Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DEHAZING USING THE NEAR-INFRARED

In landscape photography, distant objects often appear blurred with a blue color cast, a degradation caused by atmospheric haze. To enhance image contrast, pleasantness and information content, dehazing can be performed. We propose that fusing a visible and an near-infrared (NIR) image of the same scene results in a dehazed color image without the need for haze or airlight detection or the generation of depth maps. This is achieved through a multiresolution approach using edge-preserving filtering to minimize artifacts. The near-infrared part of the spectrum is easy to acquire with normal digital cameras. The NIR images are generally devoid of haze as it is an inherent function of the wavelengths. Experiments on real images validate our approach.
A wind generator system with an integrated boost converter

This paper presents a wind generator system with an integrated boost converter. With the proposed concept, the phase inductances of the generator can effectively be used as the boost inductor, eliminating the need for a separate inductor that is used in conventional wind turbine systems. Two topologies that allow for the use of phase inductances as the boost inductor are presented. The performance of the proposed generator system is evaluated using a novel SmartBlade wind turbine, which consists of extendible blades and a custom made PM generator. Simulations and experimental evidence of a 1.5 kW prototype system are presented to demonstrate the viability of the proposed concept, which would be attractive for small scale wind turbine systems.
Large Shareholders and Firm Value: Interaction between Power and Incentive to Expropriate

This study examines the relationship between large shareholders and firm value and how this relation varies with the large shareholders’ power and incentive to expropriate a firm’s wealth. We find this relation is U shaped with the turning point at around 45% and 65% for the largest shareholders and total blockholders, respectively. The higher the power (or higher control right) means the more the expropriation or lower firm value. However, in firms with controlling blockholders (beyond 50% control right approximately), blockholders have enough power to manipulate firm’s activities but their incentive to expropriate decreases due to private benefits being lower. This study also finds that firms in high investor protection countries are associated with higher values than those in low investor protection countries for any blockholding level, but the difference in firm value between weak investor protection countries and strong investor protection countries is highest when expropriation by blockholders is largest.
Short echo time single voxel 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy in the diagnosis and characterisation of pineal tumours in children

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) has been successful in characterising a range of brain tumours and is a useful aid to non‐invasive diagnosis. The pineal region poses considerable surgical challenges and a major surgical resection is not required in the management of all tumours. Improved non‐invasive assessment of pineal region tumours would be of considerable benefit.
New pharmacotherapy options for multiple myeloma

ABSTRACT Introduction: Novel agents and the availability of autologous stem-cell transplantation have revolutionized the treatment of patients with multiple myeloma. First-generation novel agents namely thalidomide, lenalidomide, and bortezomib have significantly improved response and survival of patients. Second-generation novel agents such as pomalidomide, carfilzomib, and monoclonal antibodies are being tested both in the newly diagnosed and relapse settings, and results are promising. Areas covered: In this review article, the main results derived from Phase III trials with thalidomide, lenalidomide, and bortezomib for the treatment of myeloma patients, both at diagnosis and at relapse, are summarized. Data about second-generation novel agents such as pomalidomide and carfilzomib are also reported. Newer effective drugs currently under investigation and the promising results with monoclonal antibodies are described. Expert opinion: The availability of new effective drugs has considerably increased the treatment options for myeloma patients. A sequential approach including induction, transplantation (when possible), consolidation, and maintenance is an optimal strategy to achieve disease control and prolong survival. Despite these improvements, the best combination, the optimal sequence, and the proper target of newer drugs need to be defined.
Extended‐release niacin decreases serum fetuin‐A concentrations in individuals with metabolic syndrome

Fetuin‐A, a liver‐secreted phosphoprotein and physiological inhibitor of insulin receptor tyrosine kinase, is associated with insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome (MetS), and an increased risk for type 2 diabetes. However, studies on the modulation of circulating levels of fetuin‐A are limited. The goal of this study was to determine the effect of niacin administration on serum total‐ and phosphorylated fetuin‐A (phosphofetuin‐A) concentrations in individuals with MetS and correlate with changes in serum lipids, insulin sensitivity, and markers of inflammation.
Structural basis for specificity of papain‐like cysteine protease proregions toward their cognate enzymes

