Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Recognition of Partially Occluded Elliptical Objects using Symmetry on Contour

There are many research efforts in object recognition. Most existing methods for object recognition are based on full objects. However, many images contain multiple objects with occluded shapes and regions. Due to the occlusion of objects, image retrieval can provide incomplete, uncertain, and inaccurate results. To resolve this problem, we propose a new method to reconstruct objects using symmetry properties since most objects in a given image database are represented by symmetrical figures. Even though there have been several efforts in object recognition with occlusion, current methods have been highly sensitive to object pose, rotation, scaling, and visible portion of occluded objects. In addition, many appearance-based and model-based object recognition methods assumed that they have known occluded regions of objects or images through extensive training processes with statistical approach. However, our new approach is not limited to recognizing occluded objects by pose and scale changes, and does not need extensive training processes. Unlike existing methods, the proposed method finds shapes and regions to reconstruct occluded shapes and regions within objects. We assume that we only consider the elliptical objects in recognition. The proposed approach can handle object rotation and scaling for dealing with occlusion, and does not require extensive training processes. The main advantage of our proposed approach is that it becomes simple to reconstruct objects from occlusions using symmetry. We present a robust method, which is based on the contours of objects, for recognizing partially occluded objects based on symmetry properties. The contour-based approach finds a symmetry axis using the maximum diameter from the occluded object. In experiments, we demonstrate how a proposed method reconstructs and recognizes occluded shapes and regions using symmetry. Experiments use rotated and scaled objects for dealing with occlusion. We use mirror symmetry to find possible occluded regions in objects. Examples of partially occluded objects are shown in Figure 1.1. We also evaluate the recognition rate of the reconstructed objects using symmetry and the visible portion of the occluded objects for recognition. The method produces average recognition rates for cups and plates above 88% with 30% occlusion. In this case, part of the
Market imperative meets normative power: Human rights and European arms transfer policy

Arms transfers are both an economic necessity for the European arms industry and a potential obstacle for the EU’s emerging normative power role. Nevertheless, research on how well EU members’ arms trade mirrors EU normative power rhetoric is scarce. To help fill this void, I use regression analysis to examine the relationship between EU arms exports and human rights, conflict, and democracy in recipient states from 1990 to 2004. A case study of the China embargo debate provides a more in-depth assessment of the politics behind EU arms transfers. Both analyses reveal a questionable relationship between EU norms and arms transfer practices. The findings suggest, first, that domestic-level material and normative concerns remain important to the formation and execution of EU foreign policy and, second, that low levels of EU socialization may hinder the creation of a single European external identity.
Cerebral blood flow and autoregulation: current measurement techniques and prospects for noninvasive optical methods

Abstract. Cerebral blood flow (CBF) and cerebral autoregulation (CA) are critically important to maintain proper brain perfusion and supply the brain with the necessary oxygen and energy substrates. Adequate brain perfusion is required to support normal brain function, to achieve successful aging, and to navigate acute and chronic medical conditions. We review the general principles of CBF measurements and the current techniques to measure CBF based on direct intravascular measurements, nuclear medicine, X-ray imaging, magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound techniques, thermal diffusion, and optical methods. We also review techniques for arterial blood pressure measurements as well as theoretical and experimental methods for the assessment of CA, including recent approaches based on optical techniques. The assessment of cerebral perfusion in the clinical practice is also presented. The comprehensive description of principles, methods, and clinical requirements of CBF and CA measurements highlights the potentially important role that noninvasive optical methods can play in the assessment of neurovascular health. In fact, optical techniques have the ability to provide a noninvasive, quantitative, and continuous monitor of CBF and autoregulation.
125I-Fibrinogen Binding to Platelets in Myeloproliferative Disease

