Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Feature-level Fusion of Palm Print and Palm Vein for Person Authentication Based on Entropy Technique

This paper presents a new approach to authenticate individuals using multiple biometric modalities. It deploys palm print and palm vein images for greater accuracy and flexibility. The contactless system uses a multispectral camera to capture the visible and Near Infrared Images (NIR) simultaneously. Subjects are allowed to place their hands freely below the camera. The Region of Interest (ROI) extraction method used is rotation and translational invariant. Different pre-processing techniques are used for noise reduction. We introduce a simple entropy based technique to extract the palm print and palm vein features. The feature level fusion adopted in this system uses least features (only 16). For 100 subject's, distance based matching yields promising recognition rate (GAR) of 99%. In this age of internet technology, e- commerce, net banking and fast transactions, security is of foremost importance. Initially passwords and tokens were used for security but they were faced with problems like ease of forgery as they could be guessed, stolen or forced out of people. Humans use face or voice for recognizing each other. This ability of humans is further exploited to develop a security system based on biometric features of the humans like our palm prints, face, iris, gait, voice etc. Nowadays, personal identification system based on biometric feature is being increasingly used in applications such as public security, access control, banks and so on. The single modality based systems undergo shortcomings such as people having damaged modality and lower accuracy. To overcome these shortcomings, a multimodal system fusing more than one modality can be used which facilitates higher accuracy. Palm prints are being used for recognition in a number of applications. Using palm vein fused with palm print helps in increasing the robustness of the system. Biometric recognition systems based on palm vein patterns are becoming popular as they possess properties like universality, uniqueness, stability, permanence and strong immunity to the forgery. Since the veins lie underneath the skin and are, in most cases, not visible to the naked eye, they provide a strong resistance against forgery. The complex vascular pattern present inside the hand allows the computation of a good set of features that can be used for personal identification. Infrared sensors can be used to capture the pattern of the subject's veins when illuminated by a source of infrared radiation. The veins can be imaged since the deoxidized hemoglobin in veins absorbs light at a wavelength of about 760 nm, which is in the range of NIR band. Therefore, when the palm is illuminated by infrared light, unlike the image seen by the human eye, the deoxidized hemoglobin in the palm vein appears as a dark pattern. (1). The next section presents the brief review of the prior work.
Far-Ultraviolet Spectroscopy of the Intergalactic and Interstellar Absorption toward 3C 273

We present Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer observations of the molecular, neutral atomic, weakly ionized, and highly ionized components of the interstellar and intergalactic material toward the quasar 3C 273. We identify Lyβ absorption in eight of the known intergalactic Lyα absorbers along the sight line with rest-frame equivalent widths Wr(Lyα) ≳ 50 mÅ. Refined estimates of the H I column densities and Doppler parameters (b) of the clouds are presented. We find a range of b ≈ 16-46 km s-1. We detect multiple H I lines (Lyβ-Lyθ) in the 1590 km s-1 Virgo absorber and estimate log N(H ) = 15.85 ±, which is 10 times more H I than in all of the other absorbers along the sight line combined. The Doppler width of this absorber, b ≈ 16 km s-1, implies T ≲ 15,000 K. We detect O VI absorption at 1015 km s-1 at the 2-3 σ level that may be associated with hot, X-ray-emitting gas in the Virgo Cluster. We detect weak C III and O VI absorption in the intergalactic medium at z = 0.12007; this absorber is predominantly ionized and has N(H+)/N(H I) ≥ 4000Z-1, where Z is the metallicity. Strong Galactic interstellar O VI is present between -100 and 100 km s-1, with an additional high-velocity wing containing about 13% of the total O VI between ~100 and ~240 km s-1. The Galactic O VI, N V, and C IV lines have similar shapes, with roughly constant ratios across the -100 to 100 km s-1 velocity range. The high-velocity O VI wing is not detected in other species. Much of the interstellar high ion absorption probably occurs within a highly fragmented medium within the Loop IV remnant or in the outer cavity walls of the remnant. Multiple hot gas production mechanisms are required. The broad O VI absorption wing likely traces the expulsion of hot gas out of the Galactic disk into the halo. A flux limit of 5.4 × 10-16 ergs cm-2 s-1 on the amount of diffuse O VI emission present ~3. ′5 off the 3C 273 sight line combined with the observed O VI column density toward 3C 273, log N(O VI) = 14.73 ± 0.04, implies ne ≲ 0.02 cm-3 and p/k ≲ 11,500 cm-3 K for an assumed temperature of 3 × 105 K. The elemental abundances in the neutral and weakly ionized interstellar clouds are similar to those found for other halo clouds. The warm neutral and warm ionized clouds along the sight line have similar dust-phase abundances, implying that the properties of the dust grains in the two types of clouds are similar. Interstellar H2 absorption is present at ≈16 km s-1 at a level of log N(H2) ~ 15.71 but does not trace the main column density concentration along the sight line observed in H I 21 cm emission.
Transfinite limits in topos theory