Synthetic peptides corresponding to the proregions of papain‐like cysteine proteases have been shown to be good and selective inhibitors of their parental enzymes. The molecular basis for their selectivity, quite remarkable in some cases, is not fully understood. The recent determination of the crystal structures of three distinct papain‐like cysteine protease zymogens allows detailed structural comparisons to be made. The reasons for the specificity shown by each proregion toward its cognate enzyme are explained in terms of the three‐dimensional structure of the proregion and the interface between the mature enzyme and the proregion. These comparisons reveal that insertion and substitution of amino acids within the proregion cause major rearrangement of sidechains on the enzyme/proregion interface, allowing detailed surface and charge recognition. Proteins 32:504–514, 1998. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
3D Regular Expressions - Searching Shapes IN Meshes The development of an algorithm to identify recurring geometries

We have grown accustomed to performing elaborate queries on textual data, e.g. via online search engines, file system managers and word processors. In the past decade, retrieval methods that also work on non-textual data have become mainstream (e.g. face recognition software). Sadly, these developments have so far not caught on for data mining within geometrical data, e.g. 3D meshes generated in the course of architectural work. Specifically during data exchange, such a search functionality would be handy, as it often happens that geometry is exported but object identity is lost - think, for example, of generative geometry or exported BIM data. In this paper, we present an example of such a search functionality, based on angular search. Our method is inspired by regular expressions, a string matching technique commonly employed for matching substrings.
A platform for brain-wide imaging and reconstruction of individual neurons

The structure of axonal arbors controls how signals from individual neurons are routed within the mammalian brain. However, the arbors of very few long-range projection neurons have been reconstructed in their entirety, as axons with diameters as small as 100 nm arborize in target regions dispersed over many millimeters of tissue. We introduce a platform for high-resolution, three-dimensional fluorescence imaging of complete tissue volumes that enables the visualization and reconstruction of long-range axonal arbors. This platform relies on a high-speed two-photon microscope integrated with a tissue vibratome and a suite of computational tools for large-scale image data. We demonstrate the power of this approach by reconstructing the axonal arbors of multiple neurons in the motor cortex across a single mouse brain. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.10566. 001
Cultivating Resilience: A Plan to Build Resilience in a Low-Income, American Public School

This paper describes both the theoretical underpinnings and an action plan for building resilience as requested by teachers in a diverse, low-income public high school in Patterson, New Jersey, United States. The authors define and describe widely agreed upon protective factors of resilience, and further operationalize the components into a set of activities for both teachers and students to engage toward increasing resilience. A three-stage learning process is presented for teachers to learn and embed the constructs in their own lives, as well as share with the students. A detailed “learning journey” is appended to describe in detail the specific evidence-based activities intended to target a critical subset of three protective factors: connection, optimism, and self-efficacy. A measurement plan is also provided to assess growth in both students and faculty.
Single-Phase Flow and Heat Transport and Pumping Considerations in Microchannel Heat Sinks

Microchannel heat sinks are widely regarded as being among the most effective heat removal techniques from space-constrained electronic devices. However, the fluid flow and heat transfer in microchannels is not fully understood. The pumping requirements for flow through microchannels are also very high, and none of the micropumps in the literature is truly suitable for this application. Results are reported from a wide-ranging research program being conducted on microchannel heat sinks and micropumps to understand fluid flow and heat transfer in microchannels and to identify pumping requirements and suitable mechanisms for pumping in microchannels. In particular, experiments have been performed to show that conventional correlations for fluid flow and heat transfer adequately predict the behavior in microchannels of hydraulic diameters as small as 250 μ m. Pumping requirements of microchannel heat sinks have been analyzed, and the size of the microchannels have been optimized for minimum pumping requirements. Results are also provided from a comprehensive review of micropumping technologies in the literature.
Brain Painting Version 2 - evaluation with healthy end-users

Brain Painting is an application for a brain-computer-interface (BCI) that allows for painting using the brain activity generated by event related potentials (ERPs) in response to maintained attention on visual stimulations. Considering feedback from the extended use of Brain Painting V1 at home by two locked-in patients, we developed a new version of Brain Painting including auto-calibration, new painting features, and a tutorial video explaining its functions. This new version was tested with 10 healthy participants. Results ascertained that the tutorial video is sufficient for BCI Brain Painting novices to perform the subsequent Brain Painting session. Copy Painting was achieved with 94% accuracy and subjects used the application for on average 51 minutes in the free painting mode after termination of copy painting. Feedback from healthy subjects will help us to refine the application before bringing it to the two end-users in the locked-in state.
Predicting Random Effects from a Finite Population of Unequal Size Clusters based on Two-Stage Sampling

