Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An improved local feature descriptor based on SIFT

Constructing proper descriptors for interest points is a critical aspect for local features related tasks in some computer vision and pattern recognition. This paper proposed to improve the SIFT descriptor by means of combining the second derivative and the gradient magnitude, introducing the polar histogram orientation bin, as well as expending the regions for describing. We present a comparative evaluation of different descriptors and show that our approach provides better results than existing methods and the performance of our descriptors is also confirmed by excellent matching results.
Exercise prevents age‐related decline in nitric‐oxide‐mediated vasodilator function in cutaneous microvessels

Ageing is associated with impaired endothelium‐derived nitric oxide (NO) function in human microvessels. We investigated the impact of cardiorespiratory fitness and exercise training on physiological and pharmacological NO‐mediated microvascular responses in older subjects. NO‐mediated vasodilatation was examined in young, older sedentary and older fit subjects who had two microdialysis fibres embedded into the skin on the ventral aspect of the forearm and laser Doppler probes placed over these sites. Both sites were then heated to 42°C, with Ringer solution infused in one probe and N‐nitro‐l‐arginine methyl ester (l‐NAME) through the second. In another study, three doses of ACh were infused in the presence or absence of l‐NAME in similar subjects. The older sedentary subjects then undertook exercise training, with repeat studies at 12 and 24 weeks. The NO component of the heat‐induced rise in cutaneous vascular conductance (CVC) was diminished in the older sedentary subjects after 30 min of prolonged heating at 42°C (26.9 ± 3.9%CVCmax), compared to older fit (46.2 ± 7.0%CVCmax, P < 0.05) and young subjects (41.2 ± 5.2%CVCmax, P < 0.05), whereas exercise training in the older sedentary group enhanced NO‐vasodilator function in response to incremental heating (P < 0.05). Similarly, the NO contribution to ACh responses was impaired in the older sedentary versus older fit subjects (low dose 3.2 ± 1.3 versus 6.6 ± 1.3%CVCmax; mid dose 11.4 ± 2.4 versus 21.6 ± 4.5%CVCmax; high dose 35.2 ± 6.0 versus 52.6 ± 7.9%CVCmax, P < 0.05) and training reversed this (12 weeks: 13.7 ± 3.6, 28.9 ± 5.3, 56.1 ± 3.9%CVCmax, P < 0.05). These findings indicate that maintaining a high level of fitness, or undertaking exercise training, prevents age‐related decline in indices of physiological and pharmacological microvascular NO‐mediated vasodilator function. Since higher levels of NO confer anti‐atherogenic benefit, this study has potential implications for the prevention of microvascular dysfunction in humans.
Structural Evolution of the Emerging 2014-2015 GII.17 Noroviruses

ABSTRACT Recent reports suggest that human genogroup II genotype 17 (GII.17) noroviruses are increasing in prevalence. We analyzed the evolutionary changes of three GII.17 capsid protruding (P) domains. We found that the GII.17 P domains had little cross-reactivity with antisera raised against the dominant GII.4 strains. X-ray structural analysis of GII.17 P domains from 2002 to 2014 and 2015 suggested that surface-exposed substitutions on the uppermost part of the P domain might have generated a novel 2014-2015 GII.17 variant.
Some security considerations on crowd-sourcing an ontology

The 4w project has demonstrated the feasibility of a prospective memory support systems based on a mobile client and an ontology based server side reasoning engine. However, the experiments also showed that the level of efficiency of the system was largely dependent on the precision and richness of the ontology used to autonomously identify the places where users may efficiently perform their tasks. Thus, in past works we have proposed a social, crowdsourcing approach to the task of enriching the ontology. In this paper we analyze the security aspects of the crowdsourcing approach, we investigate some possible attacks to a crowd-sourced ontology and we devise some measures to protect the system from this kind of attacks.
Probability update for risk assessment of dreaded events in asymmetric warfare

