Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploring mapping-based visualisations of large remote image databases

Image database visualisations, in particular mapping-based visualisations, provide an interesting approach to accessing image repositories as they are able to overcome some of the drawbacks associated with retrieval based approaches. However, making a mapping-based approach work efficiently on large remote image databases, has yet to be explored. In this paper, we present Web-Based Images Browser (WBIB), a novel system that efficiently employs image pyramids to reduce bandwidth requirements so that users can interactively explore large remote image databases.
Voids in the Large-Scale Structure

Voids are the most prominent feature of the large-scale structure of the universe. Still, their incorporation into quantitative analysis of it has been relatively recent, owing essentially to the lack of an objective tool to identify the voids and to quantify them. To overcome this, we present here the VOID FINDER algorithm, a novel tool for objectively quantifying voids in the galaxy distribution. The algorithm first classifies galaxies as either wall galaxies or field galaxies. Then, it identifies voids in the wall-galaxy distribution. Voids are defined as continuous volumes that do not contain any wall galaxies. The voids must be thicker than an adjustable limit, which is refined in successive iterations. In this way, we identify the same regions that would be recognized as voids by the eye. Small breaches in the walls are ignored, avoiding artificial connections between neighboring voids. We test the algorithm using Voronoi tesselations. By appropriate scaling of the parameters with the selection function, we apply it to two redshift surveys, the dense SSRS2 and the full-sky IRAS 1.2 Jy. Both surveys show similar properties: ~50% of the volume is filled by voids. The voids have a scale of at least 40 h-1 Mpc and an average -0.9 underdensity. Faint galaxies do not fill the voids, but they do populate them more than bright ones. These results suggest that both optically and IRAS-selected galaxies delineate the same large-scale structure. Comparison with the recovered mass distribution further suggests that the observed voids in the galaxy distribution correspond well to underdense regions in the mass distribution. This confirms the gravitational origin of the voids.
XMM-Newton X-ray spectroscopy of the high-mass X-ray binary 4U 1700-37 at low flux

We present results of a monitoring campaign of the high-mass X-ray binary system 4U 1700−37/HD 153919, carried out with XMM-Newton in February 2001. The system was observed at four orbital phase intervals, covering 37% of one 3.41-day orbit. The lightcurve includes strong flares, commonly observed in this source. We focus on three epochs in which the data are not affected by photon pile up: the eclipse, the eclipse egress and a low-flux interval in the lightcurve around orbital phase φ ∼ 0.25. The high-energy part of the continuum is modelled as a direct plus a scattered component, each represented by a power law with identical photon index (α ∼ 1.4), but with different absorption columns. We show that during the low-flux interval the continuum is strongly reduced, probably due to a reduction of the accretion rate onto the compact object. A soft excess is detected in all spectra, consistent with either another continuum component originating in the outskirts of the system or a blend of emission lines. Many fluorescence emission lines from near-neutral species and discrete recombination lines from He- and H-like species are detected during eclipse and egress. The fluorescence Fe Kα line at 6.4 keV is very prominent; a second Kα line is detected at slightly higher energies (up to 6.7 keV) and a Kβ line at 7.1 keV. In the low-flux interval the Fe Kα line at 6.4 keV is strongly (factor ∼30) reduced in strength. In eclipse, the Fe Kβ/Kα ratio is consistent with a value of 0.13. In egress we initially measure a higher ratio, which can be explained by a shift in energy of the Fe K-edge to ∼7.15 keV, which is consistent with moderately ionised iron, rather than neutral iron, as expected for the stellar wind medium. The detection of recombination lines during eclipse indicates the presence of an extended ionised region surrounding the compact object. The observed increase in strength of some emission lines corresponding to higher values of the ionisation parameter ξ further substantiates this conclusion.
Does Chronic Idiopathic Dizziness Reflect an Impairment of Sensory Predictions of Self-Motion?