Prediction of random effects is an important problem with expanding applications. In the simplest context, the problem corresponds to prediction of the latent value (the mean) of a realized cluster selected via two-stage sampling. Best linear unbiased predictors developed from mixed models are widely used, but their development requires distributional assumptions or an infinite population framework. When the number and size of clusters is finite, super population models have been used to predict the contribution of the unobserved units to a realized cluster mean. Recently, predictors developed from a two-stage sampling model have been shown to out-perform the modelbased predictors. However, the random permutation model underlying these predictors is limited to settings where cluster sizes and sample sizes per cluster are equal. We present a new two-stage sampling model that can be used when cluster sizes and sample sizes per cluster differ. The model expands the set of random variables from the two-stage sampling model to accommodate the different size clusters. The resulting best linear unbiased predictor out performs any of the competing predictors, even when clusters and sample sizes per cluster are equal. The reduction in expected mean squared error relative to predictors developed under mixed model or super population model assumptions is likely due to the specificity of the expanded random permutation model to the problem. This suggests faithfully capturing the stochastic aspects of a problem is more important than simplifying assumptions in developing optimal solutions. Many other problems may be amenable to improved solutions based on extension of this approach. C07ed30.doc 11/29/2007 1:31 PM ii Contact Address: Edward J. Stanek III Department of Public Health 401 Arnold House University of Massachusetts at Amherst Amherst, Ma. 01002 Phone: 413-545-3812 Fax: 413-545-1645 Email: stanek@schoolph.umass. edu
Respiratory Muscle Aids in the Management of Neuromuscular Respiratory Impairment to Prevent Respiratory Failure and Need for Tracheostomy

Respiratory impairment results from primary disease of the lungs / airways or from impairment of the respiratory muscles. The proper identification of the respiratory impairment allows for proper management to decrease morbidity and mortality. Patients with neuromuscular impairment typically have hypoventilation or ventilator insufficiency/failure resulting in hypercapnia, hypoxia and an ineffective cough. In contrast, lung and airway diseases are characterized by hypoxia with eucapnia or hypocapnia, which often occur during an exacerbation resulting in acute respiratory failure (ARF). Often physicians evaluate and treat both as respiratory insufficiency/failure.
Desain Strategi Pengelolaan Green Campus Pada Universitas Pattimura

Environment, especially in urban areas or places where people do their activities need to kept safe and comfortable for the survival of people who move in it. The Pattimura University campus which currently holds about 20.444 students requires environment that remain comfortable and beautiful to be occupied by academicians, educators and students. Green Campus strategies should be developed by analyzing the factors that influence both internal and external. By using SWOT analysis, results of the research show that the index factor was 0.51 strengths and weaknesses, and opportunities and threats factor index is 0.68, which means that this university in aggressive position: strengths can eliminate weaknesses and opportunities will minimize the threat. Determining the optimal strategy is calculated by using QSPM. S- O strategy is to create an academic community participation and education personnel organized through the green campus-based activities with TAS value = 6,32. W-O strategy is green campus of the application of the policy through media relations and NGOs with TAS value = 6,58. S-T strategy is to make rules and guidelines for the campus management with the concept of a green campus, TAS value = 6,31. W-T strategy is carry out research on the campus environmentally sustainable with TAS value = 6,11.
Resilient internetwork routing over heterogeneous mobile military networks

Mobile networks in the military tactical domain, include a range of radio networks with very diverse characteristics and which may be employed differently from operation to operation. When interconnecting networks with dissimilar characteristics (e.g. capacity, range, mobility) a difficult trade-off is to fully utilize the diverse network characteristics while minimizing the cost. To support the ever increasing requirements for future operations it is necessary to provide tools to quickly alter the rule-set during an ongoing operation, due to a change in operation and/or to support different needs. Our contribution is a routing protocol which targets these challenges. We propose an architecture to connect networks with different characteristics. One key point is that low capacity links/networks segments can be included in the heterogeneous network, these segments are protected from overload by controlling where and when signaling/data traffic is sent. The protocol supports traffic policing, including resource reservation. The other key point is the ability to quickly alter the network policy (rules-set) including QoS support during an operation or from operation to operation.
Heuristic selection of training sentences from historical TV guide for semi-supervised LM adaptation

