rare in these studies. Of the studies that took integrity into account, 80% approached adequacy in implementing procedures for treatment integrity. The ITIPS-A is recommended as an instrument to guide development of integrity instruments and the implementation of treatment integrity procedures in youth care.
Tool bending in New Caledonian crows

‘Betty’ the New Caledonian crow astonished the world when she ‘spontaneously’ bent straight pieces of garden wire into hooked foraging tools. Recent field experiments have revealed that tool bending is part of the species' natural behavioural repertoire, providing important context for interpreting Betty's iconic wire-bending feat. More generally, this discovery provides a compelling illustration of how natural history observations can inform laboratory-based research into the cognitive capacities of non-human animals.
TASI LECTURES ON DARK MATTER∗

Observational evidence and theoretical motivation for dark matter are presented and connections to the CMB and BBN are made. Problems for baryonic and neutrino dark matter are summarized. Emphasis is placed on the prospects for supersymmetric dark matter. The nature and identity of the dark matter of the Universe is one of the most challenging problems facing modern cosmology. The problem is a long-standing one, going back to early observations of mass-to-light ratios by Zwicky 1. Given the distribution (by number) of galaxies with total lu-minosity L, φ(L), one can compute the mean luminosity density of galaxies L = Lφ(L)dL (1) which is determined to be 2
Simulation of deacidification process by molecular distillation of deodorizer distillate

A computer program has been devel- oped to simulate the deacidification of sunflower deodorizer distillate. The developed mathematical model is based on momentum, mass and energy bal- ances. The Langmuir-Knudsen constitutive equation was used in order to represent the kinetics of evapo- ration and condensation. Physical and transport properties have been evaluated using correlations, which are functions of temperature and composition. The obtained partial differential equation system was solved by means of the Crank-Nicholson tech- nique, and the calculation programs employed were developed and debugged using Matlab 7.1. The mathematical model was used to analyze the phenomena that take place during the molecular distillation process, and it also allowed studying the influence of operating variables on the performance of the process. In this investigation, we analyzed the influence of the operating temperature on purity and yield of the components. Trials at three evaporating temperatures (110 oC, 130 oC, and 140 oC) were car- ried out in a KDL4 (UIC) molecular distillation ap- paratus to verify the model.
The Emerging Role of miR-223 in Platelet Reactivity: Implications in Antiplatelet Therapy

Platelets are anuclear cells and are devoid of genomic DNA, but they are capable of de novo protein synthesis from mRNA derived from their progenitor cells, megakaryocytes. There is mounting evidence that microRNA (miRNA) plays an important role in regulating gene expression in platelets. miR-223 is the most abundant miRNAs in megakaryocytes and platelets. One of the miR-223-regulated genes is ADP P2Y12, a key target for current antiplatelet drug therapy. Recent studies showed that a blunted response to P2Y12 antagonist, that is, high on-treatment platelet reactivity (HTPR), is a strong predictor of major cardiovascular events (MACEs) in coronary heart disease (CHD) patients receiving antiplatelet treatment. Recent clinical cohort study showed that the level of circulating miR-223 is inversely associated with MACE in CHD patients. In addition, our recent data demonstrated that the level of both intraplatelet and circulating miR-223 is an independent predictor for HTPR, thus providing a link between miR-223 and MACE. These lines of evidence indicate that miR-223 may serve as a potential regulatory target for HTPR, as well as a diagnostic tool for identification of HTPR in clinical settings.
Genomics of Megavirus and the elusive fourth domain of Life

We recently described Megavirus chilensis, a giant virus isolated off the coast of Chile, also replicating in fresh water acanthamoeba. Its 1,259,197-bp genome encodes 1,120 proteins and is the largest known viral genome. Megavirus and its closest relative Mimivirus only share 594 orthologous genes, themselves sharing only 50% of identical residues in average. Despite this divergence, comparable to the maximal divergence exhibited by bacteria within the same division (e.g., gamma proteobacteria), Megavirus retained all of the genomic features unique to Mimivirus, in particular its genes encoding key-elements of the translation apparatus, a trademark of cellular organisms. Besides homologs to the four aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRS) encoded by Mimivirus, Megavirus added three additional ones, raising the total of known virus-encoded aaRS to seven: IleRS, TrpRS, AsnRS, ArgRS, CysRS, MetRS, TyrRS. This finding strongly suggests that large DNA viruses derived from an ancestral cellular genome by reductive evolution. The nature of this cellular ancestor remains hotly debated.
Land Use Changes in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua: A Systems Dynamic Model

