Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Optimized Real Time Image Codec for Image Data Transmission and Storage

The need for an efficient technique for compression of Images is ever increasing because the raw images require large amount of disk space and large amount of time for images to be sent over the internet or downloaded from the web pages which seems to be very big disadvantage during transmission & storage. In this paper, we propose a simple image compression scheme to obtain better reconstructed image on decompression. The scheme is mainly based on DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform), which is one of the well known lossy image compression techniques. Our approach does not involve any encoding or decoding method like other conventional compression methods thereby decreasing the time complexity of overall process. The proposed scheme is simple, efficient and has low computational cost and high compression ratio and thus satisfying the current prime requirement of image data transmission and storage. General Terms Digital Image processing, Image Codec
Microdialysis Monitoring of 3,4‐Dihydroxyphenylalanine Accumulation After Decarboxylase Inhibition: A Means to Estimate In Vivo Changes in Tyrosine Hydroxylase Activity of the Rat Locus Ceruleus

Abstract: An on‐line microdialysis approach was developed to estimate changes in tyrosine hydroxylase activity in the locus ceruleus noradrenergic neurons of anesthetized rats by measuring the 3,4‐dihydroxyphenylalanine (DOPA) acumulation in the extracellular fluid during perfusion of an aromatic amino acid decarboxylase inhibitor through a dialysis probe. The aromatic amino acid decarboxylase inhibitor used was difluoromethyl‐DOPA, which was shown to be more stable than NSD 1015 or Ro 4‐4602 in the perfusion fluid. A 1‐h perfusion of a 10−4 mol/L of difluoromethyl‐DOPA solution induced a linear increase in DOPA concentration in the locus ceruleus dialysates that achieved a steady state within 1 h. The identity of DOPA accumulated in dialysates during aromatic amino acid decarboxylase inhibition was confirmed by the disappearance of the chromatographic peak when DOPA formation was blocked by the administration of α‐methyl‐p‐tyrosine. Systemic administration of the α2‐antagonist piperoxane before difluoromethyl‐DOPA perfusion markedly increased the DOPA concentration during both the accumulation and the steady‐state periods, showing that the present technique is a suitable in vivo approach to monitor changes in tyrosine hydroxylase activity occurring in the locus ceruleus neurons.
ASED ON C ASCADED F USION OF L OCAL D ESCRIPTORS

One of the core tasks in order to perform fast and accurate retrieval results in a content-based search and retrieval 3D system is to determine an efficient and effective method for matching similarities between the 3D models. In this paper the “cascaded fusion of local descriptors” is proposed for efficient retrieval of classified 3D models, based on a 2D coloured logo retrieval methodological approach, suitably modified for the purpose of 3D search and retrieval tasks that are widely used in the augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) fields. Initially, features from Key points are extracted using different state of the art local descriptor algorithms and then they are joined to constitute the feature tuple for the respective key point. Additionally, a feature vocabulary for each descriptor is created that maps those tuples to the respective vocabularies using distance functions that applied among the newly created tuples of each Point Cloud. Subsequently, an inverted index table is formed that maps the 3D models to each tuple respectively. Therefore, for every query 3D model only the corresponding 3D models are retrieved as these were previously mapped in the inverted index table. Finally, from the retrieved list by comparing the local features frequency of appearance to the first vocabulary, the final re ranked list of the most similar 3D models is produced.
Annualized implementation data on comprehensive intrastate peace accords, 1989–2012

This article introduces the Peace Accords Matrix Implementation Dataset (PAM_ID). We present time-series data on the implementation of 51 provisions in 34 comprehensive peace agreements negotiated in civil wars since 1989. We follow the implementation process for up to ten years following the signing of each agreement. The data provide new insights into the types of provisions that are more or less likely to be implemented, how implementation processes unfold over time, how implementation processes relate to one another, and how implementation affects various post-accord outcomes. We outline our coding methodology and case selection, and examine descriptive statistics. We illustrate one potential use of the data by combining eight different provisions into a composite indicator of security sector reform (SSR). A survival analysis finds that implementing security sector reforms contributes to long-term conflict reduction not only between the parties to the accord but also between the government and other non-signatory groups in the same conflict.
Kleisli category and database mappings

This paper presents the semantics of database mappings in the relational database (DB) category, based on the power-view monad T and monadic algebras. The semantics can be interpreted as a computational model of view-based mappings between databases, where each query (view-mapping) can be seen as a program, so that we can use the paradigm 'from values to computations'. The objects in this category are the database-instances. The morphisms of such DB category are used in order to express the semantics of view-based global and local as view (GLAV) mappings between relational databases such as those used in data integration systems. Consequently, the semantics of database mappings in this DB category are defined based on the power-view monad T and the Kleisli category for databases, which can be 'internalised' in this basic DB category.
Translating Temporal Logic to Controller Specifications

