Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identification of time and risk preferences in buy price auctions

Buy price auctions merge a posted price option with a standard bidding mechanisms, and have been used by various online auction sites including eBay and General Motors Assistance Corporation. A buyer in a buy price auction can accept the buy price to win with certainty and end the auction early. Intuitively, the buy price option may appeal to bidders who are risk averse or impatient to obtain the good, and a number of authors have examined how such mechanisms can increase the seller's expected revenue over standard auctions. We show that data from buy price auctions can be used to identify bidders' risk aversion and time preferences. We develop a private value model of bidder behavior in a buy price auction with a temporary buy price. Bidders arrive stochastically over time, and the auction proceeds as a second‐price sealed bid auction after the buy price disappears. Upon arrival, a bidder in our model is allowed to act immediately (i.e., accept the buy price if it is still available or place a bid) or wait and act later. Allowing for general forms of risk aversion and impatience, we first characterize equilibria in cutoff strategies and describe conditions under which all symmetric pure‐strategy subgame‐perfect Bayesian Nash equilibria are in cutoff strategies. Given sufficient exogenous variation in auction characteristics such as reserve and buy prices and in auction lengths, we then show that the arrival rate, valuation distribution, utility function, and time‐discounting function in our model are all nonparametrically identified. We also develop extensions of the identification results for cases where the variation in auction characteristics is more limited.
Allergic transfusion reactions to platelets are more commonly associated with prepooled than apheresis components

Transfusions of pooled or apheresis platelets are seen as equally effective in increasing platelet counts with similar rates of transfusion reactions. It has been suggested that allergic transfusion reactions (ATRs) to platelets are associated with recipient and donor factors. In this study, we assessed differences in ATR rates among individuals who received platelet components at two academic medical centres.
On the metric properties of dynamic time warping

Recently, some new and promising methods have been proposed to reduce the number of Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) computations in Isolated Word Recognition. For these methods to be properly applicable, the verification of the Triangle Inequality (TI) by the DTW-based Dissimilarity Measure utilized seems to be an important prerequisite.
Soft Categorization and Annotation of Images with Radial Basis Function Networks

This work focuses on fast approaches for image retrieval and classification by employing simple features to build image signatures. For this purpose a neural model for soft classification and automatic image annotation is proposed. The salient aspects of this solution are: a) the employment of a Radial Basis Function Network built on top of an image retrieval distance metric b) a soft learning strategy for annotation handling. Experiments have been conducted on a subset of the Corel image dataset for evaluation and comparative analysis.
Normalization of the Verbal Fluency Test on the basis of results for healthy subjects, patients with schizophrenia, patients with organic lesions of the chronic nervous system and patients with type 1 and 2 diabetes

Introduction Verbal fluency is the ability to form and express words compatible with required criteria. Verbal fluency is necessary for optimal communication and for normal social and occupational functioning. The Verbal Fluency Test is a good indicator of frontal lobe dysfunction, particularly of the left frontal cortex. Material and methods The aim of the study was to compare verbal fluency in healthy subjects (n = 50), patients with paranoid schizophrenia (n = 36), patients with organic lesions of the central nervous system (CNS) (n = 33), and patients with diabetes (n = 62) – type 1 diabetes (n = 31) and type 2 diabetes (n = 31). Results Healthy subjects and patients with diabetes achieved the highest results in all categories of the Verbal Fluency Test. Patients with paranoid schizophrenia achieved significantly lower results. Sten norms of the Verbal Fluency Test were developed for the general population. Using these norms it was found that subjects with schizophrenia or with organic lesions of the CNS had very poor results more often and very high results less frequently compared to healthy subjects and also to patients with diabetes. Conclusions This observation is consistent with the neurodevelopmental hypothesis of schizophrenia, in which cognitive functions of the frontal lobe (e.g. verbal fluency) play a major role in the psychopathological picture. We have also demonstrated that in patients with type 1 and 2 diabetes verbal fluency is comparable with healthy subjects.
City GPS using stereo vision