Most patients suffering from chronic idiopathic dizziness do not present signs of vestibular dysfunction or organic failures of other kinds. Hence, this kind of dizziness is commonly seen as psychogenic in nature, sharing commonalities with specific phobias, panic disorder, and generalized anxiety. A more specific concept put forward by Brandt and Dieterich (1) states that these patients suffer from dizziness because of an inadequate compensation of self-induced sensory stimulation. According to this hypothesis self-motion-induced reafferent visual stimulation is interpreted as motion in the world since a predictive signal reflecting the consequences of self-motion, needed to compensate the reafferent stimulus, is inadequate. While conceptually intriguing, experimental evidence supporting the idea of an inadequate prediction of the sensory consequences of own movements has as yet been lacking. Here we tested this hypothesis by applying it to the perception of background motion induced by smooth pursuit eye movements. As a matter of fact, we found the same mildly undercompensating prediction, responsible for the perception of slight illusory world motion (“Filehne illusion”) in the 15 patients tested and their age-matched controls. Likewise, the ability to adapt this prediction to the needs of the visual context was not deteriorated in patients. Finally, we could not find any correlation between measures of the individual severity of dizziness and the ability to predict. In sum, our results do not support the concept of a deviant prediction of self-induced sensory stimulation as cause of chronic idiopathic dizziness.
State-based labelling for a sparse representation of speech and its application to robust speech recognition

This paper proposes a state-based labeling for acoustic patterns of speech and a method for using this labelling in noiserobust automatic speech recognition. Acoustic time-frequency segments of speech, exemplars, are obtained from a training database and associated with time-varying state labels using the transcriptions. In the recognition phase, noisy speech is modeled by a sparse linear combination of noise and speech exemplars. The likelihoods of states are obtained by linear combination of the exemplar weights, which can then be used to estimate the most likely state transition path. The proposed method was tested in the connected digit recognition task with noisy speech material from the Aurora-2 database where it is shown to produce better results than the existing histogram-based labeling method.
WCDMA Evolved-High-Speed Packet-Data Services

WCDMA Release 5 extends the WCDMA specification with a new downlink transport channel, called high-speed downlink shared channel. With shared channel transmission, a certain amount of the channelization codes and transmission power in a cell are considered a common resource that is dynamically shared among users, primarily in the time domain. Shared-channel transmission makes more efficient use of available code resources in WCDMA. HSDPA also supports new features that rely on, and are tightly coupled to, the rapid adaptation of transmission parameters to instantaneous radio conditions: • Fast link adaptation—instead of compensating for varying downlink radio conditions by means of power control, the transmission power is kept constant. Fast rate adjustment is used to adapt to the varying radio conditions. Commonly referred to as link adaptation, this method is more efficient than power control for services that tolerate short-term variations in the data rate. To further increase capacity and data rates, spectral-efficient 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (16QAM) can be used, channel conditions permitting. • Fast hybrid-ARQ with soft-combining— the terminal (user equipment, UE), can rapidly request retransmission of erroneously received data, substantially reducing delay and increasing capacity (compared to Release 99). Prior to decoding, the terminal combines information from the original transmission with that of later retransmissions. This practice, called soft-combining, increases capacity and robustness. • Fast channel-dependent scheduling— The scheduler determines to which terminal the shared channel transmission
The quality changes and microflora analysis of commercial instant soya milk

Abstract Soya milk can be easily contaminated because of its rich nutritional profile and simple package form, which thus may lead to short shelf life and has been considered as a public health concern. The objective of this study is to investigate the changes of sensory quality, viscosity, pH values, bacteria, and protein denaturation in soya milk samples which were stored for 0, 4, 8, 12, and 24 h at 25 ± 2°C. The results showed that the sensory properties were on the decline along with the storage time. The viscosity value increased from 1.61 Pa.s to 2.50 Pa.s, while the pH value decreased from 6.87 to 6.61. In addition, the number of total bacteria and Lactobacillus increased and the protein in soya milk denatured continually. The 16S rDNA sequence analysis indicated that the main microbial strains were Rummeliibacillus, Acinetobacter, Enterobacter, Phyllanthus, Bergia, Zhihengliuella, and Nesterenkonia. In this study, statistics in producing, packaging, and stocking process of soya milk were given, which provided experience to controlling soya milk.
Investigate SPRON Convergence Time Using Aggressive Chord and Aggressive AP-Chord