For a coherent site we construct a canonically associated enlarged coherent site, such that cohomology of bounded below complexes is preserved by the enlargement. In the topos associated to the enlarged site transfinite compositions of epimorphisms are epimorphisms and a weak analog of the concept of the algebraic closure exists. The construction is a variant of the work of Bhatt and Scholze on the pro-etale topology.
An Efficient Test Set Embedding Scheme with Reduced Test-data Storage and Test Sequence Length Requirements for Scan-based Testing

In this paper we present an efficient seed-selection algo-rithm for reducing the test-data storage requirements of scan-based, test set embedding schemes with reseeding. Moreover, a technique for reducing the length of the generated test sequences is introduced. This technique achieves significant savings with minor overhead (one extra bit per seed plus a small counter in the scheme’s control logic). Experimental results demonstrate the advantages of the proposed algorithm and the test sequence reduction technique.
The Saccharomyces cerevisiae ICL2 Gene Encodes a Mitochondrial 2-Methylisocitrate Lyase Involved in Propionyl-Coenzyme A Metabolism

ABSTRACT The Saccharomyces cerevisiae ICL1 gene encodes isocitrate lyase, an essential enzyme for growth on ethanol and acetate. Previous studies have demonstrated that the highly homologousICL2 gene (YPR006c) is transcribed during the growth of wild-type cells on ethanol. However, even when multiple copies are introduced, ICL2 cannot complement the growth defect oficl1 null mutants. It has therefore been suggested thatICL2 encodes a nonsense mRNA or nonfunctional protein. In the methylcitrate cycle of propionyl-coenzyme A metabolism, 2-methylisocitrate is converted to succinate and pyruvate, a reaction similar to that catalyzed by isocitrate lyase. To investigate whetherICL2 encodes a specific 2-methylisocitrate lyase, isocitrate lyase and 2-methylisocitrate lyase activities were assayed in cell extracts of wild-type S. cerevisiae and of isogenicicl1, icl2, and icl1 icl2 null mutants. Isocitrate lyase activity was absent in icl1 andicl1 icl2 null mutants, whereas in contrast, 2-methylisocitrate lyase activity was detected in the wild type and single icl mutants but not in the icl1 icl2mutant. This demonstrated that ICL2 encodes a specific 2-methylisocitrate lyase and that the ICL1-encoded isocitrate lyase exhibits a low but significant activity with 2-methylisocitrate. Subcellular fractionation studies and experiments with an ICL2-green fluorescent protein fusion demonstrated that theICL2-encoded 2-methylisocitrate lyase is located in the mitochondrial matrix. Similar to that of ICL1, transcription of ICL2 is subject to glucose catabolite repression. In glucose-limited cultures, growth with threonine as a nitrogen source resulted in a ca. threefold induction ofICL2 mRNA levels and of 2-methylisocitrate lyase activity in cell extracts relative to cultures grown with ammonia as the nitrogen source. This is consistent with an involvement of the 2-methylcitrate cycle in threonine catabolism.
Program specialization vs. program composition

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The Effects of a Forceful Transforaminal Epidural Steroid Injection on Radicular Pain: A Preliminary Study

Background Lumbar transforaminal epidural steroid injections (TFESIs) are performed to provide symptom relief in patients with radicular pain. Recent articles suggested that injected volume itself have analgesic effects and higher volumes are associated with better outcomes. To date, few studies have been conducted to investigate the effects of volume. Therefore, well-designed controlled studies were necessary to confirm the effect of volume itself on pain relief. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a forceful saline injection on lumbar TFESI using non-particulate steroids. Methods Fifty consecutive patients with lumbar radicular pain were enrolled. The participants were allocated into one of two groups: dexamethasone with volume (Group DV) and dexamethasone alone (Group DO). The volume was delivered by a forceful injection of 5ml of normal saline. The primary end-point for this study was a VAS pain score and modified MacNab score indicating the rate of effectiveness at the four-week follow-up. Results There were no significant post-procedural VAS differences between two groups (P = .252). The effectiveness rate among the patients was 47.8% in DV group, 34.8% in DO group, measured by modified MacNab score. The difference was not statistically significant (P = .117). Conclusions A forceful saline injection did not have a significant effect during the treatment of radicular pain. Further studies with greater volumes and with additional techniques would offer a more conclusive perspective.
Caught Between Personal and Collective Values: Biodiversity conservation in European decision-making