This paper describes a novel approach to the automatic selection of training sentences from a system-generated data feed for the development of high-precision language models (LMs) required for speech-enabled voice interface applications in the TV search domain. We develop a set of heuristic rules to select training sentences directly from the TV electronic programming guide (EPG) in their metadata form. The training corpus constructed using the selection algorithms encoded with the historical EPG data enables the adapted LMs to have a considerably lower perplexity while achieving a significant reduction in word error rate (WER). When evaluated using the user-generated spoken queries to an experimental TV search application, a 10% absolute reduction of WER is reported over the baseline LMs created without using the training sentences generated from the historical EPG data.
Finding perceived pattern structures using genetic programming

Structural information theory (SIT) deals with the perceptual organization, often called the 'gestalt' structure, of visual patterns. Based on a set of empirically validated structural regularities, the perceived organization of a visual pattern is claimed to be the most regular (simplest) structure of the pattern. The problem of finding the perceptual organization of visual patterns has relevant applications in multi-media systems, robotics and automatic data visualization. This paper shows that genetic programming (GP) is a suitable approach for solving this problem.
Therapeutic Applications of Natural Products in Herbal Medicines, Biodiscovery Programs, and Biomedicine

Abstract Natural products had been one of the important sources of remedial agents for thousands of years. From the data presented in this review, the utilization of biologically active natural products in traditional medicines and drug discoveries is still alive and well. This review presents the medicinal applications of natural products in both the traditional and modern medicines and shed lights on historical connections of this two medical system as well as identifies the potential sources of natural products that have been scantily explored till date. More than 85-90 % of the world populations rely on traditional medicines that use natural products, for their primary health services. Almost 73 % of the current pharmaceutical products/drugs are derived from natural products including medicinal agents from traditional medicines. These drugs are discovered from different sources including plants, animals and microbes. While plants had been the reliable sources of anticancer and antiparasitic drugs, microbial sources especially the Streptpmyces (actinomycetes) had been known for their antibiotic and anti-infective properties. More than 80-90 % of the world’s biodiversity including plants, marine world, animals, microbes and extremophiles remain under-explored for medicinal applications and merits our attention in near future.
Alanine and proline content modulate global sensitivity to discrete perturbations in disordered proteins

Molecular transduction of biological signals is understood primarily in terms of the cooperative structural transitions of protein macromolecules, providing a mechanism through which discrete local structure perturbations affect global macromolecular properties. The recognition that proteins lacking tertiary stability, commonly referred to as intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs), mediate key signaling pathways suggests that protein structures without cooperative intramolecular interactions may also have the ability to couple local and global structure changes. Presented here are results from experiments that measured and tested the ability of disordered proteins to couple local changes in structure to global changes in structure. Using the intrinsically disordered N‐terminal region of the p53 protein as an experimental model, a set of proline (PRO) and alanine (ALA) to glycine (GLY) substitution variants were designed to modulate backbone conformational propensities without introducing non‐native intramolecular interactions. The hydrodynamic radius (Rh) was used to monitor changes in global structure. Circular dichroism spectroscopy showed that the GLY substitutions decreased polyproline II (PPII) propensities relative to the wild type, as expected, and fluorescence methods indicated that substitution‐induced changes in Rh were not associated with folding. The experiments showed that changes in local PPII structure cause changes in Rh that are variable and that depend on the intrinsic chain propensities of PRO and ALA residues, demonstrating a mechanism for coupling local and global structure changes. Molecular simulations that model our results were used to extend the analysis to other proteins and illustrate the generality of the observed PRO and alanine effects on the structures of IDPs. Proteins 2014; 82:3373–3384. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
PREDICTING THE INFLUENCE OF INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION ON INTENTION TO BUY ORGANIC PRODUCT: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

Purpose of Study: The aim of this research is to predict the effect of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) tools (advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion, and personal selling) on consumers’ intention to purchase organic products in the specific supermarket in Indonesia. Methodology: The primary data was collected by using questionnaires that were given to consumers in a supermarket. Sample size involved 128 consumers. The data was assessed through reliability and validity analysis before hypothesis testing analysis. Result: The results showed only direct marketing have positive significant on intention to buy the organic product. Implications/Applications: Integrated Marketing Communication provides an information to the purchasing policy of organic product