Private overlay network is a network that consists of groups of known peers that have been accepted as members. SPRON is the proposed private reappearing overlay network that will be used by schools in Malaysia to solve the distribution and sharing issues of teaching material among them. There are about nine thousand schools in Malaysia and these schools are grouped into morning only, evening only, and morning evening sessions. Peers bootstrap and reappear in a reappearing overlay network could cause maintenance overhead. One of the challenges of this research is that the P2P must be bootstrapped within a short period of time before school session starts. The convergence time for SPRON P2P must be able to converge within the time constraint to be usable and implementable in schools. The study of the network convergence time in aggressive Chord and aggressive Chord with Anchor Peers (AP-Chord) were carried out to ensure bootstrapping time for all the peers can converge into a fully connected overlay network within specific amount of time. Our study shows that the performance of aggressive Chord and aggressive AP-Chord are able to bootstrap 3000 peers that take about 1090s and 1050s seconds respectively using random join rate which clearly shown AP-Chord performs with lot of improvement. If peer joining rate is fixed at 1000 peers per second or higher, both Chords did not guarantee that all the peers are able to join the network entirely in the bootstrapping phase. The outcomes of this study are AP-Chord have the capability to bootstrap 3000 or possibly more with aggressive join in considerably shorter period of time fulfilling the time constraint.
Exploring Flow, Factors, and Outcomes of Temporal Event Sequences with the Outflow Visualization

Event sequence data is common in many domains, ranging from electronic medical records (EMRs) to sports events. Moreover, such sequences often result in measurable outcomes (e.g., life or death, win or loss). Collections of event sequences can be aggregated together to form event progression pathways. These pathways can then be connected with outcomes to model how alternative chains of events may lead to different results. This paper describes the Outflow visualization technique, designed to (1) aggregate multiple event sequences, (2) display the aggregate pathways through different event states with timing and cardinality, (3) summarize the pathways' corresponding outcomes, and (4) allow users to explore external factors that correlate with specific pathway state transitions. Results from a user study with twelve participants show that users were able to learn how to use Outflow easily with limited training and perform a range of tasks both accurately and rapidly.
DAC topologies for GSM ΣΔ modulators

Multi-bit ΣΔ modulators have become the preferred option for high performance, low power cellular GSM applications. When using multi-bit quantization, modulator performance becomes extremely sensitive to the internal digital-to-analog converter (DAC) non-linearity. DAC designs must fulfill linearity, power, and speed requirements for GSM while at the same time enabling dynamic element matching (DEM) techniques to further alleviate linearity problems. In this paper, four architectures are analyzed as candidate DACs for a fully differential (FD), GSM, SDM design. Our analysis highlights the advantages of an FD Charge redistribution DAC (CDAC) topology that uses individual level averaging (ILA) as DEM. Simulations favor a CDAC architecture mainly because it provides the best speed/power/linearity compromise. Evaluations of a complete modulator design using the proposed FD CDAC topology were performed, showing that no in-band harmonic distortion is present in the modulator output.
Figure and Ground in spatial language: evidence from German and Korean