Summary Recent reports have suggested a variation in the density and affinity of fibrinogen binding sites in platelets from patients with myeloproliferative disorders (MPD) which may reflect platelet functional abnormalities in these subjects. We have investigated the binding of 125I-fibrinogen (125I-Fb) to gel-filtered platelets from a large relatively homogeneous group of patients with MPD compared to normal age matched controls. Twenty-two of the patients investigated had polycythaemia vera and four essential thrombocythaemia. The maximal density and affinity (Kd) of 125I-Fb binding was assessed by saturation analysis in gel-filtered platelets (GFP) stimulated with either 10 εM ADP or 150 mU thrombin. In addition the functional significance of the binding sites was studied by evaluating the response of GFP from the two experimental groups by assessing the effects of increasing concentrations of added fibrinogen on the response to 10 εM ADP using standard light transmission aggregometry. In both groups the density of fibrinogen binding sites expressed in response to thrombin stimulation was significantly higher (approximately 2-3 fold) than that found in response to ADP. However, fewer binding sites were detected in the MPD group as compared with the control group in response to both ADP and thrombin. The Kd for 125I-Fb was similar for both agonists in normal controls and was significantly lower than that found in the MPD subjects. Although the 125I-Fb binding study results indicate a significant reduction in both the number and affinity of fibrinogen binding sites in patients with myeloproliferative disorders, the clinical and functional significance of these findings remain uncertain.
Intra-Arterial Iodinated Radiographic Contrast Material Injection Administration in a Rat Middle Cerebral Artery Occlusion and Reperfusion Model: Possible Effects on Intracerebral Hemorrhage

Background and Purpose— Observations in human interventional stroke treatment led us to hypothesize that iodinated radiographic contrast material use may contribute to intracerebral hemorrhage. Effects of intra-arterial iodinated radiographic contrast material on hemorrhagic transformation after middle cerebral artery occlusion and reperfusion were studied in a placebo-controlled, blinded preclinical study in rats. Methods— Four groups of male Sprague-Dawley rats were studied: saline group (n=8), contrast group (n=12), heparin group (n=9), and contrast+heparin group (n=9). The middle cerebral artery was occluded for 5 hours using suture placement. Heparin was infused before suture removal and reperfusion. Saline and/or contrast were infused immediately during reperfusion. Incidence, location, and size of hemorrhage were determined by brain necropsy inspection at 24 hours. Results— There was a significant increase in incidence of cortical hemorrhage from control (37.5%), contrast (75.0%), heparin (77.8%) to contrast+heparin (100%; Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel correlation, P<0.01). Both pooled contrast groups (85.7%) and pooled heparin groups (88.9%) had higher rates of cortical intracerebral hemorrhage compared with the control group (P<0.05). Similar trends for increased cortical intracerebral hemorrhage were seen in the contrast-only (P=0.18) and heparin-only (P=0.18) groups. There was a trend for decreased infarct edema in rats receiving contrast versus those without (P=0.06). Conclusion— Intraarterial iodinated radiographic contrast material may increase cortical intracerebral hemorrhage, similar to heparin. Iodinated radiographic contrast material effect may be additive to heparin effect on the incidence of cortical intracerebral hemorrhage.
The Lefff 2 syntactic lexicon for French: architecture, acquisition, use

In this paper, we introduce a new lexical resource for French which is freely available as the second version of the Lefff (Lexique des formes fléchies du français - Lexicon of French inflected forms). It is a wide-coverage morphosyntactic and syntactic lexicon, whose architecture relies on properties inheritance, which makes it more compact and more easily maintainable and allows to describe lexical entries independantly from the formalisms it is used for. For these two reasons, we define it as a meta-lexicon. We describe its architecture, several automatic or semi-automatic approaches we use to acquire, correct and/or enrich such a lexicon, as well as the way it is used both with an LFG parser and with a TAG parser based on a meta-grammar, so as to build two large-coverage parsers for French. The web site of the Lefff is http://www.lefff. net/.
Measurement Noninvariance of Safer Sex Self-Efficacy Between Heterosexual and Sexual Minority Black Youth

Objective: Black and lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning (LGBQ) youth in the United States are disproportionately affected by HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Although self-efficacy is strongly, positively associated with safer sex behaviors, no studies have examined the validity of a safer sex self-efficacy scale used by many federally funded HIV/STD prevention programs. This study aims to test factor validity of the Sexual Self-Efficacy Scale by using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to determine if scale validity varies between heterosexual and LGBQ Black youth. Method: The study uses cross-sectional data collected through baseline surveys with 226 Black youth (15 to 24 years) enrolled in community-based HIV-prevention programs. Participants use a 4-point Likert-type scale to report their confidence in performing 6 healthy sexual behaviors. CFAs are conducted on 2 factor structures of the scale. Using the best-fitting model, the scale is tested for measurement invariance between the 2 groups. Results: A single-factor model with correlated errors of condom-specific items fits the sample well and, when tested with the heterosexual group, the model demonstrates good fit. However, when tested with the LGBQ group, the same model yields poor fit, indicating factorial noninvariance between the groups. Conclusions: The Sexual Self-Efficacy Scale does not perform equally well among Black heterosexual and LGBQ youth. Study findings suggest additional research is needed to inform development of measures for safer sex self-efficacy among Black LGBQ youth to ensure validity of conceptual understanding and to accurately assess effectiveness of HIV/STD prevention interventions among this population.
Neural spike train synchronization indices: definitions, interpretations,and applications