The problem of designing hybrid controllers in order to satisfy safety or liveness specifications has received much attention in the past decade. Much more recently, there is an increased interest in designing hybrid controllers in order to achieve more sophisticated discrete specifications, such as those expressible in temporal logics. A great challenge is how to compose safety and liveness controllers in order to achieve more complex specifications. Existing approaches are predominantly bottom-up, in the sense that the overall control and composition (or switching) logic requires verification of the integrated closed-loop hybrid system. In this paper, we advocate and develop a top-down approach for this problem by synthesizing controllers which satisfy the specification by construction. Given a flat linear temporal logic specification as an input, we develop an algorithm that translates the temporal logic specification into a hybrid automaton where in each discrete mode we impose controller specifications for the continuous dynamics. In addition to achieving the desired specification by construction, our methodology provides a very natural interface between high level logic design and low level control design
Casual cynics or disillusioned democrats? Political alienation in Japan

This paper examines the structure of political alienation among Japanese eligible voters, using data from the first, second, fifth, and sixth waves of the seven-wave Japanese Electoral Survey II (JES II). Political alienation can be expressed as comprising two dimensions, political trust and civic-mindedness. Males and people with more years of schooling are more allegiant in general; that is, they are both more trusting and more civic-minded. Evaluations of cabinet performance and support for democratic mechanisms are strongly related to political trust and civic-mindedness. Supporters of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are no more civic-minded than average but are more trusting politically, whereas Japan Communist Party supporters are more civic-minded but a good deal less politically trusting than average. Independents are below the overall average on both the political trust and civic-mindedness dimensions. Even though party support is unstable, Japan's political system will not lose its stability as long as LDP supporters and independents constitute the majority of Japan's electorate. The advent of a new party capable of providing an alternative to the LDP is important to the future of Japanese democracy.
Binaural extension and performance of single-channel spectral subtraction dereverberation algorithms

Single-channel spectral subtraction algorithms are commonly used to suppress late reverberation. A binaural extension of such methods, apart from suppressing reverberation without introducing processing artifacts, should also preserve the signal's binaural localization cues. Here, three state-of-the-art spectral subtraction dereverberation algorithms are extended into a binaural context utilizing three alternative bilateral gain adaptation schemes and are compared to an extension derived from a Delay and Sum Beamformer. Objective results for several experimental conditions reveal the most prominent binaural extensions.
Women's Work Expectations and Labor-Market Experience in Early and Middle Family Life-Cycle Stages.

Two issues are addressed in this research: the effect of work expectations for age 35 on labor-market attachment during childrearing years, and the extent to which work expectations interacted with changes in women's sociodemographic characteristics to influence the extent of employment. The National Longitudinal Survey of the Labor Market Experiences of Young Women is used in estimating the work history of women in the sample. Findings indicate that employment expectations significantly increased the length of women's employment and that the effects of marital and fertility variables differed considerably for those who planned employment for midlife and those who did not. The implications of these and other findings are discussed in the context of major demographic and economic change that occurred over the 1970s.
Exon skipping during splicing of albumin mRNA precursors in Nagase analbuminemic rats

Based on the observation that albumin transcripts accumulate in the liver nuclear RNA fraction of Nagase analbuminemic rats (NAR), it was proposed [Esumi, H. , Takahashi, Y. , Sato, S. , Nagase, S. & Sugimura, T. (1983) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 80, 95-99] [corrected] that a 7-base-pair deletion at the splice donor site of intron H-I of the albumin gene in these animals leads to impaired processing of albumin pre-mRNA. To identify the specific splicing abnormality, we examined the primary structure of cytoplasmic albumin mRNA across the junctions of exons G-H-I by RNase protection mapping, Northern blot hybridization, Southern blot analysis of polymerase chain reaction-amplified cDNA, and DNA sequencing. The major albumin mRNA species in NAR showed precise deletion of exon H, suggesting that this exon was skipped during albumin pre-mRNA processing. Since the intron G-H splice donor and acceptor sites and exon H sequence are normal, the finding of exon H skipping in NAR has important implications regarding the mechanism of splice site selection. Moreover, the NAR model provides an excellent system to study splicing in vivo in a higher animal.
A novel fluorescence-activated cell sorter-based screen for yeast endocytosis mutants identifies a yeast homologue of mammalian eps15

