Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Depth Map Fusion with Camera Position Refinement

We present a novel algorithm for image-based surface reconstruction from a set of calibrated images. The problem is formulated in Bayesian framework, where estimates of depth and visibility in a set of selected cameras are iteratively improved. The core of the algorithm is the minimisation of overall geometric L2 error between measured 3D points and the depth estimates. In the visibility estimation task, the algorithm aims at outlier detection and noise suppression, as both types of errors are often present in the stereo output. The geometrical formulation allows for simultaneous refinement of the external camera parameters, which is an essential step for obtaining accurate results even when the calibration is not precisely known. We show that the results obtained with our method are comparable to other state-of-the-art techniques.
Dirac Equation and Electron Internal Structure

Real waves presentation is applied to Dirac equation. It is then used to show a Klein Gordon wave functions solution. These equations resemble Maxwell's equations for the electromagnetic field. Assuming a non-point-like charged fermion, with an internal current distribution and an internal vector potential, the resulting Maxwell equations for the internal vector potentials of the charged fermion resembles Dirac equation in their Klein-Gordon form. This solution is to the best knowledge of the author, the first time that a connection is made between Dirac's fermion field and Maxwell's electromagnetic field.
Evaluating the microstructure and mechanical properties of friction stir processed Al–Si alloy

ABSTRACT In this study, mechanical behaviour and microstructural evolution in friction stir processing (FSP) of casting hypereutectic A390 aluminium alloy have been investigated. The mechanical behaviour of FSP samples was investigated by measuring the strain rate sensitivity using shear punch testing. The room-temperature shear punch tests were conducted at shear strain rates in the range of 10−4–10−1 s−1. The results indicate that the strain rate sensitivity index increases from about 0.015 to 0.120 for as-cast A390 after third FSP pass and then experiences a further growth in FSP passes. The increase in the grain size and CuAl2 intermetallic particle size result in a reduction in strain sensitivity index as well as shear strength after third FSP pass.
A Threshold Segmentation Method of Chromosome Microscope Image

The study of chromosome image segmentation and recognition methods involves the knowledge in multiple disciplines such as computer image processing and image pattern recognition. In general, the features of the object region of chromosome image are bad in similarity and uniformity and it is easy to mix the fake boundary formed by the surrounding parts with the boundary of chromosome; so, it is rather difficult to accurately segment and calculate chromosome and the traditional methods are generally not high in accurately segmenting chromosome image. This paper mainly with the microscope image of chromosome as the object of study, performs feature extraction, classification and identification of chromosome image and extracts the shape features of cells. The core of algorithm is to segment the image into several classes by seeking different feature thresholds. The feature threshold here generally refers to the gray-scale features of pixels and in essence, it is to divide the pixels into different gray-scale collections according to gray levels. Adopt the erosion operation of binary image in morphological image processing, refine the chromosome and label the connected chromosome image component for statistics of numbers of chromosome. The testing experiment proves that the method of this paper is effective.
Interactive effects of past land use and recent forest management on the understorey community in temperate oak forests in South Sweden