This paper presents a new method to update the probability of occurrence of a dreaded event, according to environmental influencers and reports of evidence on the presence or absence of such occurrence. It is particularly useful in military contexts at the tactical level for the risk assessment of a task. Indeed, the computation done during the planning of such a task often uses unprecise values (e.g. average height of buildings in an urban area) and forecast data (e.g. weather, presence of other Blue forces in the area) to determine a probability of occurrence of a given type of attack during such a task. Furthermore, new information may have been gathered from several mainly human sources, since the beginning of the task that indicate a presence/absence of the occurrence of the attack at a specific location in the area of the task. This method is based on Multi-Criteria Decision Making technics that handles the environmental influencers, and conditional probabilities that take into account the reports of evidence, including the reliability of the sources and the obsolescence of the reports.
Herpes Simplex Virus Tegument Protein VP16 Is a Component of Primary Enveloped Virions

ABSTRACT Immunogold electron microscopy was used to determine whether the tegument proteins VP13/14, VP22, and VP16 of herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV1) are components of primary enveloped virions. Whereas VP13/14 and VP22 were not detected in virus particles in the perinuclear space and were present in only mature extracellular virions, VP16 was acquired prior to primary envelopment of the virus at the inner nuclear membrane. This finding highlights potential similarities and differences between HSV1 and the related alphaherpesvirus, pseudorabies virus, in which the homologues of all three of these tegument proteins are not incorporated into the virion until secondary envelopment.
Antibody‐enhanced dengue disease generates a marked CNS inflammatory response in the black‐tufted marmoset Callithrix penicillata

Severe dengue disease is often associated with long‐term neurological impairments, but it is unclear what mechanisms are associated with neurological sequelae. Previously, we demonstrated antibody‐enhanced dengue disease (ADE) dengue in an immunocompetent mouse model with a dengue virus 2 (DENV2) antibody injection followed by DENV3 virus infection. Here we migrated this ADE model to Callithrix penicillata. To mimic human multiple infections of endemic zones where abundant vectors and multiple serotypes co‐exist, three animals received weekly subcutaneous injections of DENV3 (genotype III)‐infected supernatant of C6/36 cell cultures, followed 24 h later by anti‐DENV2 antibody for 12 weeks. There were six control animals, two of which received weekly anti‐DENV2 antibodies, and four further animals received no injections. After multiple infections, brain, liver, and spleen samples were collected and tissue was immunolabeled for DENV3 antigens, ionized calcium binding adapter molecule 1, Ki‐67, TNFα. There were marked morphological changes in the microglial population of ADE monkeys characterized by more highly ramified microglial processes, higher numbers of trees and larger surface areas. These changes were associated with intense TNFα‐positive immunolabeling. It is unclear why ADE should generate such microglial activation given that IgG does not cross the blood‐brain barrier, but this study reveals that in ADE dengue therapy targeting the CNS host response is likely to be important.
Low frequency resistance and critical current fluctuations in Al-based Josephson junctions

We present low-temperature measurements of the low-frequency 1/f noise arising from an ensemble of two-level fluctuators in the oxide barrier of Al/AlOx/Al Josephson junctions. The fractional noise power spectrum of the critical-current and normal-state resistance has similar magnitudes and scale linearly with temperature, implying an equivalence between the two. Compiling our results and published data, we deduce the area and temperature scaling of the noise for AlOx barrier junctions. We find that the density of two-level fluctuators in the junction barrier is similar to the typical value in glassy systems. We discuss the implications and consistency with recent qubit experiments.
Benefits of using explicit ground-plane information for grid-based urban environment modeling

Future advanced driver assistant systems and automated driving put high demands on the environmental perception especially in urban environments. Major tasks are the perception of static and dynamic elements along with the drivable area and road structures. Although these tasks can be done without an explicit representation of the ground surface, evaluations with real-world sensor data have shown that many failures in sensor data interpretation result from inappropriate ground point filtering, e.g. false negative or false positive detection of objects. That means, the ground plane estimation becomes a key-task in urban environment modeling assuming a reliable perception of the local vehicle's surroundings is required. In this paper we thus present the enhancements of the environment modeling that can be derived from an explicit representation of the ground surface. We propose the combination of channel-wise ground classification with a grid-based representation of the ground height to cope with spatial false measurements and exploit interchannel dependency. Partial occlusions by other road users are handled in an efficient way. Integration of the ground data is shown by a pitch angle estimation and a curb detection module. The algorithms run in real-time on a standard PC and are evaluated with real sensor data.
A Functional NQO1 609C>T Polymorphism and Risk of Gastrointestinal Cancers: A Meta-Analysis