A complete understanding of the molecular mechanisms of endocytosis requires the discovery and characterization of the protein machinery that mediates this aspect of membrane trafficking. A novel genetic screen was used to identify yeast mutants defective in internalization of bulk lipid. The fluorescent lipophilic styryl dye FM4-64 was used in conjunction with FACS to enrich for yeast mutants that exhibit internalization defects. Detailed characterization of two of these mutants, dim1-1 and dim2-1, revealed defects in the endocytic pathway. Like other yeast endocytosis mutants, the temperature-sensitive dim mutant were unable to endocytose FM4-64 or radiolabeled alpha-factor as efficiently as wild-type cells. In addition, double mutants with either dim1-delta or dim2-1 and the endocytosis mutants end4-1 or act1-1 displayed synthetic growth defects, indicating that the DIM gene products function in a common or parallel endocytic pathway. Complementation cloning of the DIM genes revealed identity of DIM1 to SHE4 and DIM2 to PAN1. Pan1p shares homology with the mammalian clathrin adaptor-associated protein, eps15. Both proteins contain multiple EH (eps15 homology) domains, a motif proposed to mediate protein-protein interactions. Phalloidin labeling of filamentous actin revealed profound defects in the actin cytoskeleton in both dim mutants. EM analysis revealed that the dim mutants accumulate vesicles and tubulo-vesicular structures reminiscent of mammalian early endosomes. In addition, the accumulation of novel plasma membrane invaginations where endocytosis is likely to occur were visualized in the mutants by electron microscopy using cationized ferritin as a marker for the endocytic pathway. This new screening strategy demonstrates a role for She4p and Pan1p in endocytosis, and provides a new general method for the identification of additional endocytosis mutants.
Approximation of salient contours in cluttered scenes

This paper proposes a new approach to describe the salient contours in cluttered scenes. No need to do the preprocessing, such as edge detection, we directly use a set of random straight line segments, as the intermediate level vision tokens, to approximate the salient contours. This line set is modeled by a stochastic framework, marked point process, in which the point denotes the center of lines, and the marker denotes the orientation and length of lines. Generic Gastalt factors of proximity and collinear continuity are embedded to constraint the geometrical inter-relations between lines. Different data likelihoods are used on synthetic and real images. Optimization is done by simulated annealing using Reversible Jump Markov chain Monte Carlo. Our results not only have a good approximation to the salient contours, also make other post-processing application more robust.
Molecular and Cellular Requirements for Enhanced Antigen Cross-Presentation to CD 8 Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes 1

MHC class I-mediated cross-priming of CD8 T cells by APCs is critical for CTL-based immunity to viral infections and tumors. We have shown previously that tumor-secreted heat shock protein gp96-chaperoned peptides cross prime CD8 CTL that are specific for genuine tumor Ags and for the surrogate Ag OVA. We now show that tumor-secreted heat shock protein gp96chaperoned peptides enhance the efficiency of Ag cross-priming of CD8 CTL by several million-fold over the cross-priming activity of unchaperoned protein alone. Gp96 also acts as adjuvant for cross-priming by unchaperoned proteins, but in this capacity gp96 is 1000-fold less active than as a peptide chaperone. Mechanistically, the in situ secretion of gp96-Ig by transfected tumor cells recruits and activates dendritic cells and NK cells to the site of gp96 release and promotes CD8 CTL expansion locally. Gp96mediated cross-priming of CD8 T cells requires B7.1/2 costimulation but proceeds unimpeded in lymph node-deficient mice, in the absence of NKT and CD4 cells and without CD40L. Gp96-driven MHC I cross-priming of CD8 CTL in the absence of lymph nodes provides a novel mechanism for local, tissue-based CTL generation at the site of gp96 release. This pathway may constitute a critically important, early detection, and rapid response mechanism that is operative in parenchymal tissues for effective defense against tissue damaging antigenic agents. The Journal of Immunology, 2007, 179: 2310–2317.
Unsupervised Domain Adaptation in the Wild: Dealing with Asymmetric Label Sets

The goal of domain adaptation is to adapt models learned on a source domain to a particular target domain. Most methods for unsupervised domain adaptation proposed in the literature to date, assume that the set of classes present in the target domain is identical to the set of classes present in the source domain. This is a restrictive assumption that limits the practical applicability of unsupervised domain adaptation techniques in real world settings ("in the wild"). Therefore, we relax this constraint and propose a technique that allows the set of target classes to be a subset of the source classes. This way, large publicly available annotated datasets with a wide variety of classes can be used as source, even if the actual set of classes in target can be more limited and, maybe most importantly, unknown beforehand. To this end, we propose an algorithm that orders a set of source subspaces that are relevant to the target classification problem. Our method then chooses a restricted set from this ordered set of source subspaces. As an extension, even starting from multiple source datasets with varied sets of categories, this method automatically selects an appropriate subset of source categories relevant to a target dataset. Empirical analysis on a number of source and target domain datasets shows that restricting the source subspace to only a subset of categories does indeed substantially improve the eventual target classification accuracy over the baseline that considers all source classes.
Integrating Mission and Task Planning in an Industrial Robotics Framework

This paper presents a framework developed for an industrial robotics system that utilises two different planning components. At a high level, a multi-robot mission planner interfaces with a fleet and environment manager and uses multiagent planning techniques to build mission assignments to be distributed to a robot fleet. On each robot, a task planner automatically converts the robot's world model and skill definitions into a planning problem which is then solved to find a sequence of actions that the robot should perform to complete its mission. This framework is demonstrated on an industrial kitting task in a real-world factory environment.
Growing up in domestic violence: What does maternal protectiveness mean?