A comparison of previously defined spike train synchronization indices is undertaken within a stochastic point process framework. The second-order cumulant density (covariance density) is shown to be common to all the indices. Simulation studies were used to investigate the sampling variability of a single index based on the second-order cumulant. The simulations used a paired motoneurone model and a paired regular spiking cortical neurone model. The sampling variability of spike trains generated under identical conditions from the paired motoneurone model varied from 50% to 160% of the estimated value. On theoretical grounds, and on the basis of simulated data a rate dependence is present in all synchronization indices. The application of coherence and pooled coherence estimates to the issue of synchronization indices is considered. This alternative frequency domain approach allows an arbitrary number of spike train pairs to be evaluated for statistically significant differences, and combined into a single population measure. The pooled coherence framework allows pooled time domain measures to be derived, application of this to the simulated data is illustrated. Data from the cortical neurone model is generated over a wide range of firing rates (1-250 spikes/s). The pooled coherence framework correctly characterizes the sampling variability as not significant over this wide operating range. The broader applicability of this approach to multielectrode array data is briefly discussed.
Learning Visual Invariance

Invariance is a necessary feature of a visual system able to recognize real objects in all their possible appearance. It is also the processing step most problematic to understand in biological systems, and most difficult to simulate in computational models. This work investigates the possibility to achieve viewpoint invariance without adopting any explicit theorical solution to the problem, but simply by exposing a hierarchical architecture of self-organizing artificial cortical maps to series of images under various viewpoints.
Aspect‐oriented component assembly—a case study in parallel software design

In this paper we deal with building parallel programs based on sequential application code and generic components providing specific functionality for parallelization, like load balancing or fault tolerance. We describe an architectural approach employing aspect‐oriented programming to assemble arbitrary object‐oriented components. Several non‐trivial crosscutting concerns arising from parallelization are addressed in the light of different applications, which are representative of the most common types of parallelism. In particular, we demonstrate how aspect‐oriented techniques allow us to leave all existing code untouched. We evaluate and compare our approach with its counterparts in conventional object‐oriented programming. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Feedforward mapping for engine control

Feedforward control is widely used in electronic control units of internal combustion engines besides feedback controls. However, almost all feedforward control values are used in table form, also called maps, having engine speed and engine torque in their axes. Table approach limits all interactions in two input dimensions. This paper focuses on application of Gaussian process modelling of errors of inverse parametric model of the valve position. Validation results based on real engine data are presented for steady and dynamic conditions.
Research on improvement of objective interestingness measures for association rules

Association rule is an important research topic in the fields of data mining, and objective interestingness is the measure to evaluate the quality of association rules. But at this stage, objective interestingness measures cannot identify the valid association rules in the datasets accurately. Some measures may lead to the explosion of rules' number. In response to these problems, this paper introduces the related concepts of distance relevancy and entropy from the fields of statistics and information theory, and puts forward two new measures called Newrelevancy and NewI by improving the two measures. Newrelevancy is used to find frequent itemsets, and NewI is used to mine the strong association rules in these found frequent itemsets. Data analysis shows that compared to traditional measure framework, the new framework made up of Newrelevancy and NewI has a better evaluation effect.
Functionalization of microarray devices: Process optimization using a multiobjective PSO and multiresponse MARS modeling

An evolutionary approach for the optimization of microarray coatings produced via sol-gel chemistry is presented. The aim of the methodology is to face the challenging aspects of the problem: unknown objective function, high dimensional variable space, constraints on the independent variables, multiple responses, expensive or time-consuming experimental trials, expected complexity of the functional relationships between independent and response variables. The proposed approach iteratively selects a set of experiments by combining a multiob-jective Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and a multiresponse Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) model. At each iteration of the algorithm the selected experiments are implemented and evaluated, and the system response is used as a feedback for the selection of the new trials. The performance of the approach is measured in terms of improvements with respect to the best coating obtained changing one variable at a time (the method typically used by scientists). Relevant enhancements have been detected, and the proposed evolutionary approach is shown to be a useful methodology for process optimization with great promise for industrial applications.
Intrapersonal Retrospective Recommendation : Lifestyle Change Recommendations Using Stable Patterns of Personal Behavior