Next generation driver assistance systems require a precise localization. However, global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) often exhibit a paucity of accuracy due to shadowing effects in street canyon like scenarios rendering this solution insufficient for many tasks. Alternatively 3D laser scanners can be utilized to localize the vehicle within a previously recorded 3D map. These scanners however, are expensive and bulky hampering a wide spread use. Herein we propose to use stereo cameras to localize the ego vehicle within a previously computed visual 3D map. The proposed localization solution is low cost, precise and runs in real time. The map is computed once and kept fixed thereafter using cameras as sole sensors without GPS readings. The presented mapping algorithm is largely inspired by current state of the art simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) methods. Moreover, the map merely consists of a sparse set of landmark points keeping the map storage manageably low.
A graph-spectral approach to shape-from-shading

In this paper, we explore how graph-spectral methods can be used to develop a new shape-from-shading algorithm. We characterize the field of surface normals using a weight matrix whose elements are computed from the sectional curvature between different image locations and penalize large changes in surface normal direction. Modeling the blocks of the weight matrix as distinct surface patches, we use a graph seriation method to find a surface integration path that maximizes the sum of curvature-dependent weights and that can be used for the purposes of height reconstruction. To smooth the reconstructed surface, we fit quadrics to the height data for each patch. The smoothed surface normal directions are updated ensuring compliance with Lambert's law. The processes of height recovery and surface normal adjustment are interleaved and iterated until a stable surface is obtained. We provide results on synthetic and real-world imagery.
Characterization of Inhibitory Anti-Duffy Binding Protein II Immunity: Approach to Plasmodium vivax Vaccine Development in Thailand

Plasmodium vivax Duffy binding protein region II (DBPII) is an important vaccine candidate for antibody-mediated immunity against vivax malaria. A significant challenge for vaccine development of DBPII is its highly polymorphic nature that alters sensitivity to neutralizing antibody responses. Here, we aim to characterize naturally-acquired neutralizing antibodies against DBPII in individual Thai residents to give insight into P. vivax vaccine development in Thailand. Anti-DBPII IgG significantly increased in acute vivax infections compared to uninfected residents and naive controls. Antibody titers and functional anti-DBPII inhibition varied widely and there was no association between titer and inhibition activity. Most high titer plasmas had only a moderate to no functional inhibitory effect on DBP binding to erythrocytes, indicating the protective immunity against DBPII binding is strain specific. Only 5 of 54 samples were highly inhibitory against DBP erythrocyte-binding function. Previously identified target epitopes of inhibitory anti-DBPPII IgG (H1, H2 and H3) were localized to the dimer interface that forms the DARC binding pocket. Amino acid polymorphisms (monomorphic or dimorphic) in H1 and H3 protective epitopes change sensitivity of immune inhibition by alteration of neutralizing antibody recognition. The present study indicates Thai variant H1.T1 (R308S), H3.T1 (D384G) and H3.T3 (K386N) are the most important variants for a DBPII candidate vaccine needed to protect P. vivax in Thai residents.
Potassium Inactivation and Impedance Changes during Spike Electrogenesis in Eel Electroplaques

Various degrees of pharmacological K inactivation were induced by Cs or Ba in isolated single electroplaques of the electric eel. The resulting changes in K conductance give rise to very different steady-state current-voltage characteristics. They also induce differences in ion dynamics during spike electrogenesis. The dynamic changes were studied by AC bridge methods, registering the changes in impedance in synchrony with the neurally or directly evoked spikes. While spike electrogenesis was virtually unaffected by addition of Cs or Ba, the patterns of impedance changes were very different. The various patterns are accounted for by the changes in the respective current-voltage characteristics. The data constitute new evidence for regarding the electrically excitable component of the reactive membrane as a heterogeneous electrochemical system with separate and independently reactive channels that in the electroplaques are permselective for Na and K, respectively.
An algorithm of calculating turbulence kinetic energy dissipation rate based on motion compensation

