Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Imaging Parameter Thresholds on MRI Prediction of Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Response in Breast Cancer Subtypes

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the predictive performance of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) markers in breast cancer patients by subtype. Sixty-four patients with locally advanced breast cancer undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy were enrolled in this study. Each patient received a dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE-MRI) at baseline, after 1 cycle of chemotherapy and before surgery. Functional tumor volume (FTV), the imaging marker measured by DCE-MRI, was computed at various thresholds of percent enhancement (PEt) and signal-enhancement ratio (SERt). Final FTV before surgery and percent changes of FTVs at the early and final treatment time points were used to predict patients’ recurrence-free survival. The full cohort and each subtype defined by the status of hormone receptor and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HR+/HER2-, HER2+, triple negative) were analyzed. Predictions were evaluated using the Cox proportional hazard model when PEt changed from 30% to 200% in steps of 10% and SERt changed from 0 to 2 in steps of 0.2. Predictions with high hazard ratios and low p-values were considered as strong. Different profiles of FTV as predictors for recurrence-free survival were observed in each breast cancer subtype and strong associations with survival were observed at different PEt/SERt combinations that resulted in different FTVs. Findings from this retrospective study suggest that the predictive performance of imaging markers based on FTV may be improved with enhancement thresholds being optimized separately for clinically-relevant subtypes defined by HR and HER2 receptor expression.
Minimizing the Number of Edges via Edge Concentration in Dense Layered Graphs

Edge concentration in dense bipartite graphs is a technique for reducing the numbers of edges and edge crossings in graph drawings. The conventional method proposed by Newbery is designed to reduce the number of edge crossings; however, it does not always reduce the number of edges. Reducing the number of edges is also an important factor for improving the readability of graphs. However, no edge concentration method with the explicit purpose of minimizing the number of edges has previously been studied. In this study, we propose a novel, efficient heuristic method for minimizing the number of edges during edge concentration. We demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method via a comparison using randomly generated graphs. We find that Newbery's method fails to reduce the number of edges when the number of vertices is large. By contrast, the proposed method achieves an average compression ratio of 47 to 82 percent for all generated graph groups. We also present a real-world application of the proposed method using a causality network of biological data.
Two high-rate space-time codes for three and four transmit antennas with good diversity-multiplexing tradeoffs

In this work, we present two high-rate quasi-orthogonal space-time coding (STC) schemes for three and four transmit antennas which are designed in conjunction with the serial interference cancellation (SIC) based receiver. The symbols of the proposed STCs are of judiciously designed diversity order which can be effectively exploited by the SIC based receiver to cancel interference as well as to obtain diversity gain. The proposed STC schemes' amicable quasi-orthogonal structures lend themselves to efficient low-complexity linear decoding. Simulation results show that the proposed STC schemes achieve better diversity-multiplexing tradeoffs than the existing conventional schemes.
Size‐related life history traits: insights from a study of snow petrels (Pagodroma nivea)

Summary 1. Body size is commonly tied to major life history traits in many animals. The main problem with studies on this topic is that the range of body sizes within species is generally too small to produce enough variation in traits for quantitative analysis. The snow petrel shows considerable differences in body size with structural body size varying by ≈ 1·6-fold. This high variability in size provides a good opportunity for examining how life history traits are related to body size intraspecifically. 2. We studied the breeding phenology, foraging parameters and chick growth in relation to body size in two populations of snow petrel in Antarctica. We also investigated the relationship between body size and distance separating colony from the edge of the pack ice using morphometric data from 16 breeding stations. 3. The largest snow petrels laid eggs ≈ 2-fold larger and hatched hatchlings ≈ 1·9-fold heavier than smallest ones. During the chick rearing period the smallest adults made longer foraging trips (≈ 70 h) and fed their chick less frequently than the largest ones (≈ 40 h). Meal size was positively related to adult body size. 4. Chicks raised by large parents grew more rapidly, reached higher peak mass and asymptotic size than chicks raised by small parents. Chick body size at fledging was correlated to the size of their biological parents. A sample of 20 chicks from parents that differed in body size were swapped. Body size of swapped chicks at fledging was not correlated to their foster parent size. Swapped chicks tended to resemble their biological parents in size but no significant relationship was found. 5. These results provide evidence of intraspecific variability in several ecological variables and life history traits linked to body size. The difference in foraging trip duration between large and small birds was not only because of a lower flight speed or a higher metabolic rate per mass unit of smaller birds and suggests that small birds had lower feeding efficiency or fed on more distant areas. This was reinforced at the population level by a negative correlation obtained between body size and distance between colony and the edge of the pack ice for 16 breeding stations. 6. The results suggest that body size is probably in the main genetically determined but that there is a significant environmental component in fledgling body size.
Method of diagnostics of the state of rolling element bearing on the basis of the theory of active perception