Individual decision-makers at different governance levels operate in social contexts, which means that they sometimes need to compromise their personal values. Yet, this dissonance is rarely the direct target of empirical analyses of environmental decision-making. We undertake a Q-analysis of decision-makers' personal perspectives and the perspectives they perceive to dominate in their decision-making contexts. Our empirical analysis addresses biodiversity conservation, which has traditionally been justified with intrinsic value- and science-based arguments. The arguments have recently been broadened with the concept of ecosystem services, highlighting human benefits and values. This evolving context is interesting because of the new rise of anthropocentric values, which can lead to decision-makers experiencing dissonance. Our analysis of interviews with 43 biodiversity conservation decision-makers from nine European countries reveals four personally held perspectives that highlight different, yet partly overlapping, values – intrinsic, human benefit, conservation and connection – as well as three perspectives perceived to dominate in decision-making – utilitarian, insurance and knowledge values. The comparison of personally held and perceived dominant perspectives points to one major conflict: those decision-makers who personally associate with intrinsic values and perceive utilitarian values to dominate in decision-making experience dissonance. By contrast, personally held human benefit values are accommodated well in decision-making contexts and decision-makers who perceive insurance values to dominate experience the least conflict with personally held values. These findings demonstrate the potential of arguments stressing long-term benefits for easing tension and conflicts in conservation decision-making, and the usefulness of empirically testing of the coincidence of individual and social values.
Towards a deeper integration of creative methods in counselling: some thoughts about frameworks for practice

ABSTRACT Creative methods in counselling are generally regarded as adjunctive techniques and procedures. In this paper I advocate for a deeper integration of creative methods within counselling and propose that one way forward would be to develop more inclusive frameworks for this practice. To this end, I consider some of the ways clinicians and theorists, particularly from the creative/expressive arts therapies, have sought to develop integrative approaches for imagination-based therapeutic practices. This overview also pays attention to attempts within talking therapies to develop more descriptive/functional models for the use of mental imagery that allow an integration across theoretical orientations. Some of the most relevant models and theoretical positions are then discussed in the light of their potential to inform frameworks for the use of creative methods in counselling.
Study on feature selection and machine learning algorithms for Malay sentiment classification

Online social media is used to show the sentiments of different individuals about various subjects. Sentiment analysis or opinion mining has recently been considered as one of the highly dynamic research fields in natural language processing, Web mining, and machine learning. There has been a very limited amount of research that focuses on sentiment analysis in the Malay language. This study investigates how feature selection methods contribute to the improvement of Malay sentiment classification performance. Three supervised machine-learning classifiers and seven feature selection methods are used to conduct a series of experiments for the effective selection of the appropriate methods for the automatic sentiment classification of online Malay-written reviews. Findings show that the classifications of Malay sentiment improve using feature selections approaches. This work demonstrates that all feature reduction methods generally improve classifier performance. Support Vector Machine (SVM) approach provide the highest accuracy performance of features selection in order to classify Malay sentiment comparing with other classifications approaches such as PCA and CHI square. SVM records 87% as experimental accuracy result of feature selection.
Phase recognition during surgical procedures using embedded and body-worn sensors

In Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp) research, substantial work has been directed towards sensor-based detection and recognition of human activity. This research has, however, mainly been focused on activities of daily living of a single person. This paper presents a sensor platform and a machine learning approach to sense and detect phases of a surgical operation. Automatic detection of the progress of work inside an operating room has several important applications, including coordination, patient safety, and context-aware information retrieval. We verify the platform during a surgical simulation. Recognition of the main phases of an operation was done with a high degree of accuracy. Through further analysis, we were able to reveal which sensors provide the most significant input. This can be used in subsequent design of systems for use during real surgeries.
Between the local and the global: An analysis of economic tensions in cooperatives’ practices

Cooperatives help meet critical livelihood needs worldwide. This article seeks to provide an understanding of the potential of cooperatives to promote economic and social objectives by illuminating the tensions that cooperatives face at the nexus of local and global forces. To achieve this goal, this article draws on data from an 8-month qualitative case study of two coffee cooperatives in southern Costa Rica and focuses on the tensions experienced by the cooperatives in the economic realm. The research suggests that these tensions actually further the cooperatives’ economic objectives and are necessary for the cooperatives’ flourishing and growth.
Extracting biology from high-dimensional biological data

SUMMARY The promise of the genome project was that a complete sequence would provide us with information that would transform biology and medicine. But the `parts list' that has emerged from the genome project is far from the `wiring diagram' and `circuit logic' we need to understand the link between genotype, environment and phenotype. While genomic technologies such as DNA microarrays, proteomics and metabolomics have given us new tools and new sources of data to address these problems, a number of crucial elements remain to be addressed before we can begin to close the loop and develop a predictive quantitative biology that is the stated goal of so much of current biological research, including systems biology. Our approach to this problem has largely been one of integration, bringing together a vast wealth of information to better interpret the experimental data we are generating in genomic assays and creating publicly available databases and software tools to facilitate the work of others. Recently, we have used a similar approach to trying to understand the biological networks that underlie the phenotypic responses we observe and starting us on the road to developing a predictive biology.
Supervisory Fuzzy Control for 5 DOF Robot Arm