Background The functional polymorphism (rs1800566) in the NQO1 gene, a 609C>T substitution, leading to proline-to-serine amino-acid and enzyme activity changes, has been implicated in cancer risk, but individually published studies showed inconclusive results. Methodology/Principal Findings We performed a meta-analysis of 20 publications with a total of 5,491 cases and 5,917 controls, mainly on gastrointestinal (GI) cancers. We summarized the data on the association between the NQO1 609C>T polymorphism and risk of GI cancers and performed subgroup analyses by ethnicity, cancer site, and study quality. We found that the variant CT heterozygous and CT/TT genotypes of the NQO1 609 C>T polymorphism were associated with a modestly increased risk of GI cancers (CT vs. CC: OR = 1.10, 95% CI = 1.01 – 1.19, P heterogeneity = 0.27, I 2 = 0.15; CT/TT vs. CC: OR = 1.11, 95%CI = 1.02 – 1.20, P heterogeneity = 0.14; I 2 = 0.27). Following further stratified analyses, the increased risk was only observed in subgroups of Caucasians, colorectal cancer in Caucasians, and high quality studies. Conclusions This meta-analysis suggests that the NQO1 609T allele is a low-penetrance risk factor for GI cancers. Although the effect on GI cancers may be modified by ethnicity and cancer sites, small sample seizes of the subgroup analyses suggest that further larger studies are needed, especially for non-colorectal GI cancers in Caucasians and GI cancers in Asians.
Cyclopropane fatty acids are involved in organic solvent tolerance but not in acid stress resistance in Pseudomonas putida DOT‐T1E

Bacterial membranes constitute the first physical barrier against different environmental stresses. Pseudomonas putida DOT‐T1E accumulates cyclopropane fatty acids (CFAs) in the stationary phase of growth. In this strain the cfaB gene encodes the main cyclopropane synthase responsible of the synthesis of CFAs, and its expression is mediated by RNA polymerase with sigma factor σ38. We generated a cfaB mutant of P. putida DOT‐T1E and studied its response to solvents, acid pH and other stress conditions such as temperature changes, high osmolarity and the presence of antibiotics or heavy metals in the culture medium. A CfaB knockout mutant was more sensitive to solvent stress than the wild‐type strain, but in contrast to Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica, the P. putida cfaB mutant was as tolerant to acid shock as the wild‐type strain. The cfaB mutant was also as tolerant as the parental strain to a number of drugs, antibiotics and other damaging agents.
When is Temporal Planning Really Temporal?

While even STRIPS planners must search for plans of unbounded length, temporal planners must also cope with the fact that actions may start at any point in time. Most temporal planners cope with this challenge by restricting action start times to a small set of decision epochs, because this enables search to be carried out in state-space and leverages powerful state-based reachability heuristics, originally developed for classical planning. Indeed, decision-epoch planners won the International Planning Competition's Temporal Planning Track in 2002, 2004 and 2006. However, decision-epoch planners have a largely unrecognized weakness: they are incomplete. In order to characterize the cause of incompleteness, we identify the notion of required concurrency, which separates expressive temporal action languages from simple ones. We show that decisionepoch planners are only complete for languages in the simpler class, and we prove that the simple class is 'equivalent' to STRIPS! Surprisingly, no problems with required concurrency have been included in the planning competitions. We conclude by designing a complete state-space temporal planning algorithm, which we hope will be able to achieve high performance by leveraging the heuristics that power decision epoch planners.
Ventricular shunting for relief of senile symptoms.

