Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A re-assembling scheme of fragmented Mokkan images

Historical documents are invaluable to study the society and culture in old ages everywhere in the world. In Japan, unearthed wooden tablets called Mokkan excavated from ancient palace sites and so on in the Nara period provide important clues to know the era. Since most of unearthed Mokkan have been badly damaged and broken into several pieces, however, it is extremely difficult even for experts to extract characters on fragmented Mokkan. In this paper, we propose a digital image reassembling scheme for fragmented Mokkan so that broken character images are reassembled and written content is analyzed. The proposed scheme consists of two steps: an image grouping using color features and an image reassembling using local tangent and curvature functions of the fragment contours. After the grouping process, fragment images with the same color features are clustered. Then, in the reassembling step, candidate matching pairs for adjacent fragment images in the same group are listed. We also provide a user interface for archeologists to verify the results. As a result, the system helps archaeologists reconstruct Mokkan images so that they can decode them.
Analytical revisit on the use of biased random walks for data forwarding in wireless sensor networks

In recent years, the use of random walks (RW) for data forwarding in wireless sensor networks (WSN) has gained a lot of popularity. However, a negative effect is often caused by the fact that a completely uniform random choice of the next hop during the walk translates into a reduced progress towards the sink node, thereby yielding a long latency. Several strategies are proposed to attenuate this problem. Most of them are characterized by their dependence on state information stored in sensor nodes in order to bias the direction of the walk towards the target. Such information require additional capabilities and it is costly in terms of complexity and energy, which is inherently problematical in WSN. This leads to a tradeoff between mutually contradictory goals and raises the question as to what extent biasing RW can affect the performance of the data forwarding scheme. This question is our primary motivation in investigating the problem of biasing RW based data forwarding from a pure analytical perspective.
A phase I trial of the single-chain immunotoxin SGN-10 (BR96 sFv-PE40) in patients with advanced solid tumors.

PURPOSE Our purpose in the study was to establish the maximum tolerated dose and toxicity profile of SGN-10 (or BR96 sFv-PE40), a single-chain immunotoxin. SGN-10 is composed of the fused gene products encoding the translocating and ADP-ribosylating domains of Pseudomonas exotoxin (PE40) and the variable heavy (V(H)) and variable light (V(L)) regions of BR96 monoclonal antibody. This antibody is specific for a Lewis(Y) (Le(Y))-related carbohydrate antigen expressed on multiple carcinomas. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN A total of 46 patients with Le(Y)-positive metastatic carcinoma were enrolled in a Phase I dose-escalation study in cohorts of three to six patients who received SGN-10 at doses ranging from 0.024 to 0.962 mg/m(2), administered on days 1, 4, 8, and 11, followed by 2 weeks of rest and a second cycle of therapy. Pharmacokinetics and human antibody response to SGN-10 were also determined. RESULTS The maximum tolerated dose of SGN-10 was 0.641 mg/m(2) with gastrointestinal dose-limiting toxicity. Pharmacokinetic studies performed in eight patients at the 0.641-mg/m(2) dose revealed a t([1/2]) of 2.5 +/- 0.3 h and a C(max) of 389 +/- 112 ng/ml. Pharmacodynamic analyses demonstrated a rapid clearance of the drug by day 11 associated with an antitoxin human antitoxin antibody (HATA) response in most patients. Signs consistent with a modest vascular leak syndrome, specifically, transient hypoalbuminemia, were observed in patients treated with doses of > or =0.384 mg/m(2). No complete or partial tumor responses were observed at an 8-week evaluation, although 31% of patients had stable disease. CONCLUSIONS The maximal tolerated dose of SGN-10 given twice weekly for 2 weeks is 0.641 mg/m(2) with gastrointestinal dose-limiting toxicity. The immunogenicity of the toxin moiety limits the ability of SGN-10 to circulate by day 11 of therapy. Studies are ongoing to evaluate strategies to ameliorate toxicities and to inhibit the development of the anti-SGN-10 immune response.
Discretely generalized model predictive control

This paper introduces a discretely generalized model predictive control (MPC) that allows terminal constraint sets, control laws and cost functions to depend on the current state. The constituents of the standard MPC terminal conditions are no longer fixed offline and, in fact, can be chosen online in an optimal manner. This advantage is further amplified by utilizing the dynamics of the terminal constraint sets, control laws and cost functions in order to relax the conventional MPC terminal conditions. The proposed framework is complemented with a generic discussion of the associated computations.
Visual Analytics for Interactive Exploration of Large-scale Document Data via Nonnegative Matrix Factorization

