Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
LOGO RECOGNITION USING TEXTUAL AND VISUAL SEARCH

The amount of digital data transmitting via interne t has reached an enormous level. In order to conduc t efficient web data analysis, effective web mining t ools are needed. Logos, which represent companies’ brands, are highly regarded in a business world. These logos embedded in ordinary pictures could giv e an indication of popularity of the companies and their products in a region. Therefore, it is imperative to build a computer system to extract company logos from the se pictures. In this paper, a Logo on Map (LoM) system is proposed, which consists of three modules : picture extraction module (PEM), logo matching module (LMM) and web mapping module (WMM). Only the first two modules are covered in this paper. The PEM is based on a keyword textual search while the LMM is a visual search using SIFT (Scale- Invariant Feature Transform) algorithm. The three e xperiments are conducted using different sets of pictures extracted from the Flickr® website. The ex perimental results have proven that visual search i s more accurate than textual search and also demonstr ated that LoM could be used to discover hidden knowledge beyond logos.
Taming Mona Lisa: Communicating gaze faithfully in 2D and 3D facial projections

The perception of gaze plays a crucial role in human-human interaction. Gaze has been shown to matter for a number of aspects of communication and dialogue, especially for managing the flow of the dialogue and participant attention, for deictic referencing, and for the communication of attitude. When developing embodied conversational agents (ECAs) and talking heads, modeling and delivering accurate gaze targets is crucial. Traditionally, systems communicating through talking heads have been displayed to the human conversant using 2D displays, such as flat monitors. This approach introduces severe limitations for an accurate communication of gaze since 2D displays are associated with several powerful effects and illusions, most importantly the Mona Lisa gaze effect, where the gaze of the projected head appears to follow the observer regardless of viewing angle. We describe the Mona Lisa gaze effect and its consequences in the interaction loop, and propose a new approach for displaying talking heads using a 3D projection surface (a physical model of a human head) as an alternative to the traditional flat surface projection. We investigate and compare the accuracy of the perception of gaze direction and the Mona Lisa gaze effect in 2D and 3D projection surfaces in a five subject gaze perception experiment. The experiment confirms that a 3D projection surface completely eliminates the Mona Lisa gaze effect and delivers very accurate gaze direction that is independent of the observer's viewing angle. Based on the data collected in this experiment, we rephrase the formulation of the Mona Lisa gaze effect. The data, when reinterpreted, confirms the predictions of the new model for both 2D and 3D projection surfaces. Finally, we discuss the requirements on different spatially interactive systems in terms of gaze direction, and propose new applications and experiments for interaction in a human-ECA and a human-robot settings made possible by this technology.
A comparative analysis and review of national quality awards in Europe

Purpose – Through the analysis of different initiatives of all EU countries in relation to business excellence models, there is a need to map these initiatives and to compare the most “interesting” quality awards of European Union by means of their substantial differentiation from European Foundation of Quality Management (EFQM) model. The aim of this paper is to propose the necessity for a diverse business excellence system, which respects the cross‐cultural differentiations of EU countries.Design/methodology/approach – This research is based on information gathered by means of structured questionnaires, telephone interviews with representative Quality Award organizations and other written material collected from literature.Findings – The findings are summarized as follows. EU countries do not have a common framework to address business excellence, however the “European Quality Award” based on the “EFQM Excellence Model” is the most widespread in the previous decade. There is a tendency towards own devel.
Seed Bank Viability in Disturbed Longleaf Pine Sites

Some of the most species‐rich areas and highest concentrations of threatened and endangered species in the southeastern United States are found in wet savanna and flatwood longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) communities. Where intensive forestry practices have eliminated much of the natural understory of the longleaf ecosystem, the potential for reestablishment through a seed bank may present a valuable restoration opportunity. Longleaf pine sites converted to loblolly pine plantations and non‐disturbed longleaf sites on the Coastal Plain of North Carolina were examined for seed bank presence and diversity. Conducting vegetation surveys and examining the seed bank using the seedling emergence technique allowed for verification of the seed bank presence, as well as evaluation of the quality of the seed bank on disturbed longleaf pine sites. Forty‐three species and over 1,000 individuals germinated, and the seed banks of both the disturbed and non‐disturbed stand types contained species not noted in the vegetation survey. Although many of these species were considered weedy and typical of disturbance, numerous taxa were indicative of stable longleaf pine communities. This study confirms both the presence and quality of seed banks in highly disturbed former longleaf pine sites, suggesting that the seed bank may be an important tool in restoration efforts.
Only six kingdoms of life