Twenty-eight patients with dementia resembling senility, and some with gait disturbance, had enlarged cerebral ventricles and were subjected to cerebrospinal fluid shunting. The cause of the ventricular enlargement was not apparent and therefore should be classified as idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus. A good response to shunting was achieved in 18 of 28 (64.3%) of the patients. No criteria could be established that would distinguish patients who would be expected to respond from those who would not. In particular, radioactive iodinated serum albumin (RISA) encephalography was not a reliable test for this purpose. Pneumoencephalography is indicated in all patients with organic dementia and, should enlarged ventricles be found, shunting should be done. Patients with gait disturbances as a prominent feature will respond more frequently to ventricular shunting, though not necessarily better, than patients with dementia as the most prominent feature.
iNkDraw: physical ink-based interface for capturing and manipulating drawings on digital display

This paper introduces a new drawing interface named iNkDraw for capturing ink marks on a digital display drawn using physical ink such as dry erase markers. By using ink-based FTIR, the interface directly detects the ink location on the drawing surface, thus any ink-oriented interactions are intrinsically supported -- e.g. controlling the thickness and faintness of lines by varying pen/brush movement, erasing the drawings by wiping the ink off with a cloth or even with a finger. Furthermore, iNkDraw can distinguish between drawing and touch, which allows users to digitally manipulate the captured drawings using pointers and menus. Several applications using the interface have been implemented. Limitations on using physical ink as an interfacing medium are also discussed.
Using particles to sample and control more complex implicit surfaces

In 1994, Witkin and Heckbert developed a method for interactively modeling implicit surfaces by simultaneously constraining a particle system to lie on an implicit surface and vice-versa. This interface was demonstrated to be effective and easy to use on example models containing a few blobby spheres and cylinders. This system becomes much more difficult to implement and operate on more complex implicit models. The derivatives needed for the particle system behavior can become laborious and error-prone when implemented for more complex models. We have developed, implemented and tested techniques for automatic and numerical differentiation of the implicit surface function. Complex models also require a large number of parameters, and the management and control of these parameters is often not intuitive. We have developed adapters, which are special shape-transformation operators that automatically adjust the underlying parameters to yield the same effect as the transformation. These new techniques allow constrained particle systems to sample and control more complex models than before possible.
The Impact of Hydration and Temperature on Bacterial Diversity in Arid Soil Mesocosms

Hot desert ecosystems experience rare and unpredictable rainfall events that resuscitate the arid flora and fauna. However, the effect of this sudden abundance of water on soil microbial communities is still under debate. We modeled varying rainfall amounts and temperatures in desert soil mesocosms and monitored the microbial community response over a period of 21 days. We studied two different wetting events, simulating heavy (50 mm) and light (10 mm) rain, as well as three different temperature regimes: constant 25° or 36°C, or a temperature diurnal cycle alternating between 36 and 10 °C. Amplicon sequencing of the bacterial ribosomal RNA revealed that rain intensity affects the soil bacterial community, but the effects are mitigated by temperature. The combination of water-pulse intensity with lower temperature had the greatest effect on the bacterial community. These experiments demonstrated that the soil microbial response to rain events is dependent not only on the intensity of the water pulse but also on the ambient temperature, thus emphasizing the complexity of bacterial responses to highly unpredictable environments.
Text Categorization Through Probabilistic Learning: Applications to Recommender Systems

In this paper, we give evidence that the posterior distribution of Naive Bayes goes to zero or one exponentially with document length. While exponential change may be expected as new bits of information are added, adding new words does not always correspond to new information. Essentially as a result of its independence assumption, the estimates grow too quickly. We investigate one parametric family that attempts to downweight the growth rate. The parameters of this family are estimated using a maximum likelihood scheme, and the results are evaluated. Email: pbennett+@cs.cmu. edu
“Stretching” Exercises for Qualitative Researchers