In this work the vibration-based diagnostics method of the state of rolling element bearing on the basis of the theory of active perception is considered. The experimental researches of the method are conducted according to the data presented by Case Western Reserve University Bearing Data Center. According to the research, it is possible to conclude that the proposed method provides a high precision of the state classification of the rolling element bearing by vibration signal.
Data mining: A tool for detecting cyclical disturbances in supply networks

Abstract Disturbances in supply chains may be either exogenous or endogenous. The ability automatically to detect, diagnose, and distinguish between the causes of disturbances is of prime importance to decision makers in order to avoid uncertainty. The spectral principal component analysis (SPCA) technique has been utilized to distinguish between real and rogue disturbances in a steel supply network. The data set used was collected from four different business units in the network and consists of 43 variables; each is described by 72 data points. The present paper will utilize the same data set to test an alternative approach to SPCA in detecting the disturbances. The new approach employs statistical data pre-processing, clustering, and classification learning techniques to analyse the supply network data. In particular, the incremental k-means clustering and the RULES-6 classification rule-learning algorithms, developed by the present authors' team, have been applied to identify important patterns in the data set. Results show that the proposed approach has the capability automatically to detect and characterize network-wide cyclical disturbances and generate hypotheses about their root cause.
Three Essays on Short Sales

This thesis consists of three essays. The first essay (thesis chapter two) examines the relationship between short sales and governance. A contribution is made to the literature on short sales by providing evidence that the level of shorting is reversely linked to the overall quality of the corporate governance of a firm and that sellers react contemporaneously to changes in such governance. Short traders may also be able to forecast changes in corporate governance and adjust their portfolios asymmetrically prior to the said changes, with a pronounced increase in short positions for actual and anticipated negative events and a more subdued repurchase of shorted stock for positive expectations. The second essay (thesis chapter three) introduces a new taxonomy that classifies short-sales constraints into tangible and intangible categories. It includes the development of a theoretical framework relating overpricing and implementation drag to empirically estimate the four tangible constraints. The literature underestimates these constraints with taxes representing the largest drag on short-selling, followed by direct trading costs, the lending fee and dividend repayments. The commonly used lending fee is a poor proxy for short-selling constraints both in magnitude and variance. Overpricing generally exceeds the implementation drag from tangible short-sales constraints except during periods of rapid price contraction. The third essay (thesis chapter four) extends the overvaluation model based on heterogeneous expectations and short-sales constraints. Seven intangible restrictions are identified and their effect is empirically assessed using two measures of mispricing; absolute and relative. The recall risk, search frictions and investor sentiment increase mispricing while institutional ownership and the existence of options reduce it. Firm-based restrictive tactics initially increase overpricing but signal to the market that the stock is under selling pressure. Since such tactics are rarely effective, firm-bullying becomes negatively related to mispricing. Short-sellers should limit their holding period to a minimum as the monthly-equivalent short returns decline with longer trades and they would benefit by concentrating on firms that are smaller in size, relatively poorly managed with lower institutional ownership, higher systematic risk, no options, higher price-earnings multiples and lower market-to-book ratios.
Business Models: A New Perspective on Knowledge-Intensive Services in the Software Industry

Firms’ specialization to core competencies as a response to intensive competition in technology and knowledge-intensive industries, such as software industry, emphasize network-intensive business behavior and the importance of utilizing resources beyond company boundaries. In recent years, outsourcing of services, including knowledgeintensive services (KIS), have attracted increasing attention in the research literature. However, KIS have not been sufficiently analyzed in connection with different types of business models. Taking theories of interorganizational exchange, including industrial network approach and the transaction cost theory as our basis, we analyze key knowledge-intensive services in four different types of business models of software companies. In our empirical analysis, we identify that the role and type of KIS vary systematically by business model-types.
Trust and Its Challenges Facing E-Government Programs in Kenya

Kenya's public sector is at a crossroads today in facing the challenges of institutional change and the impact of new technologies. The public sector can, and will play a much stronger role in implementing all the government plans. The emerging ICT technology can create solid improvement in offering better services to all nations. This can enable the citizens of the countries to access e-services from the governments based on their trust to the systems. In Kenya things have not been as planned as majority of the people don't trust e-government services. There are many challenges facing its implementation which now remains as a dream, despite the government efforts. The paper raises a lot of concern especially on the trust of the citizens to e-government services being offered and the ICT awareness of the citizens too. The work highlights what the government has done to address the issue. The proposed solutions will help as e-government, and ICT investment has consumed a huge part of the national budget in recent years. The paper addresses how trust influences the change of attitude towards government by employees and the citizens.
Nonstandard Work Substandard Jobs: Flexible Work Arrangements in the U. S.

