Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
City Scale Image Geolocalization via Dense Scene Alignment

Predicting where a photo was taken is quite important and yet a challenging task for computer vision algorithms. Our motivation is to solve this difficult problem in a city scale setting by employing a data-driven approach. In order to pursue this goal, we developed a fast and robust scene matching method that follows a coarse-to-fine strategy. In particular, we combine scene retrieval via global features and dense scene alignment and use a large set of geo-tagged images of downtown San Francisco in our evaluation. The experimental results show that the proposed approach, despite its simplicity, is surprisingly effective and achieves comparable results with the state-of-the-art.
Observational Strategies of Cosmic Microwave Background Temperature and Polarization Interferometry Experiments

We have simulated the interferometric observation of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization fluctuations. We have constructed data pipelines from the time-ordered raw visibility samples to the CMB power spectra that utilize the methods of data compression, maximum likelihood analysis, and optimal subspace filtering. They are customized for three observational strategies: the single pointing, the mosaicking, and the drift-scanning. For each strategy, derived are the optimal strategy parameters that yield band power estimates with minimum uncertainty. The results are general and can be applied to any close-packed array on a single platform such as the CBI and the forthcoming AMiBA experiments. We have also studied the effect of rotation of the array platform on the band power correlation by simulating the CBI single-pointing observation. It is found that the band power anticorrelations can be reduced by rotating the platform and thus densely sampling the visibility plane. This enables us to increase the resolution of the power spectrum in the l-space down to the limit of the sampling theorem (Δl = 226 ≈ π/θ), which is narrower by a factor of about than the resolution limit (Δl ≈ 300) used in the recent CBI single-pointing observation. The validity of this idea is demonstrated for a two-element interferometer that samples visibilities uniformly in the uv-annulus. From the fact that the visibilities are the Fourier modes of the CMB field convolved with the beam, a fast unbiased estimator (FUE) of the CMB power spectra is developed and tested. It is shown that the FUE gives results very close to those from the quadratic estimator method without requiring large computer resources even though uncertainties in the results increase.
Distributed broadcast in unknown radio networks

We consider the problem of broadcasting in an unknown radio network modeled as a directed graph <i>G</i> = (<i>V, E</i>), where |<i>V</i>| = <i>n</i>. In unknown networks, every node knows only its own label, while it is unaware of any other parameter of the network, included its neighborhood and even any upper bound on the number of nodes. We show an <i>O</i>(<i>n</i> log <i>n</i> log log <i>n</i>) upper bound on the time complexity of deterministic broadcasting improving upon the time complexity of the currently best known algorithms [6, 12].
A New Anisotropic Method For Speckle Reducing

Speckle noise is a common undesired phenomena in all coherent imaging systems and it affects the tasks of human interpretation and automated image analysis. This paper presents a novel anisotropic method for speckle reducing. A constrained optimal problem is considered to minimize total variation of speckle image. By using dynamical scheme, we obtain a new anisotropic diffusion filter. Compared to the related approaches, the proposed method can preserve edges and protect more fine details. Results on real speckle images are given. We have also compared our method with some related methods.
Emergence in Sociology: Contemporary Philosophy of Mind and Some Implications for Sociological Theory1

Many accounts of the micro‐macro link use the philosophical notion of emergence to argue that collective phenomena are collaboratively created by individuals yet are not reducible to explanation in terms of individuals. However, emergence has also been invoked by methodological individualists; they accept the existence of emergent social properties yet claim that such properties can be reduced to explanations in terms of individuals and their relationships. Thus, contemporary sociological uses of emergence are contradictory and unstable. This article clarifies this situation by developing an account of emergence based in contemporary philosophy of mind. The philosophical account is used to evaluate contradictory sociological theories. Several unresolved issues facing theories of emergence in sociology are identified.
Lingkungan Pendidikan dalam Implementasi Pendidikan Karakter

Tujuan penulisan atrikel ini adalah membahas tentang makna dan peran lingkungan pendidikan dalam pendidikan karakter. Metoda analisis yang digunakan dalam pembahasan topik utama menggunakan model analisis causal efektual dengan meninjau hubungan rasional, yang menganalisa hubungan sebab akibat antara lingkungan pendidikan pada pendidikan karakter dengan sumber utama dari literature review. Hasil pembahasan menunjukkan bahwa lingkungan pendidikan memberikan pengaruh besar dalam pendidikan karakter. Artikel ini berkesimpulan bahwa untuk penyelenggaraan pendidikan karakter perlu ditopang oleh lingkungan pendidikan yang baik. Kata kunci: lingkungan, pembelajaran, pendidikan karakter
Identity and Intimacy Development, Humor Styles, and Psychological Well-Being