There are many more phyla of microbes than of macro–organisms, but microbial biodiversity is poorly understood because most microbes are uncultured. Phylogenetic analysis of rDNA sequences cloned after PCR amplification of DNA extracted directly from environmental samples is a powerful way of exploring our degree of ignorance of major groups. As there are only five eukaryotic kingdoms, two claims using such methods for numerous novel ‘kingdom–level‘ lineages among anaerobic eukaryotes would be remarkable, if true. By reanalysing those data with 167 known species (not merely 8–37), I identified relatives for all 8–10 ‘mysterious‘ lineages. All probably belong to one of five already recognized phyla (Amoebozoa, Cercozoa, Apusozoa, Myzozoa, Loukozoa) within the basal kingdom Protozoa, mostly in known classes, sometimes even in known orders, families or genera. This strengthens the idea that the ancestral eukaryote was a mitochondrial aerobe. Analogous claims of novel bacterial divisions or kingdoms may reflect the weak resolution and grossly non–clock–like evolution of ribosomal rRNA, not genuine phylum–level biological disparity. Critical interpretation of environmental DNA sequences suggests that our overall picture of microbial biodiversity at phylum or division level is already rather good and comprehensive and that there are no uncharacterized kingdoms of life. However, immense lower–level diversity remains to be mapped, as does the root of the tree of life.
Effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy integrated with systematic desensitization, cognitive behavioral therapy combined with eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy combined with virtual reality exposure therapy methods in the treatment of flig

The purpose of the research was to compare the effectiveness of the following treatment methods for fear of flying: cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) integrated with systematic desensitization, CBT combined with eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, and CBT combined with virtual reality exposure therapy. Overall, our findings have proven the efficacy of all interventions in reducing fear of flying in a pre- to post-treatment comparison. All groups showed a decrease in flight anxiety, suggesting the efficiency of all three treatments in reducing self-report measures of fear of flying. In particular, our results indicated significant improvements for the treated patients using all the treatment programs, as shown not only by test scores but also by participation in the post-treatment flight. Nevertheless, outcome measures maintained a significant effect at a 1-year follow-up. In conclusion, combining CBT with both the application of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing treatment and the virtual stimuli used to expose patients with aerophobia seemed as efficient as traditional cognitive behavioral treatments integrated with systematic desensitization.
Theoretical analysis of fitness-proportional selection: landscapes and efficiency

We investigate theoretically how the fitness landscape influences the optimization process of population-based evolutionary algorithms using fitness-proportional selection. Considering the function OneMax, we show that it cannot be optimized in polynomial time with high probability regardless of the population size. This is proved by a generalization of drift analysis. For populations of at most logarithmic size, the negative result transfers to any function with unique optimum. Based on these insights, we investigate the effect of scaling the objective function in combination with a population that is not too small and show that then such algorithms compute optimal solutions for a wide range of problems in expected polynomial time. Finally, relationships with (1+λ)-EAs and (1,λ)-EAs are described.
Solar energized SRM driven water pumping utilizing modified Landsman converter

This paper presents the solar photovoltaic (SPV) array fed four phase; 8/6 switched reluctance motor (SRM) drive utilizing modified Landsman converter as a DCDC power conditioning stage for water pumping system. The modified Landsman converter is used here tooptimize the output power of PV(Photo-Voltaic) generator using an incrementalconductance (IC) maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithim and to facilitiate the soft starting of SRM drive.The continuous conduction mode (CCM) operated modified Landsman converter significantly reduces the current and voltage stress on the converter indices and improvesits energy conversion efficiency. The electrnonic commutated operatrion of a mid-ponit converter enhances the performance of present systemand sucessfully reduces the motor side sensors. A control logic is also introduced with the system to provide the self-starting of SRM drive. The propsed system is modeled and simulated in Matlab/Simulink platform and its results are verified by test results obtained on a laboratory based experimental prototype.
An Optimization Case in Support of Next Generation NFV Deployment