In order to maximum eliminate the pollution caused by vibration of the instrument and improve the accuracy of the turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate, this paper puts forward an algorithm based on motion compensation. Firstly, spectrum analysis is used to analyze the relationship between shear signal and the acceleration signal. Then, according to the relationship, the acceleration signal takes as reference signal to design motion compensation algorithm. Finally, wiener filtering is used to get the optimum parameter to eliminate instrument vibration interference. In order to verify the validity of the algorithm, real sea data is applied, and the results show that the vibration signal is effectively eliminated, which provides real and effective turbulence signal to calculate the turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate.
Foveal structure and thickness of retinal layers long-term after surgical peeling of idiopathic epiretinal membrane.

PURPOSE To better understand the long-term effect of idiopathic epiretinal membrane peeling on retinal anatomy, the foveal structure and the thickness of individual retinal layers were analyzed with frequency-domain optical coherence tomography (fdOCT). The long-term postoperative course of macular thickness was followed. METHODS fdOCT scans were obtained from the horizontal midline in 33 eyes long-term (mean 46 ± 13 months) after surgery and in 30 eyes of age-matched controls. Raw images were exported, and the thickness of retinal layers was measured with a manual segmentation procedure aided by a customized computer program. Macular thickness was quantified over time with the time-domain (td) OCT Fast Macular Thickness program. RESULTS Thickness of retinal layers between the outer nuclear and the ganglion cell plus inner plexiform layers in the horizontal midline of the fovea and the nasal parafovea was greater than normal, whereas that of the RPE, photoreceptor, and retinal nerve fiber layers was not different from controls. Twelve of 33 eyes had a foveal pit though the median foveal shape was distorted. Central macular thickness quantified with tdOCT remained increased, whereas the decrease of nasal macular thickness toward normal values was incomplete and delayed to 35 months after surgery. Superior, temporal, and inferior macular thickness returned to normal 12 to 14 months after surgery. CONCLUSIONS Long-term after surgery, the fovea and the nasal parafovea remain thickened between the outer nuclear layer and the ganglion cell layer, whereas the superior, temporal, and inferior macular thickness returns to normal. Long-term observations are required in the assessment of macular recovery from mechanical stress.
Lidar-based urban road detection by histograms of normalized inverse depths and line scanning

In this paper, we propose to fuse the geometric information of a 3D Lidar and a monocular camera to detect the urban road region ahead of an autonomous vehicle. Our method takes advantage of both the high definition of 3D Lidar data and the continuity of road in image representation. First, we obtain an efficient representation of Lidar data, an organized 2D inverse depth map, by projecting the spatially unorganized 3D Lidar points onto the camera's image plane. The approximate road regions can be quickly estimated by extracting vertical and horizontal histograms of the normalized inverse depths. To accurately find the road area, a row and column scanning strategy is applied in the approximate road region. We have carried out experiments on the public KITTI-Road benchmark, and achieve one of the best performance among the Lidar-based road detection methods without learning procedure.
Comments on "Compression of 3D Point Clouds Using a Region-Adaptive Hierarchical Transform"

The recently introduced coder based on region-adaptive hierarchical transform (RAHT) for the compression of point clouds attributes, was shown to have a performance competitive with the state-of-the-art, while being much less complex. In the paper "Compression of 3D Point Clouds Using a Region-Adaptive Hierarchical Transform", top performance was achieved using arithmetic coding (AC), while adaptive run-length Golomb-Rice (RLGR) coding was presented as a lower-performance lower-complexity alternative. However, we have found that by reordering the RAHT coefficients we can largely increase the runs of zeros and significantly increase the performance of the RLGR-based RAHT coder. As a result, the new coder, using ordered coefficients, was shown to outperform all other coders, including AC-based RAHT, at an even lower computational cost. We present new results and plots that should enhance those in the work of Queiroz and Chou to include the new results for RLGR-RAHT. We risk to say, based on the results herein, that RLGR-RAHT with sorted coefficients is the new state-of-the-art in point cloud compression.
On Optimal Game-Tree Search using Rational Meta-Reasoning