There is limited understanding at the current time about the nature of relationships between women and their children in contexts of domestic violence. This is particularly the case in relation to maternal protectiveness, which tends to be seen in simplistic terms of whether women stay in violence or leave to protect their children. This article reports on a qualitative research study that explores mother–child relationships in the context of domestic violence. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 14 women and two men who were raised in contexts of domestic violence. Thematic analysis revealed complexities between the former children’s perceptions of their own needs and their mothers’ vulnerabilities in the context of violence, as well as shifting understandings over time that involved development of deeper insights into the impact of violence on their mothers and themselves. The nuances of maternal protectiveness identified through this analysis can help social workers appreciate the multiple factors that impact on children’s relationships with their mothers in contexts of violence. The findings therefore have practice implications for social work with women who mother in domestic violence as well as children and adults who grow up in these environments.
Investigating the use of Web 2.0 technology by Malaysian students

Purpose – Many research have uncovered the use of Web 2.0 technology by students from various countries. Yet, limited studies have been done from the context of developing country such as Malaysia. This paper aims to highlight the development of a survey instrument that captured the use of Web 2.0 applications by Malaysian students for learning.Design/methodology/approach – Surveys had been used by most studies to gather empirical evidence about the use of Web 2.0 by young generations. The paper discussed how previously used survey instruments were redesigned, modified and constructed. Then, the survey was administered to a total of 217 Malaysian students.Findings – Students in Malaysia are reasonably well exposed to Web 2.0 applications and comfortable to use them for learning purposes. Results are consistent with similar respondents surveyed elsewhere but varied slightly on specific Web 2.0 tools due to exposure and the nature of use. Malaysian students are also found to be passive rather than active co.
RNAi in Arthropods: Insight into the Machinery and Applications for Understanding the Pathogen-Vector Interface

The availability of genome sequencing data in combination with knowledge of expressed genes via transcriptome and proteome data has greatly advanced our understanding of arthropod vectors of disease. Not only have we gained insight into vector biology, but also into their respective vector-pathogen interactions. By combining the strengths of postgenomic databases and reverse genetic approaches such as RNAi, the numbers of available drug and vaccine targets, as well as number of transgenes for subsequent transgenic or paratransgenic approaches, have expanded. These are now paving the way for in-field control strategies of vectors and their pathogens. Basic scientific questions, such as understanding the basic components of the vector RNAi machinery, is vital, as this allows for the transfer of basic RNAi machinery components into RNAi-deficient vectors, thereby expanding the genetic toolbox of these RNAi-deficient vectors and pathogens. In this review, we focus on the current knowledge of arthropod vector RNAi machinery and the impact of RNAi on understanding vector biology and vector-pathogen interactions for which vector genomic data is available on VectorBase.
Critical realism as a ‘methodology’ for exploring discourse in technical fields

Abstract Applied linguistic research has tended to draw on the work of various postmodern theorists, such as Gee (1999) and others of the New Literacy Studies movement. Critical realism is a relatively new approach for social scientists working in the arena of academic development, at least in South Africa, and thus the perspectives that it can offer are either unknown or not well understood. This paper offers a theoretical perspective on discourse-based research practice, with concepts drawn from my experience of using critical realism as a philosophical framework and an analytical lens during a case study. Critical realism not only guided my research methodology but illuminated the perspective of other social theories. The focus of the research was the role of discourse in the constitution of radiographic knowledge in a higher education teaching and learning context embedded in a large state training hospital.
Using a Comprehensive Makeup Exam to Replace a Missed Exam

some data might be inaccurate. I stated that, because no record was kept of who turned in which questionnaires, students need not fear losing points if they had faked data. Each student wrote the three numbers of the couples that they surveyed. Beside each number, they wrote whether they believed that couple's questionnaires were precisely accurate. All students submitted something (anonymously).
Understanding Leadership Behavior in Human Influence Network

We determined the results of the questionnaire for 97 staff members working in dot-jp, a non-profit organization in Japan, to understand the degrees of satisfaction of staff members with leaders. We then extracted human influence networks from the archives of e-mail used at dot-jp to understand relationships between leaders and other staff members. By integrating these two approaches, we revealed ideal leadership behavior. We discovered that leaders should receive messages from staff members as well as send messages to construct reliable relationships. Otherwise, leaders become smug and lose trusts from other staff members