Still not long ago operators were struggling with middlebox deployment and traffic management across them. The service chaining problem was a well studied subject which had to deal with the limitations of middleboxes and offer various techniques to overcome them to achieve the desired traffic steering [6, 7]. Only two years have passed its official launch by ETSI [1], but network function virtualization (NFV) has already revolutionized the telecom industry by proposing a complete design paradigm shift in the way middleboxes are built and deployed. NFV requires the virtualization of middleboxes and other networking equipment, called virtual network functions (vNFs). This requirement will allow networking infrastructure operators to benefit from the same economies of scale and flexibility than the information technology community experienced with the advent of cloud computing. Other than the capex/opex saving and faster time to market of new services, the cloudification of networking gives us the opportunity to rethink how networking equipment are designed and deployed. While first generation NFV deployment has already been proved in the ETSI NFV community, we argue that there is yet lots of space for improvement both in terms of vNF design and deployment in order to optimize cloud computing and networking resources. To this end, we foresee various redesign opportunities for vNFs, either in distributing the functional components of a single vNF across the cloud to achieve better performance and scale, or in running multiple instances of vNFs in smaller VMs, as proposed by ClickOS-NFV [5]. Such vNF designs open new horizons to perform optimized vNF deployment in the cloud as studied in this paper. This position paper takes the example of ClickOSNFV [5] and proposes a clever way to address the vNF placement in the cloud and vNF forwarding graph (vNFFG) problem, a name given by ETSI to the well-known service chaining problem which is the process of steering vNF1 vNF3
Human Psychophysics for Teletaction System Design

In this paper, we quantify several perceptual capabilities of the human tactile system needed for teletaction. We develop a model of a teletaction system based on predicted subsurface strain. Psychophysics experiments measure the amplitude resolution of the human tactile system, the effects of shear stress on grating orientation discrimination, and the effects of viscoelasticity (creep and relaxation) on tactile perception for static touch. The results are used to determine teletaction system design parameters. We find that 10% amplitude resolution is sufficient for a teletaction system with a 2 mm elastic layer and 2 mm tactor spacing.
Determination of Yarn Twist Using Image Processing Techniques

In this study, a new quantitative method has been improved to determine the yarn twist values by using image processing techniques. For this purpose, firstly some sewing yarn images have been taken by a light microscope then these images have been processed by using image processing techniques. The obtained twist values via image processing have been compared to the actual yarn twist results. The accuracy percentage of the image processing technique on determination of yarn twist values has been measured. Results proved that yarn twist value can be determined by image processing technique with an average 90% accuracy without any yarn twist tester.
Self-organizing binary encoding for Approximate Nearest Neighbor search

Approximate Nearest Neighbor (ANN) search for indexing and retrieval has become very popular with the recent growth of the databases in both size and dimension. In this paper, we propose a novel method for fast approximate distance calculation among the compressed samples. Inspiring from Kohonen's self-organizing maps, we propose a structured hierarchical quantization scheme in order to compress database samples in a more efficient way. Moreover, we introduce an error correction stage for encoding, which further improves the performance of the proposed method. The results on publicly available benchmark datasets demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms many well-known methods with comparable computational cost and storage space.
Pattern Recognition of International Crises using Hidden Markov Models

Event data are one of the most widely used indicators in quantitative international relations research. To date, most of the models using event data have constructed numerical indicators based on the characteristics of the events measured in isolation and then aggregated. An alternative approach is to use quantitative pattern recognition techniques to compare an existing sequence of behaviors to a set of similar historical cases. This has much in common with human reasoning by historical analogy while providing the advantages of systematic and replicable analysis possible using machine-coded event data and statistical models. This chapter uses "hidden Markov models"—a recently developed sequence-comparison technique widely used in computational speech recognition—to measure similarities among international crises. The models are first estimated using the Behavioral Correlates of War data set of historical crises, then applied to an event data set covering political behavior in the contemporary Middle East for the period April 1979 through February 1997. A split-sample test of the hidden Markov models perfectly differentiates crises involving war from those not involving war in the cases used to estimate the models. The models also provide a high level of discrimination in a set of test cases not used in the estimated, and most of the erroneously-classified cases have plausible distinguishing features. The difference between the war and nonwar models also correlates significantly with a scaled measure of conflict in the contemporary Middle East. This suggests that hidden Markov models could be used to develop conflict measures based on event similarities to historical conflicts rather than on aggregated event scores. Schrodt: Hidden Markov Models Page 1
Challenging interfaces/redesigning users

As the identity of the computer user becomes more diverse, software developers can no longer assume familiarity with legacy systems or perfect vision, motor control and memory. The development of Piloot (for users with learning difficulties) and SeeWord (for dyslexic readers) shows that systems can be usable and accessible for 'non-typical' user groups. It is no longer appropriate to design 'general purpose' software that excludes users because of their age or minor impairments. Piloot and SeeWord, although developed for very different user groups, uncover some common barriers to computer use. Although some of these barriers were overcome in similar ways, other solutions were specific to the target user group and this may suggest strategies that will be effective in developing inclusive systems in the future.
Sexual selection on wing interference patterns in Drosophila melanogaster