abstract We investigate how German and Korean speakers describe everyday spatial/motion events, such as putting a cup on the table. In these motion events, the moving object (e.g., cup) and the non-moving reference object (e.g., table) take on the roles of Figure and Ground, respectively. Figure(F) and Ground(G) thus have distinct perceptual properties and assume conceptually asymmetric roles (entity moving along a trajectory vs. stationary reference frame). We examine the degrees to which speakers distinguish between F and G semantically (spatial/Path terms, e.g., on, in) and syntactically (grammatical roles, e.g., subject, object). Participants described events involving two objects that switched their F-G roles (put cup(F) on board(G) and put board(F) under cup(G)). German speakers use distinct Path terms (e.g., auf, in) for differential F-G relations, thus encoding the F-G asymmetry. In contrast, Korean speakers use the same terms (e.g., kkita ‘fit.tightly’) and the same syntactic constructions regardless of switches in F-G roles. These cross-linguistic differences are evident for Non-typical events (Put board(F) under cup(G)), showing that the encoding of the asymmetry interacts with speakers’ everyday experiences of motion events. We argue that the differences reflect the interactions between the Path lexicon and spatial syntax, and language-specific viewpoints of the F-G relation.
Transforming teachers' construction of student diversity through collective argumentation.

Teaching is often viewed as an adult activity focused on promoting student learning through controlling and directing student attention and behaviour within well defined institutional constraints. Collective Argumentation challenges this view by situating teaching within a sociocultural process of promoting student learning through participation in the ways of knowing and doing adopted by localised learning communities. To capture this dynamic process, we tracked across a four-year time frame a group of three teachers in one school who were part of a “design experiment” on Collective Argumentation. We focus here on how categories within their 'talk' about teaching changed as their own pedagogy changed to include the practices of Collective Argumentation. This paper focuses particularly on one teacher whose account of his practices exemplifies the shift characteristic of all three teachers who took up the practices of Collective Argumentation. They adopted a new pedagogical framework that was not focused on controlling and directing student behaviour, but rather on engendering shared practices and enabling students to participate actively as members of a particular classroom community.
Aquapuncture Using Stem Cell Therapy to Treat Mdx Mice

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) occurs due to genetic mutations that lead to absence or decrease of dystrophin protein generating progressive muscle degeneration. Cell therapy using mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) has been described as a treatment to DMD. In this work, MSC derived from deciduous teeth, called stem cells from human exfoliated deciduous teeth (SHED), were injected in acupoint as an alternative therapy to minimize muscle degeneration in twenty-two mdx mice. The treatment occurred three times with intervals of 21 days, and animals were analyzed four times: seven days prior treatment (T-7); 10 days after first treatment (T10); 10 days after second treatment (T31); and 10 days after third treatment (T52). Animals were evaluated by wire test for estimate strength and blood was collected to perform a creatinine phosphokinase analysis. After euthanasia, cranial tibial muscles were collected and submitted to histological and immunohistochemistry analyses. Treated groups presented improvement of strength and reduced creatinine phosphokinase levels. Also, a slight dystrophin increase was observed in tibial cranial muscle when aquapuncture was associated SHED. All therapies have minimized muscle degeneration, but the association of aquapuncture with SHED appears to have better effect, reducing muscle damage, suggesting a therapeutic value.
Methodology for the Development of Knowledge Management on Organizational Performance Based on Employees’ Professional Competence

The 21st century is the age for knowledge workers, when knowledge management is the major business issue. It becomes the major issue for an enterprise maximizing the knowledge value with effective knowledge management. A hi-tech industry has to learn various types of regulations and understand administrative procedure of relevant regulations to present the knowledge. For this reason, a hi-tech industry requires highly professional knowledge and skills as well as strict and careful professional attitudes. The professional competence of employees in hi-tech industries is the combination of knowledge, skills, and experience and requires long-term accumulation through organizational learning that it is the most precious resource of a hi-tech industry to create work value and provide quality service. In this case, a hi-tech industry, with professional knowledge as the capital, applying knowledge management to effectively manage knowledge reveals significant meanings. By discussing domestic and international literatures, theories of knowledge management are studied in-depth to conclude the effect of knowledge management on professional competence and organizational performance. Employees of hi-tech industries in Shanghai are preceded the questionnaire survey in this study, and the retrieved questionnaire data are proceeded statistical analyses for the conclusion and suggestions.
Age–luminosity relations for low-mass metal-poor stars