Nonstandard work arrangements (independent contracting, working for a temporary help agency, contract or on-call work, day labor, self-employment, and regular part-time employment) are growing more common in the United States. In 1995, more than 29 percent of all jobs were in nonstandard work arrangements. A study of these jobs and the characteristics of the workers who hold them was conducted through analysis of the 1995 Current Population Survey. The study found that nonstandard workers are disadvantaged by their work arrangement and the preponderance of low-quality jobs because they are more likely than regular full-time workers to be employed in low-quality jobs. In addition to paying lower wages, all types of nonstandard nobs are much less likely to provide health insurance or a pension than is regular full-time employment, are more likely to be of limited duration, and are poor ways to move to regular full-time employment, at least within a particular firm. More women than men, and both genders in minority groups, are more likely to hold low-quality, nonstandard jobs. The study concluded that public policies are needed to improve job quality and provide greater workplace protection for workers in nonstandard work arrangements. (Contains 21 references.) (KC) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ******************************************************************************** Nonstandard Work, Substandard Jobs Flexible Work Arrangements in the U.S. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educahonal Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION /CENTER (ERIC) his document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. 0 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. Arne L. Kalleberg Edith Rasell Naomi Cassirer Barbara F. Reskin Ken Hudson David Webster Eileen Appelbaum Roberta M. Spalter-Roth 4 PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY
0 30 90 83 v 1 1 7 Se p 20 03 Asymptotic Regimes of Magnetic Bianchi Cosmologies

We consider the asymptotic dynamics of the EinsteinMaxwell field equations for the class of non-tilted Bianchi cosmologies with a barotropic perfect fluid and a pure homogeneous sourcefree magnetic field, with emphasis on models of Bianchi type VII0, which have not been previously studied. Using the orthonormal frame formalism and Hubble-normalized variables, we show that, as is the case for the previously studied class A magnetic Bianchi models, the magnetic Bianchi VII0 cosmologies also exhibit an oscillatory approach to the initial singularity. However, in contrast to the other magnetic Bianchi models, we rigorously establish that typical magnetic Bianchi VII0 cosmologies exhibit the phenomena of asymptotic self-similarity breaking and Weyl curvature dominance in the late-time regime.
An outer bound on the storage-bandwidth tradeoff of exact-repair regenerating codes and its asymptotic optimality in high rates

The storage-bandwidth tradeoff of linear and exact-repair regenerating codes is considered. An outer bound on the storage-bandwidth tradeoff is proposed for arbitrary (n, k, d) case. n, k, and d denote typical code parameters of regenerating codes. The proposed outer bound becomes tighter than other existing outer bounds as k gets closer to n. In addition, for the case of d = n - 1, it is shown that the proposed outer bound asymptotically meets the inner bound proposed by Tian et al., which implies the proposed bound converges to the optimal storage-bandwidth tradeoff of exact-repair linear regenerating codes in high rates (k/n ≅ 1).
An Environment for Design Software and Hardware Aspects of Clock Synchronization and Communication in DRTES

Complexity in Distributed Real time Embedded Systems (DRTES) is rising due to richer functionality that is enabled by more powerful hardware. Component-Based Software Engineering (CBSE) and Model Driven Engineering (MDE) help to capture several facets of this complexity. With these two approaches, we build on two main currents in embedded systems research: synchronization and communication. In this paper, we propose a DRTES meta-model to deal with software and hardware aspects of synchronization and communication at a model level. The elements of this meta-model will be used to describe software and hardware specifications and requirements using component as a first class artifact to build such systems. Each component type (generic component) has several instances and multiple views, principally software or hardware one with specific links. The link offers an interface to choose the map between a software and a hardware component at an even greater level using UML profiles derived from DRTES meta-model. This is to allow an automatic exploration at component instance level via Model Driven Engineering. As a proof of concept we examine a test case that has software and hardware synchronization and communication requirements: a GPS.
A Novel Image Quality Assessment With Globally and Locally Consilient Visual Quality Perception