Due to an ever increasing amount of document data and the complexities involved in their analyses that will reveal meaningful insights, it is crucial to guide users in their decisionmaking processes using advanced methods that are both interactive and information preserving. Numerous computational approaches from machine learning, data mining, information retrieval, and natural language processing, etc., can be useful for this purpose, but they are usually performed in a fully automated manner, leaving little room for human knowledge and interaction to be incorporated. Visual analytics, defined as the science of analytical reasoning facilitated by interactive visual interfaces, has recently emerged to improve this issue. Generally, visual analytics aims at leveraging both computational approaches and human-computer interaction to effectively provide users with deep understanding about data. In this demo, we present the visual analytics systems for large-scale document data that we recently developed, UTOPIAN [1] and VisIRR [3]. These two systems are built upon a fundamental system called FODAVA testbed [2]. As a core method, they utilize nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) to compute a highlevel topic summary for given document data. Documents are then clustered with respect to these topics and visually represented as a 2D scatter plot along with their topics. The 2D scatter plot is computed via dimension reduction methods such as linear discriminant analysis and t-distributed stochastic neighborhood embedding (t-SNE). In the following, we describe the main capabilities of UTOPIAN and VisIRR.
A High-Resolution Minimicroscope System for Wireless Real-Time Monitoring

Objective: Compact, cost-effective, and high-performance microscope that enables the real-time imaging of cells and lab-on-a-chip devices is highly demanded for cell biology and biomedical engineering. This paper aims to present the design and application of an inexpensive wireless minimicroscope with resolution up to 2592 × 1944 pixels and speed up to 90 f/s. Methods: The minimicroscope system was built on a commercial embedded system (Raspberry Pi). We modified a camera module and adopted an inverse dual lens system to obtain the clear field of view and appropriate magnification for tens of micrometer objects. Results: The system was capable of capturing time-lapse images and transferring image data wirelessly. The entire system can be operated wirelessly and cordlessly in a conventional cell culturing incubator. The developed minimicroscope was used to monitor the attachment and proliferation of NIH-3T3 and HEK 293 cells inside an incubator for 50 h. In addition, the minimicroscope was used to monitor a droplet generation process in a microfluidic device. The high-quality images captured by the minimicroscope enabled us an automated analysis of experimental parameters. Conclusion: The successful applications prove the great potential of the developed minimicroscope for monitoring various biological samples and microfluidic devices. Significance: This paper presents the design of a high-resolution minimicroscope system that enables the wireless real-time imaging of cells inside the incubator. This system has been verified to be a useful tool to obtain high-quality images and videos for the automated quantitative analysis of biological samples and lab-on-a-chip devices in the long term.
Definition and Application of a Five-Parameter Characterization of One-Dimensional Cellular Automata Rule Space

Cellular automata (CA) are important as prototypical, spatially extended, discrete dynamical systems. Because the problem of forecasting dynamic behavior of CA is undecidable, various parameter-based approximations have been developed to address the problem. Out of the analysis of the most important parameters available to this end we proposed some guidelines that should be followed when defining a parameter of that kind. Based upon the guidelines, new parameters were proposed and a set of five parameters was selected; two of them were drawn from the literature and three are new ones, defined here. This article presents all of them and makes their qualities evident. Then, two results are described, related to the use of the parameter set in the Elementary Rule Space: a phase transition diagram, and some general heuristics for forecasting the dynamics of one-dimensional CA. Finally, as an example of the application of the selected parameters in high cardinality spaces, results are presented from experiments involving the evolution of radius-3 CA in the Density Classification Task, and radius-2 CA in the Synchronization Task.
The chemokine CXCL12 and its receptor CXCR4 are implicated in human seminoma metastasis

Seminoma and non‐seminoma tumours increasingly occur within the western population. These tumours originate from carcinoma in situ (CIS) cells, which arise from dysfunctional gonocytes. CXCL12 and its receptors, CXCR4 and CXCR7, have been implicated in migration, proliferation and survival of gonocytes and their precursors and progeny, primordial germ cells and spermatogonial stem cells respectively. We previously found evidence that several miRNA molecules predicted to modulate CXCR4 signalling are differentially expressed during the differentiation of gonocytes into spermatogonia in mice. Bioinformatic analysis predicted these miRNA to modulate CXCR4 signalling, leading us to hypothesize that CXCL12‐mediated CXCR4 signalling is involved in the disrupted differentiation of gonocytes that underpins CIS formation. Indeed, we detected CXCL12 in Sertoli cells of normal human testis, and relatively high expression in tumour stroma with concomitant weak staining in dispersed tumour cells. In contrast, CXCR4 was expressed in spermatogonial and meiotic germ cells of normal testis and in the majority of tumour cells. Quantitative RT‐PCR identified elevated CXCR4 transcript levels in seminoma compared with normal testis and to non‐seminoma, potentially reflecting the higher proportion of dysfunctional germ cells within seminomas. In the normal testis, expression of CXCR4 downstream signalling molecules phospho‐MEK1/2 and phospho‐ERK1/2 correlated with CXCR4/CXCL12 expression. Strikingly, this correlation was absent in seminoma and non‐seminoma samples, suggesting that CXCL12 signalling is disrupted. Proliferation rate and cell survival were not altered by CXCL12 in either seminoma (TCam‐2) or non‐seminoma (833ke) cell lines. However, CXCL12 exposure induced TCam‐2 cell invasion though simulated basement membrane, while in contrast, we provide the novel evidence that CXCR4‐expressing non‐seminoma cell lines 833ke and NTera2/D1 do not invade in response to CXCL12. These findings indicate that CXCL12 expression in the human testis may selectively influence seminoma migration and metastasis, correlating with its importance in gonocyte and spermatogonial stem cell biology.
Polymer dielectric options for thin film packaging applications