ABSTRACT This study explored how humor may be involved in the identity and intimacy stages of Erikson’s psychosocial model and also bear on psychological well-being. Participants completed measures of identity and intimacy development, several humor styles, and psychological well-being. Findings revealed that greater identity development was associated with more self-enhancing and affiliative humor use and less self-defeating humor use. Greater intimacy, in turn, was associated with higher affiliative humor and lower self-defeating humor use. Additional findings indicated that the prediction of psychological well-being was significantly enhanced when identity, intimacy, and humor styles were all taken into account. These findings were then considered in terms of specifying the underlying processes that may account for the observed links between identity, intimacy, humor styles, and well-being.
zLayer: simulating depth with extended parallax scrolling

This paper describes an image-based primitive, zlayer, for modeling virtual environments. It serves as a faster altemative to traditional modeling and rendering of threedimensional objects but constrains the viewpoint to translation only. Current image-based approaches interpolate a new frame using frames created from neighbouring viewpoints. In contrast, zLayers am created from a single viewpoint. To simulate camera translation, new frames are interpolated by warping and compositing multiple zlayers. This paper describes the creation process of zLayer from three-dimensional computer models, photographs and hand drawn images. The generation of ZLayer from computer model can be automated. Finally, various applications of ZLayers are discussed.
PERCEPTUAL QUALITY ASSESSMENT FOR STEREOSCOPIC IMAGES BASED ON 2 D IMAGE QUALITY METRICS AND DISPARITY ANALYSIS

Both compression and transmission errors may degrade the quality of stereoscopic images. Although many twodimensional (2D) image quality metrics have been proposed that work well on 2D images, developing quality metrics for three-dimensional visual presentations is almost an unexplored issue. This paper investigates the capabilities of some 2D image quality metrics in stereoscopic image quality assessment. Furthermore, disparity has a significant impact on stereoscopic image quality assessment, as an important attribute in stereopsis. A study on the integration of disparity information into quality assessment is presented. The experimental results demonstrate that a better performance can be achieved if the disparity information and original images are combined appropriately in stereoscopic image quality assessment.
Linear ubiquitination in immunity

Linear ubiquitination is a post‐translational protein modification recently discovered to be crucial for innate and adaptive immune signaling. The function of linear ubiquitin chains is regulated at multiple levels: generation, recognition, and removal. These chains are generated by the linear ubiquitin chain assembly complex (LUBAC), the only known ubiquitin E3 capable of forming the linear ubiquitin linkage de novo. LUBAC is not only relevant for activation of nuclear factor‐κB (NF‐κB) and mitogen‐activated protein kinases (MAPKs) in various signaling pathways, but importantly, it also regulates cell death downstream of immune receptors capable of inducing this response. Recognition of the linear ubiquitin linkage is specifically mediated by certain ubiquitin receptors, which is crucial for translation into the intended signaling outputs. LUBAC deficiency results in attenuated gene activation and increased cell death, causing pathologic conditions in both, mice, and humans. Removal of ubiquitin chains is mediated by deubiquitinases (DUBs). Two of them, OTULIN and CYLD, are constitutively associated with LUBAC. Here, we review the current knowledge on linear ubiquitination in immune signaling pathways and the biochemical mechanisms as to how linear polyubiquitin exerts its functions distinctly from those of other ubiquitin linkage types.
False discovery rate and permutation test: An evaluation in ERP data analysis

Current analysis of event‐related potentials (ERP) data is usually based on the a priori selection of channels and time windows of interest for studying the differences between experimental conditions in the spatio‐temporal domain. In this work we put forward a new strategy designed for situations when there is not a priori information about ‘when’ and ‘where’ these differences appear in the spatio‐temporal domain, simultaneously testing numerous hypotheses, which increase the risk of false positives. This issue is known as the problem of multiple comparisons and has been managed with methods that control the false discovery rate (FDR), such as permutation test and FDR methods. Although the former has been previously applied, to our knowledge, the FDR methods have not been introduced in the ERP data analysis. Here we compare the performance (on simulated and real data) of permutation test and two FDR methods (Benjamini and Hochberg (BH) and local‐fdr, by Efron). All these methods have been shown to be valid for dealing with the problem of multiple comparisons in the ERP analysis, avoiding the ad hoc selection of channels and/or time windows. FDR methods are a good alternative to the common and computationally more expensive permutation test. The BH method for independent tests gave the best overall performance regarding the balance between type I and type II errors. The local‐fdr method is preferable for high dimensional (multichannel) problems where most of the tests conform to the empirical null hypothesis. Differences among the methods according to assumptions, null distributions and dimensionality of the problem are also discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Aperiodic stochastic resonance in excitable systems.