espanolEl objetivo de este articulo es ofrecer un modelo para simular los cambios de uso del suelo en Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. La ciudad enfrenta serios retos debido al rapido crecimiento demografico y urbano que experimenta, lo cual ha preocupado a los gobiernos, las oficinas locales de planificacion urbana y organizaciones de la sociedad civil (OSC). El analisis de los cambios en el uso del suelo se relaciona con dos preguntas centrales que se sobreponen: ? Cuales son las principales causas de cambios en el uso del suelo? y ? Cuales son los impactos del medio ambiente y las variables sociodemograficas en el cambio del uso del suelo? El cambio en el uso del suelo lo abordamos como un sistema complejo e identificamos los elementos que definen el sistema y como este se relaciona en su conjunto. El desarrollo de un modelo de simulacion dinamica que permite generar distintos escenarios puede ser una herramienta importante para la planificacion urbana. El programa de computo usado para simular los cambios en el uso del suelo es Stella®. Los resultados del modelo permiten simular la demanda de suelos de los distintos usos (comercial, industrial y residencial) en los proximos 10 o 20 anos. EnglishThe objective of this article is to offer a model to simulate land use changes in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. The city faces serious challenges posed by accelerated demographic and urban growth. In its struggle to respond to urban land development pressures, governments, planning agencies and social civil organizations are overwhelmed by a multitude of concerns. The analysis of land use change revolves around two central and interrelated questions: What drives/ causes land use change? What are the environmental and socio-demographic impacts of land change? The land use changes are approached as a complex system in which the elements that define the system and how these relate to each are identified. The development of dynamic simulation models that allow for the generation of different scenarios can be an important tool for urban planning. The software used to simulate the land uses changes is Stella®. The results of the model simulated the demand for land among different land uses (commercial, industrial and residential) in the next 10 or 20 years.
Emotional creativity :: a social constructivist perspective.

EMOTIONAL CREATIVITY: A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST PERSPECTIVE MAY 1989 CAROL ELAINE THOMAS, B.S. , UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO M.S. , UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AT AMHERST Directed by: Professor James R. Averill Emotional creativity may be defined as the production of novel and adaptive emotional responses, either on the individual or group level. A correlational study was conducted to validate emotional creativity as a psychological construct, and to explore its relation to cognitive creativity. A battery of tests was administered to 100 subjects. The tests included three measures of emotional creativity and two measures of cognitive creativity, all developed for this study, as well as various measures of emotional and cognitive ability/reactivity. Evidence of convergent and divergent validity of emotional creativity was demonstrated.
Design and Evaluation of Semantic Similarity Measures for Concepts Stemming from the Same or Different Ontologies

Semantic Similarity relates to computing the similarity between concepts (terms) which are not necessarily lexically similar. We investigate approaches to computing semantic similarity by mapping terms to an ontology and by examining their relationships in that ontology. More specifically, we investigate approaches to computing the semantic similarity between natural language terms (using WordNet as the underlying reference ontology) and between medical terms (using the MeSH ontology of medical and biomedical terms). The most popular semantic similarity methods are implemented and evaluated using WordNet and MeSH. The focus of this work is also on cross ontology methods which are capable of computing the semantic similarity between terms stemming from different ontologies (WordNet and MeSH in this work). This is a far more difficult problem (than the single ontology one referred to above) which has not been investigated adequately in the literature. X-Similarity, a novel cross-ontology similarity method is also a contribution of this work. All methods examined in this work are integrated into a semantic similarity system which is accessible on the Web.
Reinforcement learning using chaotic exploration in maze world

In reinforcement learning, trial and error called an exploration plays an important role. As a generator for exploration, it seems to be familiar to use the uniform pseudorandom number generator. However, it is known that chaotic source also provides a random-like sequence as like as stochastic source. In this research, we propose an application of the random-like feature of deterministic chaos for a generator of the exploration. As a result, we find that the deterministic chaotic generator for the exploration based on the logistic map gives better performances than the stochastic random exploration generator in a nonstationary shortcut maze problem. In order to understand why the exploration generator based on the logistic map shows the better result, we investigate the learning structures obtained from the two exploration generators.
Detection of a cosmic microwave background decrement towards a cluster of mJy radio sources