Several classes of available polyimide- and non-polyimide-based dielectrics have been recommended for use in thin-film substrates. A comprehensive survey of the commercially available materials considered for use in an advanced packaging program is presented. Critical physical properties of these candidate dielectrics are compared and related to their degree of compatibility with established thin-film processes. <<ETX>>
Pedestrian classification in partial occlusion

Most of the real pedestrian images are often occluded and as numbers of accidents are increasing there is a need of accurate pedestrian detection system in smart cars. In order to improve high detection rate two stage training is required which includes part wise classifier in first stage and training of full body classifier with scores computed using probabilistic estimate in second stage. Proposed system includes application of trilinear interpolation in HOG feature calculation. The algorithm is tested on two different datasets consisting of non-occluded and occluded pedestrian collected from different intersections. Classification performance of proposed method in terms of region of convergence and probability of success is compared with the base full body classifier method for both occluded and non-occluded dataset. Experimental results on real world dataset shows a significant improvement in performance compared to the existing methods in literature.
A 10MHz signal bandwidth Cartesian-loop transmitter capable of off-chip PA linearization

Recently, signals with high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) are being used for metropolitan area networks (MANs) and cellular systems, and therefore highly linear transmitters (Txs) are required. The linearity performance can be improved by operating a power amplifier (PA) with large back-off; however, it sacrifices the efficiency. Therefore, a Tx linearizer is required to satisfy the error-vector magnitude (EVM) and adjacent-channel-leakage ratio (ACLR) requirements with smaller back-off. Since highly efficient PAs fabricated in GaAs or SiGe processes are preferred for these applications, a linearizer for an off-chip PA is desired.
Endothelial Myocyte Enhancer Factor 2c Inhibits Migration of Smooth Muscle Cells Through Fenestrations in the Internal Elastic Lamina

Objective— Laminar flow activates myocyte enhancer factor 2 (MEF2) transcription factors in vitro to induce expression of atheroprotective genes in the endothelium. Here we sought to establish the role of Mef2c in the vascular endothelium in vivo. Approach and Results— To study endothelial Mef2c, we generated endothelial-specific deletion of Mef2c using Tie2-Cre or Cdh5-Cre-ERT2 and examined aortas and carotid arteries by en face immunofluorescence. We observed enhanced actin stress fiber formation in the Mef2c-deleted thoracic aortic endothelium (laminar flow region), similar to those observed in normal aortic inner curvature (disturbed flow region). Furthermore, Mef2c deletion resulted in the de novo formation of subendothelial intimal cells expressing markers of differentiated smooth muscle in the thoracic aortas and carotids. Lineage tracing showed that these cells were not of endothelial origin. To define early events in intimal development, we induced endothelial deletion of Mef2c and examined aortas at 4 and 12 weeks postinduction. The number of intimal cell clusters increased from 4 to 12 weeks, but the number of cells within a cluster peaked at 2 cells in both cases, suggesting ongoing migration but minimal proliferation. Moreover, we identified cells extending from the media through fenestrations in the internal elastic lamina into the intima, indicating transfenestral smooth muscle migration. Similar transfenestral migration was observed in wild-type carotid arteries ligated to induce neointimal formation. Conclusions— These results indicate that endothelial Mef2c regulates the endothelial actin cytoskeleton and inhibits smooth muscle cell migration into the intima.
Catalan-English Statistical Machine Translation without Parallel Corpus: Bridging through Spanish

This paper presents a full experiment on large-vocabulary Catalan-English statistical machine translation without an English-Catalan parallel corpus, in the context of the debates of the European Parliament. For this, we make use of an English-Spanish European Parliament Proceedings parallel corpus and a Spanish-Catalan general newspaper parallel corpus, both of which of more than 30 M words. Given the language proximity between Spanish and Catalan languages, we investigate the cost of using Spanish as a bridge towards large-vocabulary Catalan-English translation in a wholly automatical statistical machine translation framework. Experimental results are promising, as the achieved translation quality is nearly equivalent to that of the Spanish-English language pair, practically carrying SMT research for the Catalan language to the level of more prominent language, in terms of data availability.
Assembly Quality Prediction Based on Back-propagation Artificial Neural Network