Ap er io dicSto chasticRe sonanceinExcitableSystemsJ.J. Collins1;2, CarsonC. Chowand Thomas T. Imho 1NeuroMuscularResearch Center and2Department of Biomedical Engineering,BostonUniversity, 44 Cummington Street, Boston, Massachusetts02215(May 6, 1996)Ab stractSto chastic re sonance (SR) i s a phenomenon where in te re sp ons e of a nonlin-earsystem toa weakp er io dicinputs ignali sptimize dby thepre s enceof aparticular levelof noi s e.Here we pre s ent a new metho d and teory for car-acter izing SR-typ e b ehavior in excitble systems with ap er io dic inputs.The s enovel developments demonstrae that noi s e can s ervo enhance te re sp ons eof a nonlinear system to a weak input s ignal, regardle ss of whether te s ignali s p er io dic or ap er io dic.PACS numb ers:0.5. 40. +j, 87.22. JbTyp e s et us ing REVTEX1
Actively Searching for an E(cid:11)ective Neural-Network Ensemble

A neural-network ensemble is a very successful technique where the outputs of a set of separately trained neural network are combined to form one uni(cid:12)ed prediction. An e(cid:11)ective ensemble should consist of a set of networks that are not only highly correct, but ones that make their errors on di(cid:11)erent parts of the input space as well; however, most existing techniques only indirectly address the problem of creating such a set. We present an algorithm called Addemup that uses genetic algorithms to explicitly search for a highly diverse set of accurate trained networks. Addemup works by (cid:12)rst creating an initial population, then uses genetic operators to continually create new networks, keeping the set of networks that are highly accurate while disagreeing with each other as much as possible. Experiments on four real-world domains show that Addemup is able to generate a set of trained networks that is more accurate than several existing ensemble approaches. Experiments also show that Addemup is able to e(cid:11)ectively incorporate prior knowledge, if available, to improve the quality of its ensemble.
Plexin A3 and Turnout Regulate Motor Axonal Branch Morphogenesis in Zebrafish

During embryogenesis motor axons navigate to their target muscles, where individual motor axons develop complex branch morphologies. The mechanisms that control axonal branching morphogenesis have been studied intensively, yet it still remains unclear when branches begin to form or how branch locations are determined. Live cell imaging of individual zebrafish motor axons reveals that the first axonal branches are generated at the ventral extent of the myotome via bifurcation of the growth cone. Subsequent branches are generated by collateral branching restricted to their synaptic target field along the distal portion of the axon. This precisely timed and spatially restricted branching process is disrupted in turnout mutants we identified in a forward genetic screen. Molecular genetic mapping positioned the turnout mutation within a 300 kb region encompassing eight annotated genes, however sequence analysis of all eight open reading frames failed to unambiguously identify the turnout mutation. Chimeric analysis and single cell labeling reveal that turnout function is required cell non-autonomously for intraspinal motor axon guidance and peripheral branch formation. turnout mutant motor axons form the first branch on time via growth cone bifurcation, but unlike wild-type they form collateral branches precociously, when the growth cone is still navigating towards the ventral myotome. These precocious collateral branches emerge along the proximal region of the axon shaft typically devoid of branches, and they develop into stable, permanent branches. Furthermore, we find that null mutants of the guidance receptor plexin A3 display identical motor axon branching defects, and time lapse analysis reveals that precocious branch formation in turnout and plexin A3 mutants is due to increased stability of otherwise short-lived axonal protrusions. Thus, plexin A3 dependent intrinsic and turnout dependent extrinsic mechanisms suppress collateral branch morphogenesis by destabilizing membrane protrusions before the growth cone completes navigation into the synaptic target field.
An AdaBoost Algorithm for Multiclass Semi-supervised Learning

We present an algorithm for multiclass Semi-Supervised learning which is learning from a limited amount of labeled data and plenty of unlabeled data. Existing semi-supervised algorithms use approaches such as one-versus-all to convert the multiclass problem to several binary classification problems which is not optimal. We propose a multiclass semi-supervised boosting algorithm that solves multiclass classification problems directly. The algorithm is based on a novel multiclass loss function consisting of the margin cost on labeled data and two regularization terms on labeled and unlabeled data. Experimental results on a number of UCI datasets show that the proposed algorithm performs better than the state-of-the-art boosting algorithms for multiclass semi-supervised learning.
Modeling and numerical approximation of two-phase incompressible flows by a phase-field approach

We present in this note a unified approach on how to design simple, efficient and energy stable time discretization schemes for the Allen-Cahn or Cahn-Hilliard Navier-Stokes system which models twophase incompressible flows with matching or non-matching density. Special emphasis is placed on designing schemes which only require solving linear systems at each time step while satisfy discrete energy laws that mimic the continuous energy laws. We construct the time discretization schemes in weak formulations so that they can be used with any consistent Galerkin type spacial discretization schemes such as finite element methods and spectral/spectral-element methods.
Combining global and local information for enhanced deep classification