We present a grid of evolutionary calculations for metal-poor low-mass stars for a variety of initial helium and metal abundances. The intention is mainly to provide a database for deriving directly stellar ages of halo and globular cluster stars for which basic stellar parameters are known, but the tracks can also be used for isochrone or luminosity function construction, since they extend to the tip of the red giant branch. Fitting formulae for age-luminosity relations are provided as well. The uncertainties of the evolutionary ages due to inherent shortcomings in the models and due to the unclear effectiveness of diffusion are discussed. A first application to field single stars is presented.
A special form of SPD covariance matrix for interpretation and visualization of data manipulated with Riemannian geometry

Currently the Riemannian geometry of symmetric positive definite (SPD) matrices is gaining momentum as a powerful tool in a wide range of engineering applications such as image, radar and biomedical data signal processing. If the data is not natively represented in the form of SPD matrices, typically we may summarize them in such form by estimating covariance matrices of the data. However once we manipulate such covariance matrices on the Riemannian manifold we lose the representation in the original data space. For instance, we can evaluate the geometric mean of a set of covariance matrices, but not the geometric mean of the data generating the covariance matrices, the space of interest in which the geometric mean can be interpreted. As a consequence, Riemannian information geometry is often perceived by non-experts as a “black-box” tool and this perception prevents a wider adoption in the scientific community. Hereby we show that we can overcome this limitation by constructing a special form of SPD matr.
16S rRNA Gene Sequences from Bacteria Associated with Adult Anopheles darlingi (Diptera: Culicidae) Mosquitoes

Abstract The microbial flora associated with Anopheles darlingi Root (Diptera: Culicidae), a major Neotropical malaria vector, was investigated for the development of a paratransgenesis-based approach to control malaria transmission in Brazil. Female mosquitoes were collected using human land catches and captured insects provided a bloodmeal. The controlled blood feeding resulted in increased detection of mosquito bacterial population because it was possible to retrieve bacterial DNA from all blood-fed mosquitoes. The 16S sequences of bacteria recovered, include some closely related to those found in other vector mosquitoes, including Aeromonas, Pantoea and Pseudomonas species.
Increased Risk of Acute Pancreatitis in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes: An Observational Study Using a Japanese Hospital Database

Background Increased risks of acute pancreatitis in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus have been reported recently in several countries. We aimed to estimate the risks of acute pancreatitis in Japanese patients with diabetes mellitus. Methods/Findings We examined a large-scale hospital administrative database consisting of one million patients in 16 secondary medical care hospitals, from 2003 to 2010. The incidence rates of acute pancreatitis were estimated with cohort design; the odds ratios associated with diabetes mellitus and other comorbid risk factors were estimated with separate case-control analyses. In cohort analysis, the incidence of acute pancreatitis was higher in 14,707 diabetic patients than in 186,032 non-diabetic patients (4.75 vs. 1.65 per 1,000 patient-years) and increased in male patients and as age advanced. The adjusted odds ratio of acute pancreatitis in patients with diabetes mellitus was 1.86 (P<0.001) compared with non-diabetic patients in case-control analysis from 1,372 cases and 5,469 matched controls, which is consistent with the ones reported in previous studies. Alcoholism and gallstones were associated with a large increase in the risk of acute pancreatitis (adjusted odds ratio 13.40 and 14.29, respectively, P<0.001), although dyslipidemia was associated with significant risk reduction (adjusted odds ratio 0.62, P<0.001). Conclusions This observational study ascertained the elevated incidence rates and risk of acute pancreatitis in Japanese patients with diabetes. The risk estimates in Japanese patients with diabetes were in agreement with the ones reported in previous studies, and the elevated risk of acute pancreatitis in patients with diabetes would be generalized in different locations/populations.