— Controlling robot manipulators is challenging due to their nonlinearity nature. PID control is still the benchmark control in industry due to its simplicity. Nonlinear control techniques are very complex and are not attractive. However, fuzzy control is more attractive and provides good performance. This paper p combines fuzzy control with PID control to produce supervisory fuzzy PID controller for a 5DOF robot arm system. This proposed control works online to give better performance Simulation results using MATLAB/SIMULINK shows better results.
The NAS Parallel Benchmarks in Titanium

Titanium is an explicitly parallel dialect of JavaTM designed for high-performance scientific programming. It offers object-orientation, strong typing, and safe memory management in the context of a language that supports high performance and scalable parallelism. We present an overview of the language features and demonstrate their use in the context of the NAS Parallel Benchmarks, a benchmark suite of common scientific kernels. We argue that parallel languages like Titanium provide greater expressive power than conventional approaches, thereby enabling more concise and expressive code and minimizing time to solution. Moreover, the Titanium implementations of three of the NAS Parallel Benchmarks can match or even exceed the performance of the standard Fortran/MPI implementations at realistic problem sizes and processor scales, while still using far cleaner, shorter and more maintainable code.
Using Heuristic Evaluation to Foster Visualization Analysis and Design Skills

In an effort to develop visualization analysis and design skills in master's level information visualization students, the authors use a well-known analytical usability evaluation method, heuristic evaluation, with different sets of heuristics to teach students to analyze visualization applications. The proposed approach, used for three consecutive years, has successfully stimulated critical analysis and discussion sessions as well as helped raise students' awareness concerning the benefit of using systematic analysis methods and the strategies and guidelines that should be used to design visualization applications.
Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Urban Space Utilization with Renewable Wireless Sensor Network

Space utilization are important elements for a smart city to determine how well public space are being utilized. Such information could also provide valuable feedback to the urban developer on what are the factors that impact space utilization. The spatial and temporal information for space utilization can be studied and further analyzed to generate insights about that particular space. In our research context, these elements are translated to part of big data and Internet of things (IoT) to eliminate the need of on site investigation. However, there are a number of challenges for large scale deployment, eg. hardware cost, computation capability, communication bandwidth, scalability, data fragmentation, and resident privacy etc. In this paper, we designed and prototype a Renewable Wireless Sensor Network (RWSN), which addressed the aforementioned challenges. Finally, analyzed results based on initial data collected is presented.
Image Retrieval using Bipartite Reiterative Algorithm

Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) depends on the visual content of an image for obtaining similar images. Research on CBIR faces a challenge of semantic gap between low level features and high level visual content. The optimal solution must reduce the computational complexity and computational time in retrieval process. Relevance Feedback is a solution to reduce the semantic gap. A new framework for content based image retrieval is proposed which is Bipartite Reiterative algorithm. This gives an approach of iteration to relevance feedback mechanism. It consists of two levels which are basic retrieval scheme and reiterative feedback scheme. Positive images are obtained from the user as part of the basic retrieval scheme. New feedback algorithm is developed based on weights assigned to visual attributes. The weights are inversely proportional to the visual attribute distance between query image and the positive images given by the user. Iterative feedback query can be performed after the user feedback. The query will be progressed according to the user feedback. The algorithm reduces the computational complexity and computational time in image retrieval.
Simultaneous effects of inflectional paradigms and classes in processing of Serbian verbs

In this paper we show that the processing of inflected verb forms is simultaneously influenced by the distributional properties of their inflectional paradigm (all the inflected forms of the given verb) and also by their inflectional class (all the verbs that conjugate in the same manner). Thus, we generalize a finding that was previously observed with nouns. We demonstrate that a divergence of the frequency distribution within inflectional paradigm from the frequency distribution within inflectional class (operationalized as Relative entropy between the two frequency distributions) is detrimental to processing. We present the results of a visual lexical decision experiment and the results of a simulation that was ran in the Naive Discriminative Reader, a simple computational model based on basic learning principles. We show that Relative entropy between an inflectional paradigm and an inflectional class predicts both empirically observed and simulated processing latencies. By doing so, we add to the body of research that investigates processing effects of information theory based descriptions of language. We also demonstrate that the effect of Relative entropy on the processing of morphology can arise as a consequence of the principles of discriminative learning in a system that maps input cues to outcomes, with no specification of morphology per se.