In this paper we outline a general approach to the study of problem-solving, in which search steps are considered decisions in the same sense as actions in the world. Unlike other metrics in the literature, the value of a search step is defined as a real utility rather than as a quasi-utility, and can therefore be computed directly from a model of the base-level problem-solver. We develop a formula for the expected value of a search step in a game-playing context using the single-step assumption, namely that a computation step can be evaluated as it was the last to be taken. We prove some meta-level theorems that enable the development of a low-overhead algorithm, MGSS*, that chooses search steps in order of highest estimated utility. Although we show that the single-step assumption is untenable in general, a program implemented for the game of Othello soundly beats an alpha-beta search while expanding significantly fewer nodes, even though both programs use the same evaluation function.
Use of the Edinburgh geoparser for georeferencing digitized historical collections

We report on two JISC-funded projects that aimed to enrich the metadata of digitized historical collections with georeferences and other information automatically computed using geoparsing and related information extraction technologies. Understanding location is a critical part of any historical research, and the nature of the collections makes them an interesting case study for testing automated methodologies for extracting content. The two projects (GeoDigRef and Embedding GeoCrossWalk) have looked at how automatic georeferencing of resources might be useful in developing improved geographical search capacities across collections. In this paper, we describe the work that was undertaken to configure the geoparser for the collections as well as the evaluations that were performed.
The role of vascular cell adhesion molecule 1/ very late activation antigen 4 in endothelial progenitor cell recruitment to rheumatoid arthritis synovium.

OBJECTIVE Marrow-derived endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) are important in the neovascularization that occurs in diverse conditions such as cardiovascular disorders, inflammatory diseases, and neoplasms. In rheumatoid arthritis (RA), synovial neovascularization propels disease by nourishing the inflamed and hyperproliferative synovium. This study was undertaken to investigate the hypothesis that EPCs selectively home to inflamed joint tissue and may perpetuate synovial neovascularization. METHODS In a collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) model, neovascularization and EPC accumulation in mouse ankle synovium was measured. In an antibody-induced arthritis model, EPC recruitment to inflamed synovium was evaluated. In a chimeric SCID mouse/human synovial tissue (ST) model, mice were engrafted subcutaneously with human ST, and EPC homing to grafts was assessed 2 days later. EPC adhesion to RA fibroblasts and RA ST was evaluated in vitro. RESULTS In mice with CIA, cells bearing EPC markers were significantly increased in peripheral blood and accumulated in inflamed synovial pannus. EPCs were 4-fold more numerous in inflamed synovium from mice with anti-type II collagen antibody-induced arthritis versus controls. In SCID mice, EPC homing to RA ST was 3-fold greater than to normal synovium. Antibody neutralization of vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 (VCAM-1) and its ligand component alpha4 integrin potently inhibited EPC adhesion to RA fibroblasts and RA ST cryosections. CONCLUSION These data demonstrate the selective recruitment of EPCs to inflamed joint tissue. The VCAM-1/very late activation antigen 4 adhesive system critically mediates EPC adhesion to cultured RA fibroblasts and to RA ST cryosections. These findings provide evidence of a possible role of EPCs in the synovial neovascularization that is critical to RA pathogenesis.
Comparison of denoising methods in diffusion tensor imaging

In this paper, a non linear adaptive Gaussian de-noising method for diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is proposed. DTI image are of poor SNR and low resolution images. In order to improve DTI, the proposed method is applied to the diffusion weighted images (DWI) from which DTI is computed. The anisotropic flow principle is used in non linear adaptive Gaussian denoising method and smoothing will vary according to the anisotropic flow. The proposed method is compared with the scalar Partial Differential Equation (PDE) denoising method. The non linear adaptive Gaussian denoising method shows better performance compared to scalar PDE. To evaluate the efficiency of both denoising methods, image quality metrics like peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and mean structural similarity index measure (MSSIM) are used. The experimental results indicate the good performance of proposed method and it has a better denoising effect in DTI compared to scalar PDE.
Offset-qam Based Coherent Wdm for Spectral Efficiency Enhancement References and Links