We present the results of radio, optical and near-infrared o bservations of the field of TOC J0233.3+3021, a cluster of milliJansky radiosources from the TexOx Cluster survey. In an observation of this field with the Ryle Telescope (RT) at 15 GHz, we measure a decrement in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) of 675±95µJy on the RT's � 0.65 kbaseline. Using optical and infrared imaging with the McDonald 2.7-m Smith Reflector, Calar Alto 3.5- m telescope and UKIRT, we identify the host galaxies of five of the radiosources and measure magnitudes of R � 24, J � 20, K � 18. The CMB decrement is consistent with the Sunyaev-Zel'dovic h (SZ) effect of a massive cluster of galaxies, which if modelled as a spherical King profile of core radiusC = 20 '' has a central temperature decrement of 900µK. The magnitudes and colours of the galaxies are con- sistent with those of old ellipticals at z � 1. We therefore conclude that TOC J0233.3+3021 is a massive, high redshift cluster. These observations add to the growing evidence for a sig- nificant population of massive clusters at high redshift, an d demonstrate the effectiveness of combining searches for AGN 'signposts' to clusters with the redshift-independence of the SZ effect.
Detecting regional variability in sources and sinks of carbon dioxide: a synthesis

Abstract. The current paper reviews the experimental setup of the CarboEurope Experimental Strategy (CERES) campaigns with the aim of providing an overview of the instrumentation used, the data-set and associated modelling. It then assesses progress in the field of regional observation and modelling of carbon fluxes, bringing the papers of this special issue into a somewhat broader context of analysis. Instrumental progress has been obtained in the field of remotely monitoring from tall towers and the experimental planning. Flux measurements from aircraft are now capable, within some constraints, to provide regular regional observations of fluxes of CO2, latent and sensible heat. Considerable effort still needs to be put into calibrating the surface schemes of models, as they have direct impact on the input of energy, moisture and carbon fluxes in the boundary layer. Overall, the mesoscale models appear to be capable of simulating the large scale dynamics of the region, but in the fine detail, like the precise horizontal and vertical CO2 field differences between the models still exist. These errors translate directly into transport uncertainty, when the forward simulations are used in inverse mode. Quantification of this uncertainty, including that of inadequate boundary layer height modelling, still remains a major challenge for state of the art mesoscale models. Progress in inverse models has been slow, but has shown that it is possible to estimate some of the errors involved, and that using the combination of observations. Overall, the capability to produce regional, high-resolution estimates of carbon exchange, exist in potential, but the routine application will require considerable effort, both in the experimental as in the modelling domain.
Simple wavelet frames for finite functions on discrete tori

A new approach to numerical wavelet transforms is described where sampled n-dimensional signal data are treated as finite functions on discrete tori T/sup n/. This approach shows that the undecimated numerical wavelet transform leads to decomposition onto a frame in the space of square-summable functions on the discrete torus l/sup 2/ (T/sup n/).
Interactions between Pavlovian first- and second-order conditioning.

Interactions Between Pavlovian Firstand Second-Order Conditioning (February, 1982) Joan Carol Bombace B.A., Quinnipiac College, M.A. , Southern Connecticut State College, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts Directed by: Professor John J. B. Ayres Four experiments investigated the interactions between Pavlovian firstand second-order conditioned stimuli in the rat CER preparation. The first three experiments examined the interactions of these kinds of stimuli with the Kamin two stage blocking procedure. The fourth experiment examined these interactions with Pavlov's summation technique. Experiment 1 showed that second-order conditioning to an added cue was attenuated if such conditioning took place in the presence of a pretrained secondorder conditioned stimulus (CS) . Experiment 2 failed to produce evidence for "super" second-order conditioning, i.e., rapid conditioning when a first-order conditioned inhibitor was compounded with a new cue during second-order conditioning. Experiment 3 showed that first-order conditioning to an added cue was attenuated if such conditioning took place in the presence of a pretrained second-order CS .
Coordinating Mobile Databases

We are interested in the development of a database management layer which is completely portable and, therefore, “pluggable” on top of multiple host platforms. This layer, so called Peer Database Management System (PDBMS), must be able to remotely connect with its database and to connect it with other peer databases. We realize mobility by storing PDBMS on a flash drive. We realize network independence by developing a fully decentralized data coordination model. The two notions at the core of our model are Interest groups and Acquaintances. The first notion allows for a global aggregation of nodes carrying similar information, while the second allows for a local logical point-to-point data exchange between databases. The system has been developed on top of the Peer-to-Peer platform JXTA.
CD95 rs1800682A/G Variant and Tumor Risk in Asians: Evidence from a Meta-Analysis of 36 Case-Control Studies Containing 22 438 Samples