Significance Recently, it was discovered that small insects like flies and wasps, with seemingly transparent wings, display vivid coloration against dark backgrounds because of so-called “wing interference patterns” (WIPs). It was proposed that such wing coloration could function in sexual selection and species recognition, but direct evidence for this hypothesis has been lacking. Here, to our knowledge we present the first experimental evidence that WIPs in male Drosophila melanogaster are targets of mate choice from females. Comparison of attractiveness of different male WIPs between black and white backgrounds revealed that two different color traits, saturation and hue, experience directional and stabilizing sexual selection, respectively. Our results suggest that vivid coloration in WIPs is a target of mate choice and might have evolved by sexual selection. Animals with color vision use color information in intra- and interspecific communication, which in turn may drive the evolution of conspicuous colored body traits via natural and sexual selection. A recent study found that the transparent wings of small flies and wasps in lower-reflectance light environments display vivid and stable structural color patterns, called “wing interference patterns” (WIPs). Such WIPs were hypothesized to function in sexual selection among small insects with wing displays, but this has not been experimentally verified. Here, to our knowledge we present the first experimental evidence that WIPs in males of Drosophila melanogaster are targets of mate choice from females, and that two different color traits—saturation and hue—experience directional and stabilizing sexual selection, respectively. Using isogenic lines from the D. melanogaster Genetic Reference Panel, we compare attractiveness of different male WIPs against black and white visual backgrounds. We show that males with more vivid wings are more attractive to females than are males with dull wings. Wings with a large magenta area (i.e., intermediate trait values) were also preferred over those with a large blue or yellow area. These experimental results add a visual element to the Drosophila mating array, integrating sexual selection with elements of genetics and evo-devo, potentially applicable to a wide array of small insects with hyaline wings. Our results further underscore that the mode of sexual selection on such visual signals can differ profoundly between different color components, in this case hue and saturation.
Deterministic on-line routing on area-universal networks

Two deterministic routing networks, the pruned butterfly and the sorting fat-tree, are presented. Both networks are area universal, i.e. they can simulate with polylogarithmic slowdown, any other routing network fitting in similar area. Previous area-universal networks were either for the offline problem, where the message set to be routed is known in advance and substantial precomputation is permitted, or involved randomization, yielding results that hold only with high probability. The present networks are the first that are simultaneously deterministic and online, and they use two substantially different routing techniques. The performance of the routing algorithms depends on the difficulty of the problem instance, which is measured by a quantity lambda , known as the load factor. The pruned butterfly algorithm runs in time O( lambda log/sup 2/N), where N is the number of possible sources and destinations for messages and lambda is assumed to be polynomial in N. The sorting fat-free algorithm runs in O( lambda log N + log/sup 2/N) time for a restricted class of message sets, including partial permutations. Other results include a new type of sorting circuit, an area universal circuit, and an area-time lower bound for routers. <<ETX>>
Commentary: Evidence-based Assessment is not Evidence–based Medicine—Commentary on Evidence-based Assessment of Cognitive Functioning in Pediatric Psychology

The authors are commended on a well-done review of instruments to assess cognitive functioning in pediatric psychology. The review follows the framework of a psychological assessment review, and it provides a concise compendium with good coverage of available tests and a compilation of their psychometric “vital statistics. ” The article also goes beyond the tropes of routine review by identifying some themes and issues such as the potential value of having disorder specific (or other subgroup specific) norms. The choice of the words “evidence based” in the title invokes many associations, several perhaps unintended by the authors. For me, the phrase cued expectations developed from reading and teaching in an “Evidence-based Medicine” (EBM) framework (Guyatt & Rennie, 2002; Straus, Richardson, Glasziou, & Haynes, 2005). In this instance, my assumption was mistaken. However, as I read through the review, the mistake seems fortunate: it made me compare the methods we use to evaluate and describe evidence within the field of psychological assessment to the language and perspective that is evolving within EBM. Illuminating the discrepancies reveals many gaps that could be filled in ways that advance clinical practice as well as research. The structure of this commentary is as follows: first, I will address the numerous strengths of the review. There is much that is praiseworthy. Second, I will touch on the themes of short forms, retest intervals, and multigroup norms. These are important issues, and I believe that they have even more clinical relevance than indicated in the review. It is also likely that my recommendations may be different than what the authors would have provided if given the opportunity to expand their discussion of these issues. Third, I will briefly introduce EBM and sketch out some of the differences I see between EBA—the current approach within psychology—and EBM. Finally, I will close with suggestions for next steps in both clinical practice and research to assimilate some of the best features of both approaches.