Optically multiplexed multi-carrier systems with channel spacing reduced to the symbol rate per carrier are highly susceptible to inter-channel crosstalk, which places stringent requirements for the specifications of system components and hinders the use of high-level formats. In this paper, we investigate the performance benefits of using offset 4-, 16-, and 64-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) in coherent wavelength division multiplexing (CoWDM). We compare this system with recently reported Nyquist WDM and no-guard-interval optical coherent orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, and show that the presented system greatly relaxes the requirements for device specifications and enhances the spectral efficiency by enabling the use of high-level QAM. The achieved performance can approach the theoretical limits using practical components. " 64Tb/s (640×107Gb/s) PDM-36QAM transmission over 320km using both pre-and post-transmission digital equalization, " Optical Fiber Communication Conference (2010), paper PDPB9. No-guard-interval coherent optical OFDM for 100Gb/s long-haul WDM transmission, " J. Experimental investigation on the performance of closely spaced multi-carrier PDM-QPSK with digital coherent detection, " Opt. Generation, transmission and coherent detection of 11.2 Tb/s (112×100Gb/s) single source optical OFDM superchannel, " Optical Fiber Communication Conference (2011), paper PDPA6. A novel optical fast OFDM with reduced channel spacing equal to half of the symbol rate per carrier, " Achievement of sub-channel frequency spacing less than symbol rate and improvement of dispersion tolerance in optical OFDM transmission, " J. " High spectral efficiency long-haul transmission with pre-filtering and maximum a posteriori probability detection, " Proc. a bandwidth-efficient binary transmission system, " AIEE Trans. Synthesis of band-limited orthogonal signals fro multi-channel data transmission, " Bell Syst. Data transmission by frequency division multiplexing using the discrete Fourier transform, " IEEE Trans. Electronic impairment mitigation in optically multiplexed multi-carrier systems, " J. ultra-narrow carrier spacing on the transmission of a 10-carrier 1Tb/s superchannel, " Optical Fiber " Single source optical OFDM transmitter and optical FFT receiver demonstrated at line rates of 5.
Notarized federated ID management and authentication

We propose a notarized federated identity management model that supports efficient user authentication when providers are unknown to each other. Our model introduces a notary service, owned by a trusted third-party, to dynamically notarize assertions generated by identity providers. An additional feature of our model is the avoidance of direct communications between identity providers and service providers, which provides improved privacy protection for users. We present an efficient implementation of our notarized federated identity management model based on the Secure Transaction Management System (STMS). We also give a practical solution for mitigating aspects of the identity theft problem and discuss its use in our notarized federated identity management model. The unique feature of our cryptographic solution is that it enables one to proactively prevent the leaking of secret identity information.
Review of Wireless and Wearable Electroencephalogram Systems and Brain-Computer Interfaces – A Mini-Review

Biomedical signal monitoring systems have rapidly advanced in recent years, propelled by significant advances in electronic and information technologies. Brain-computer interface (BCI) is one of the important research branches and has become a hot topic in the study of neural engineering, rehabilitation, and brain science. Traditionally, most BCI systems use bulky, wired laboratory-oriented sensing equipments to measure brain activity under well-controlled conditions within a confined space. Using bulky sensing equipments not only is uncomfortable and inconvenient for users, but also impedes their ability to perform routine tasks in daily operational environments. Furthermore, owing to large data volumes, signal processing of BCI systems is often performed off-line using high-end personal computers, hindering the applications of BCI in real-world environments. To be practical for routine use by unconstrained, freely-moving users, BCI systems must be noninvasive, nonintrusive, lightweight and capable of online signal processing. This work reviews recent online BCI systems, focusing especially on wearable, wireless and real-time systems.