Compared to traditional text classification with a flat category set or a small hierarchy of categories, classifying web pages to a large-scale hierarchy such as Open Directory Project (ODP) and Yahoo! Directory is challenging. While a recently proposed "deep" classification method makes the problem tractable, it still suffers from low classification performance. A major problem is the lack of training data, which is unavoidable with such a huge hierarchy. Training pages associated with the category nodes are short, and their distributions are skewed. To alleviate the problem, we propose a new training data selection strategy and a naïve Bayes combination model, which utilize both local and global information. We conducted a series of experiments with the ODP hierarchy containing more than 100,000 categories to show that the proposed method of using both local and global information indeed helps avoiding the training data sparseness problem, outperforming the state-of-art method.
Estimation of Markov-modulated time-series via EM algorithm

We consider the estimation of various Markov-modulated time series. We obtain maximum likelihood estimates of the time-series parameters including the Markov chain transition probabilities and the time-series coefficients using the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm. In addition, the recursive EM algorithm is used to obtain on-line parameter estimates. Simulation studies show that both algorithms yield satisfactory results. <<ETX>>
Opportunistic Communications for Emergency Evacuation

Evacuation is an important component of emergency and disaster response. In case of emergencies, people in and near the affected area need to be quickly alerted of the emergency and evacuated along safe routes. Evacuation also needs to be fast, especially when there is a spreading hazard such as fire or flood. However, finding the best (i.e. safest and fastest) escape path is complicated due to ambiguous information and the dynamic conditions of the emergency. People may be unfamiliar with the area and the disaster might have rendered some paths unusable. Furthermore, best evacuation paths would change as the hazard spreads. An emergency support system that aids in evacuation can prove very beneficial in these situations. However, existing communication infrastructure may be impaired due to the emergency; parts of the infrastructure may be destroyed, services may not be available due to congestion as everybody tries to communicate at the same time, or civilians may not be able to access existing networks due to prioritization of other communications. We propose the use of opportunistic communications (oppcomms) [5] among pocket devices carried by people to enable emergency support in the absence of communication infrastructure and describe the design of an emergency support system (ESS) based on oppcomms that provides alerting and navigation services to people in the emergency area for evacuation purposes. With oppcomms, devices exchange messages at a close range of a few to tens of meters with limited or no infrastructure and messages are carried over multiple-hops in a“store-carry-forward”manner by exploiting human mobility. We evaluate the performance of oppcomms and ESS using simulation experiments of indoor and outdoor urban emergencies. Our results show the degree of improvement that oppcomms can offer.
Reflections of Reality in Jan van Eyck and Robert Campin

There has been considerable debate about the perspectival/optical bases of the naturalism pioneered by Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck. Their paintings feature brilliantly rendered convex mirrors, which have been the subject of much comment, especially iconographical. David Hockney has recently argued that the Netherlandish painters exploited the image-forming capacities of concave mirrors. However, the secrets of the images within the painted mirrors have yet to be revealed. By means of novel, rigorous techniques to analyze the geometric accuracy of the mirrors, unexpected findings emerge, which radically affect our perception of the way in which the paintings have been generated. The authors focus on Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait, and the Heinrich von Werl Triptych, here reattributed to Robert Campin. The accuracy of the images in the convex mirrors depicted in these paintings is assessed by applying mathematical techniques drawn from computer vision. The proposed algorithms also allow the viewer to "rectify" the image in the mirror so that it becomes a central projection, thus providing a second view from the back of the painted room. The plausibility of the painters' renderings of space in the convex mirrors can then be assessed. The rectified images can be used for purposes of three-dimensional reconstruction as well as for measuring accurate dimensions of objects and people. The surprising results presented in this article cast a new light on the understanding of the artists' techniques and their optical imitation of seen things and potentially require a rethinking of the foundations of Netherlandish naturalism. The results also suggest that the von Werl panels should be reinstated as autograph works by Campin. Additionally, this research represents a further attempt to build a constructive dialogue between two very different disciplines: computer science and art history. Despite their fundamental differences, the two disciplines can learn from and be enriched by each other.
An Energy-Optimal Methodology for Synchronization of Excitable Media

We propose a novel energy-optimal methodology to synchronize the cells within an excitable medium during spiral wave activity. The optimal stimulus takes the cells of an excitable medium to a target set where the isostables of the system, which measure the time it takes for a given initial condition in phase space to approach a stable fixed point, are diffuse, thereby synchronizing the activity of the medium. This method is illustrated for a FitzHugh--Nagumo-based model which captures important characteristics of the myocardium and represents a significant first step in the development of energy-optimal defibrillation strategies.