Computational models for image quality assessment (IQA) have been developed by exploring effective features that are consistent with the characteristics of a human visual system (HVS) for visual quality perception. In this paper, we first reveal that many existing features used in computational IQA methods can hardly characterize visual quality perception for local image characteristics and various distortion types. To solve this problem, we propose a new IQA method, called the structural contrast-quality index (SC-QI), by adopting a structural contrast index (SCI), which can well characterize local and global visual quality perceptions for various image characteristics with structural-distortion types. In addition to SCI, we devise some other perceptually important features for our SC-QI that can effectively reflect the characteristics of HVS for contrast sensitivity and chrominance component variation. Furthermore, we develop a modified SC-QI, called structural contrast distortion metric (SC-DM), which inherits desirable mathematical properties of valid distance metricability and quasi-convexity. So, it can effectively be used as a distance metric for image quality optimization problems. Extensive experimental results show that both SC-QI and SC-DM can very well characterize the HVS's properties of visual quality perception for local image characteristics and various distortion types, which is a distinctive merit of our methods compared with other IQA methods. As a result, both SC-QI and SC-DM have better performances with a strong consilience of global and local visual quality perception as well as with much lower computation complexity, compared with the state-of-the-art IQA methods. The MATLAB source codes of the proposed SC-QI and SC-DM are publicly available online at https://sites.google. com/site/sunghobaecv/iqa.
Autonomous Robot Manipulation in Uncertain Human Environments using Purely Haptic Feedback

This work aims at the development of a general algorithm to operate mechanically constrained devices like drawers or doors. Almost no assumptions are made on the form of the device and no perception is used to acquire information about it. Our approach is based on an estimation of the movement direction which is fed into an admittance controller which provides the compliance needed. The direction estimation is obtained from the velocity signal in task space. An adaptation of the admittance parameter according to the actual moving direction keeps the internal forces small. In addition an intelligent behavior of the mobile base is proposed to accommodate for the universal arm control approach. The algorithm is implemented successfully on a mobile manipulator. Zusammenfassung Das Ziel dieser Arbeit ist die Entwicklung eines allgemeinen Algorithmus zur Betätigung von mechanisch eingeschränkten Vorrichtungen, wie z.B. Schubladen, Türen oder Kurbeln. Es werden keine Annahmen über die Art der Vorrichtung gemacht und es wird keine Perzeption angewendet um Informationen darüber zu erhalten. Unser Ansatz basiert auf einer Schätzung der Bewegungsrichtung die dann einer Admittanzregelung, welche die nötige Nachgiebigkeit sicherstellt, zugeführt wird. Die Richtungsschätzung wird aus dem Geschwindigkeitssignal im Arbeitsraum ermittelt. Eine Adaptierung der Admittanzparameter bezüglich der aktuellen Bewegungsrichtung hält die internen Kräfte klein. Zusätzlich wird ein intelligentes Verhalten der mobilen Basis vorgeschlagen welches dem universellen Ansatz der Armregelung Rechnung trägt. Der Algorithmus wurde erfolgreich auf einem mobilen Manipulator implementiert.
Facial emotion recognition method based on Pyramid Histogram of Oriented Gradient over three direction of head

Today Human Computer Interaction (HCI) is one of the most important topics in machine vision and image processing fields. Through features can get beneficial information about the variety of emotions and gestures which are produced by the movements of facial major parts. In this paper we presented the technique of Pyramid Histogram of Oriented Gradient for feature extraction and compare it with gabor filters. Six basic facial expressions plus the neutral pose are considered in the evaluations. The KNN and SVM techniques are used in the classification phase. Unlike most emotion detection approaches that focus on frontal face view this method concentrates on three views of the face and can easily be generalized to other poses and feelings. We have tested our algorithm on the Radboud faces database (RaFD) over three directions of head (frontal, 45 degree to the right and 45 degree to the left). Cohn-Kanade (CK+) and JAFFE are two other databases used in this work. The experiments using the proposed method demonstrate favorable results. In the best condition by using Pyramid Histogram Of Oriented Gradient plus KNN classification, the success rates were 100, 96.7, 98.1, 98.3 and 98.9 % for RaFD (frontal pose), RaFD (45 degree to the right), RaFD (45 degree to the left), JAFFE and CK+ databases respectively.
A component-based reference model for web-based systems

Short time-to-market is an important requirement for developing web-based systems. Software architecture plays a critical role for time-to-market objective to be satisfied since it forms a blueprint for the system structure, indicating the principle loci of later activities such as detailed design and implementation. In particular, we need a novel way for system decomposition to achieve reduced complexity, encapsulated change, and maximized reuse possibility. In this paper we address these problems by separation of concerns, applying patterns, and forming components. We firstly present a component-based reference model for web-based systems. The main interest here is to capture early design decisions associated with short time-to-market concern and provide guidelines for system decomposition and architecture construction. We then discuss issues concerning component development within the reference model. Three component patterns are identified to achieve flexible and efficient reuse.