Leading a healthy lifestyle can prevent or delay medical conditions, elevate mood, improve energy, stabilize sleep, and have other positive effects. Recommender systems are one possible technology to support making lifestyle changes. Recommender systems often use ratings of other users to make recommendations, but this approach may be problematic for making lifestyle change recommendations because of the large variations in human behavior . This paper proposes Intrapersonal Retrospective Recommendation as a new method for generating lifestyle change recommendations that uses only personal history. We explain the benefits and drawbacks of this approach and suggest some future directions.
In Vivo Pharmacodynamic Imaging of Proteasome Inhibition

Inhibiting the proteolytic activity of the 26S proteasome has been shown to have selective apoptotic effects on cancer cells and to be clinically efficacious in certain malignancies. There is an unmet medical need for additional proteasome inhibitors, and their development will be facilitated by surrogate markers of proteasome function. Toward this end, ectopic fusion of the destruction domain from ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) to reporter proteins is often used for assessing proteasome function. For luciferase-based reporters, we hypothesized that the oxygen-dependent destruction domain (ODD) from hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) may provide improved sensitivity over luciferase-ODC, owing to its extremely rapid turnover by the proteasome (HIF-1α has a half-life of less than 5 minutes). In the current study, we show that ODD-luciferase affords a greater dynamic range and faster kinetics than luciferase-ODC in sensing proteasome inhibition in vitro. Importantly, ODD-luciferase also serves as an effective in vivo marker of proteasome function in xenograft tumor models, with inhibition being detected by noninvasive imaging within 3 hours of bortezomib administration. These data establish ODD-luciferase as a surrogate marker of proteasome function that can be used both in vitro and in vivo for the development of novel proteasome inhibitors.
Impact of Deceptive Advertisement on Consumer Psyche

Relationships have diverse categories and have different significances and implications. Among different connections existing in this word, there is a very influencing connection that survives between a deceptive advertising and moral philosophies and ethical behavior of people. This study is carried out on nearly 150 students of COMSATS Institute of Information Technology of Sahiwal division of Pakistan to find out Impact of deceptive advertisement on consumer psyche. The Pearson correlation and regression was applied on data and results exposed a positive and a significant relationship between stakeholder interest and concern with cooperate social responsibility and moral philosophies. And cooperate social responsibility has a positive and significant result with stakeholder interest and concern. And also shows a positive relationship with moral philosophies or ethic behavior. Sample size of study was insufficient to save time, so sample size can be increased for future research. Future researches can be carried out on large amount of data and with different mechanisms of compensation practices.
A proposal for unifying mobility with multi-homing, NAT, & security

Internet users seek solutions for mobility, multi-homing, support for localised address management (i.e. via NATs), and end-to-end security. Existing mobility approaches are not well integrated into the rest of the Internet architecture, instead primarily being separate extensions that at present are not widely deployed. Because the current approaches to these issues were developed separately, such approaches often are not harmonious when used together. Meanwhile, the Internet has a number of namespaces, for example the IP address or the Domain Name. In recent years, some have postulated that the Internet's namespaces are not sufficiently rich and that the current concept of an address is too limiting. One proposal, the concept of separating an address into an Identifier and a separate Locator, has been controversial in the Internet community for years. It has been considered within the IETF and IRTF several times, but always was rejected as unworkable. This paper takes the position that evolving the naming in the Internet by splitting the address into separate Identifier and Locator names can provide an elegant integrated solution to the key issues listed above, without changing the core routing architecture, while offering incremental deployability through backwards compatibility with IPv6.
DTP: Enabling Exhaustive Exploration of FPGA Temporal Partitions for Streaming HPC Applications

Reconfigurable computing systems show great promise for accelerating streaming HPC applications because of their low power consumption and high performance. However, mapping an HPC application to a reconfigurable system is a challenging task. The challenge is exacerbated by need to temporally partition computational kernels when application requirements exceed resource availability. In this paper, we propose a novel design methodology that we call Data-flow Temporal Partitioning (DTP). The key insight in the design of DTP was that the application should be represented as a high-level data flow graph where each node is a computational kernel and the edges represent inter-node data flow. DTP also supports parallel instantiation of kernels and multiple kernel implementations at different performance/area design points. In contrast to previous proposals, DTP is able to exhaustively explore the solution space for practical applications. Our evaluation of DTP shows that it is able to identify candidate implementations that outperform both previously proposed partitioning heuristics and a direct mapping to the synthesis tool. The temporal configuration selected by DTP can outperform the direct mapping by up to 3X.