Background The CD95 gene plays a key role in regulating cell growth and tumor genesis. To date, several publications have focused on the CD95 rs1800682A/G site polymorphism and various types of tumors in Asians; however, this association is still controversial and obscure. Therefore, a meta-analysis combined with all publications to clarify this association is necessary. Material/Methods A search in the PubMed and SinoMed databases was performed to detect all relevant included publications. Odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) revealed association strengths. Results Overall, 36 case-control studies were chosen based on the search criteria. There was no association of the CD95 rs1800682A/G site polymorphism with tumor risk in total and ethnicity subgroup analysis. However, further stratified analysis in the cancer subgroup revealed weakly significant associations in hepatocellular carcinoma (AA+AG vs. GG: OR=0.93, 95% CI=0.87–0.99, P=0.035; AG vs. GG: OR=0.89, 95% CI=0.80–0.99, P=0.036). Conclusions The CD95 rs1800682A/G site polymorphism may be associated with hepatocellular carcinoma susceptibility. Further large-scale and well-designed studies regarding tumor types and ethnicities are still required to confirm our results.
Single cell profiling of surface carbohydrates on Bacillus cereus

Cell surface carbohydrates are important to various bacterial activities and functions. It is well known that different types of Bacillus display heterogeneity of surface carbohydrate compositions, but detection of their presence, quantitation and estimation of variation at the single cell level have not been previously solved. Here, using atomic force microscopy (AFM)-based recognition force mapping coupled with lectin probes, the specific carbohydrate distributions of N-acetylglucosamine and mannose/glucose were detected, mapped and quantified on single B. cereus surfaces at the nanoscale across the entire cell. Further, the changes of the surface carbohydrate compositions from the vegetative cell to spore were shown. These results demonstrate AFM-based ‘recognition force mapping’ as a versatile platform to quantitatively detect and spatially map key bacterial surface biomarkers (such as carbohydrate compositions), and monitor in situ changes in surface biochemical properties during intracellular activities at the single cell level.
Benefit Estimates for Landscape Improvements: Sequential Bayesian Design and Respondents’ Rationality in a Choice Experiment

A multi-attribute, stated-preference approach is used to value low and high impact actions on four major landscape components addressed by the Rural Environment Protection Scheme in Ireland. Several methodological issues are addressed: the use of prior beliefs on the relative magnitudes of parameters, standardized description of different levels of landscape improvements via image manipulation software, adoption of efficiency-increasing sequential experimental design, and sensitivity of benefit estimates to inclusion of responses from ‘‘irrational’’ respondents. Results suggest that Bayesian design updating delivers significant efficiency gains without loss in respondent efficiency, and estimates are upward-biased when irrational respondents are included. (JEL Q24, Q51)
The counterintuitive mechanism of graph-based semi-supervised learning in the big data regime

In this article, a new approach is proposed to study the performance of graph-based semi-supervised learning methods, under the assumptions that the dimension of data p and their number n grow large at the same rate and that the data arise from a Gaussian mixture model. Unlike small dimensional systems, the large dimensions allow for a Taylor expansion to linearize the weight (or kernel) matrix W, thereby providing in closed form the limiting performance of semi-supervised learning algorithms. This notably allows to predict the classification error rate as a function of the normalization parameters and of the choice of the kernel function. Despite the Gaussian assumption for the data, the theoretical findings match closely the performance achieved with real datasets, particularly here on the popular MNIST database.
Human Learning and Memory: Conditioning principles and theories

Introduction Part I. Learning: 1. Some basic assumptions 2. Classical conditioning 3. Conditioning principles and theories 4. Reinforcement 5. Reinforcement applications 6. Punishment 7. Theories of reinforcement Part II. Memory: 8. Memory: an introduction 9. Sensory and working memory 10. Long-term memory 11. Retrieval 12. Practical applications Part III. Learning and Memory: 13. Neural networks.
Reducing I/O Cost in OLAP Query Processing with MapReduce

This paper presents a method to reduce I/O cost in MapReduce when online analytical processing (OLAP) queries are used for data analysis. The proposed method consists of two basic ideas. First, to reduce network transmission cost, mappers are organized to receive only data necessary to perform a map task, not an entire set of input data. Second, to reduce storage consumption, only record IDs are stored for checkpointing, not the raw records. Experiments conducted with TPC-H benchmark show that the proposed method is about 40% faster than Hive, the well-known data warehouse solution for MapReduce, while reducing the size of data stored for checkpoining to about 80%. key words: MapReduce, Hadoop, OLAP, data warehouse, TPC-H benchmark