Because of the severe geometrical distortion induced by the optical system and the limited kinetic accuracy of mechanical system in the vision-based mobile-phone lens’s assembly system, the nonlinear, perspective distortion errors and the kinematics errors generally exist in the assembly process of the mobile-phone lens. It is necessary to predict the assembly quality of the vision-based mobile-phone lens’s pick-and-place system so as to eliminate the immediate effect on the assembling process before extracting quantitative assembling. Comparison with current research methods, the back-propagation artificial neural network is applied to predict the assembly quality of the vision-based mobile-phone lens’s pick-and-place system. Firstly, the mobile-phone lens’s assembly quality characteristics are defined and sampled; Secondly, a back-propagation artificial neural network of the mobile-phone lens’s assembly quality prediction is presented; Finally apply some training samples obtained from the experiments to train and test this back-propagation artificial neural network. The results show that the proposed method is effective to predict the assembly quality of the vision-based mobile-phone lens’s pick-and-place system with high accuracy and high reliability. DOI : http://dx.doi. org/10.11591/telkomnika.v12i1. 3906
Networks That Learn for Image Understanding

Learning is becoming a central problem in trying to understand intelligence and in trying to develop intelligent machines. This paper describes some recent work on developing machines that learn in the domains of vision and graphics. We will introduce an underlying theory which connects function approximation techniques, neural network architectures and statistical methods. While these techniques have limitations, one can overcome these limitations by using the idea of virtual examples. We shall describe some learning-based systems we have developed that recognize objects, in particular faces, nd speciic objects in cluttered scenes, and produce novel images under user control. Finally, we will discuss about the implications of this research on how the brain might work.
ExtraPush for Convex Smooth Decentralized Optimization over Directed Networks

In this note, we extend the algorithms Extra and subgradient-push to a new algorithm ExtraPush for consensus optimization with convex differentiable objective functions over a directed network. When the stationary distribution of the network can be computed in advance}, we propose a simplified algorithm called Normalized ExtraPush. Just like Extra, both ExtraPush and Normalized ExtraPush can iterate with a fixed step size. But unlike Extra, they can take a column-stochastic mixing matrix, which is not necessarily doubly stochastic. Therefore, they remove the undirected-network restriction of Extra. Subgradient-push, while also works for directed networks, is slower on the same type of problem because it must use a sequence of diminishing step sizes. We present preliminary analysis for ExtraPush under a bounded sequence assumption. For Normalized ExtraPush, we show that it naturally produces a bounded, linearly convergent sequence provided that the objective function is strongly convex. In our numerical experiments, ExtraPush and Normalized ExtraPush performed similarly well. They are significantly faster than subgradient-push, even when we hand-optimize the step sizes for the latter.
Radial Force Analysis of Polydioxanone Coronary Stent by Finite Element Method

Coronary stent is used to treat stenosis artery by recovering the luminal diameter of artery and maintaining the normal blood flow. The geometry of coronary stent is an important factor for the radial force. In this study,the relation between the radial force of stent and crown angle was discussed. The result showed that there was no particular rule between the radial force of stent and the crown angle. The maximum radial force of stent was obtained when the crown angle was 50. 04° and the minimum radial force was got when the crown angle was 75°.
Papillomavirus Pseudovirus: a Novel Vaccine To Induce Mucosal and Systemic Cytotoxic T-Lymphocyte Responses

ABSTRACT Intestinal mucosa is a portal for many infectious pathogens. Systemic immunization, in general, does not induce a cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) response at the mucosal surface. Because papillomavirus (PV) naturally infects mucosa and skin, we determined whether PV pseudovirus, i.e., PV-like particles in which unrelated DNA plasmids are packaged, could generate specific mucosal immunity. We found that the pseudovirus that encoded the lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus gp33 epitope induced a stronger CTL response than a DNA vaccine (plasmid) encoding the same epitope given systemically. The virus-like particles that were used to make the pseudoviruses provided an adjuvant effect for induction of CTLs by the DNA vaccine. The PV pseudovirus pseudoinfected mucosal and systemic lymphoid tissues when administered orally. Oral immunization with the pseudovirus encoding human PV type 16 mutant E7 induced mucosal and systemic CTL responses. In comparison, a DNA vaccine encoding E7, when given orally, did not induce a CTL response in intestinal mucosal lymphoid tissue. Further, oral immunization with the human PV pseudovirus encoding E7 protected mice against mucosal challenge with an E7-expressing bovine PV pseudovirus. Thus, PV pseudovirus can be used as a novel vaccine to induce mucosal and systemic CTL responses.