Preface Acknowledgments About the Author Chapter 1. Qualitative Research and Habits of Mind Chapter 2. The Observation and Writing Habit Exercise 2.1: Observing a Still Life Scene Exercise 2.2: Physical Description of This Setting Exercise 2.3: Observation in the Home or Workplace Exercise 2.4: Description of a Familiar Person or a Stranger Exercise 2.5: Observing at an Art Museum or at a Movie Exercise 2.6: Observing an Animal at Home, the Zoo, or a Pet shop Exercise 2.7: Drawing to Become a Better Observer: Drawing Upside Down Chapter 3. Advancing the Observation and Reflection Habit Exercise 3.1: Nonparticipant Observation Assignment Exercise 3.2: Reflecting to Strengthen the Writing Habit Exercise 3.3: Writing Your Educational Autobiography Exercise 3.4: Writing a Pedagogical Letter Chapter 4. The Interviewing and Writing Habit Exercise 4.1: Interviewing Someone You Know Exercise 4.2: Interviewing a Stranger Exercise 4.3: The Oral History Interview Exercise 4.4: The Focus Group Interview Demonstration Exercise Exercise 4.5: Presenting Interview Data as a Found Data Poem Exercise 4.6: The Digital, Virtual Interview and Google Groups Exercise 4.7: Interviewing Someone Twice Exercise 4.8: Practicing an Online Interview Chapter 5. The Creative Habit Exercise 5.1: Variations on Writing Your Name Exercise 5.2: The Camera as an Extension of the Eye, the Eye as an Extension of the Soul Exercise 5.3: Building a Collage: My Role as a Researcher Exercise 5.4: Constructing a YaYa Box or Making a Quilt Patch Exercise 5.5: Writing About Your Favorite Vegetable Exercise 5.6: Your Journey Exercise 5.7: Reflective Journal Writing Practice in Dialogue Form Exercise 5.8: Haiku and Any Form of Poetry on the Role of the Researcher Exercise 5.9: Framed Photograph and Narrative Writing Exercise Chapter 6. The Analysis and Writing Habit: Making Sense of the Data, Ethics, and Other Issues Exercise 6.1: Design and Create a Cover for the Researcher Reflective Journal Appendixes: A. Sample Letter to Participants B. Examples of Researcher Reflective Journals C. Sample Interview Protocols From a Completed Study D. Qualitative Research Methods: Sample Syllabus E. Sample Projects From Various Classes F. Sample Consent Form Recently Accepted by the Institutional Review Board G. Conducting Qualitative Interviews: Rules of Thumb H. Sample Sets of Themes and Categories From a Completed Study I. Electronic Resources J. Qualitative Dissertation Costs K. Sample Member Check Form L. Samples of Interview Transcripts (Edited) M. The Analytical Process of Coding Bibliography Index
SENSAPP as a Reference Platform to Support Cloud Experiments: From the Internet of Things to the Internet of Services

The Cloud-computing paradigm was considered as a revolution. Thanks to the abstraction of computing resources "in the clouds" this paradigm provides "anything" as a service, on a pay-as-you-go basis. Unfortunately, there is no reference software that one can use to properly compare a cloud approach against others. We propose the SENSAPP platform to tackle this challenge. SENSAPP is designed as a prototypical cloud application and is provided as an open-source service-based application used to store and exploit data collected by the Internet of Things. We propose SENSAPP as a reference implementation to compare different cloud approaches. In this paper we present initial experiments about scalability based on this platform.
Integrating satellite images and lidar data for straight-line mapping

Currently, most mapping tasks are carried out using remote sensing data such as satellite imageries and LIDAR point clouds. This paper presents the integration of a QuickBird imagery set (both pan and multispectral) and LIDAR DEM generated from a LIDAR point cloud for mapping the coastline. A number of image processing techniques were applied to pan image to generate a coastline. Then a supervised classification is performed on the multispectral image followed by a raster to vector conversion to extract another shoreline. A third line was created from the LIDAR data using a set of processing algorithms. The three lines are weighted and pixels belonging to all of them are grouped to fit a final coastline. In order to evaluate the results, we manually extracted the corresponding line from the pan image and compared points belonging to both lines. Differences averaged about 1.37 meters.