Questions: Past agricultural land use and forest management have shaped and influenced the understorey composition in European forests for centuries. We investigated whether understorey vegetation assemblages are affected by (a) legacies from a historical infield/outland agricultural system (i.e., a system with nutrient-enriched vs nutrient-depleted areas), (b) recent management intensity (i.e., thinning/felling activities), and (c) the interaction of recent management and potential legacies. Location: Oak forests in Skane, south Sweden. Methods: We use three vegetation surveys (1983, 1993/94 and 2014) and notes on management and land-use history, available for 62 permanent 500 m(2) plots. We conducted linear mixed effect modelling to detect both main and interactive effects of past land use and recent management on understorey diversity measures and vegetation indicator values for light and fertility. We combined nonmetric multidimensional scaling with permutational multivariate analysis of variance and indicator species analysis to detect compositional differences caused by past land use and/or recent management. Results: Understorey diversity was mainly affected by management activities, but the former infield/outland agricultural system was an important determinant of understorey composition. Understorey composition of former infields reflected higher nutrient availability and lower light availability compared to former outland. Past land use and recent management had interactive effects on light-related understorey variables: for the less intensively managed plots, the outland plots contained more light-demanding species than the infield plots, while for the more intensively managed plots, the light-demanding signature of the understorey was similar for infield and outland plots. Conclusions: Different intensities of past land use as well as recent forest management influenced the composition of the forest understorey, and interactions were present. Therefore, careful consideration of both the long-term land-use history and the more recent disturbances due to forest management are necessary when making future predictions of understorey composition and diversity.
THE CULTURE-RESEARCH NEXUS: STAKEHOLDERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THE CONNECTION BETWEEN DISCIPLINARY CULTURES AND RESEARCH CHOICES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Purpose: Within the higher education discourse, the critical role of disciplinary cultures in influencing organisational departmentalisation; shaping the academic profession; and in informing academic leadership has been underscored. However, the connection between disciplinary cultures and research choices seems to be underreported. The study explored key stakeholders’ perceptions of this connection in Uganda’s research-led flagship academic institution, Makerere University. The purpose was to ascertain whether and how the espoused disciplinary practices, values and beliefs inform the research choices of academics across disciplinary fields. Methodology: We adopted a qualitative, intrinsic case study design that was rooted in social constructivism philosophy and guided by an interpretivist paradigm. Professorial staff and Institutional level senior research managers constituted the sample. Data were collected using in-depth interviews from four Full Professors, eight Associate Professors, and two institutional level senior research managers. We then triangulated data sources with documents checks. We analysed data thematically. Findings: Findings reveal that although there is a connection between disciplinary cultures and research choices, the ethos of producing knowledge at the very basic level has more influence on academics' research choices. This is because, across disciplinary fields, research is more understood in terms of journal articles. Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: We recommend that if the University is to perfect her research-led status, there is need to popularise cultures that would promote the production of diverse knowledge in order to enhance the contribution of the University to national socio-economic development. This could be achieved by revising the existing research policies to ensure that when academics are being assessed for promotion, they should be assessed on a broader criterion that includes number of publications and contribution to policy and the community.
Association of haplotypes for SNPs in the LTR regions of bovine leukemia virus with hematological indices of cattle

Molecular typing of BLV samples isolated from Holsteinized Russian Black Pied cattle was carried out, and various cytofluorometric and morphological blood indices were examined. We performed the total count of white blood cells (WBC), lymphocyte (lymf), granulocyte (gran), monocyte (mon), red blood cell (RBC), hemoglobin (HGB), hematocrit (HTC), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH), mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC), red blood cell distribution width (RDW), platelet count (PLT), mean platelet volume (MPV), platelet distribution width (PDW), and platelet crit count (PCT). The LTR-region of BLV was haplotyped. Only viruses of haplotypes I (0.33±0.03) and III (0.67±0.03) of the eight possible were detected. The ratio of hematologically sick, healthy, and suspected carriers of BLV of haplotypes I and II was comparable with the results of other researchers. The numbers of leukocytes, erythrocytes and platelets in the blood of carriers of haplotype III exceeded the corresponding parameters of cattle affected by the virus of haplotype I. It is interesting to note that the difference in the hemolytic status of animals was manifested not only by the concentration of leukocytes as direct immune agents but also by the count of erythrocytes and platelets, which are not directly involved in the immune response. The number of particles of haplotype III of the BLV circulating in the blood of infected individuals exceeded that of the carriers of haplotype I. In this connection, an assumption was made about the evolutionary advantage of the more virulent haplotype III. However, the results of our own research in conjunction with the data of other scientists indicate that the high virulence of individual virus strains is a consequence of the tendency to implement the maximum possible intensity of the synthesis of virus particles but not of the high damaging effect alone. It is shown that high lethality is evolutionarily disadvantageous for viruses, since the extinction of the carrier as a biological species is fraught with the disappearance of the virus itself.
Pulmonary Pressure-volume Data Of Patients With Ards,i) Pattern Recognition & Ii) Personalization And Optimization Of Mechanical Ventilation

Pulmonary Pressure-Volume Data of Patients with ARDS, I) Pattern Recognition, II) Personalization and Optimization of Mechanical Ventilation by Mohsen Nabian Doctor of Philosophy in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Northeastern University, March 2018 Prof. Uichiro Narusawa, Adviser Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a severe form of acute lung injury (ALI), is a life threatening clinical condition characterized by widespread inflammation and loss of aerated tissues of the respiratory system. Treatment of ARDS at intensive care unit (ICU) is usually accompanied by mechanical ventilation to restore adequate oxygenation. However, the ventilation itself may cause pulmonary damage. Also, the respiratory conditions change significantly by the severity of ARDS. In this work, quasi-static, pulmonary pressure-volume (P-V) curves are combined with a respiratory system model (RSM) to analyze (I) characteristics of patients with ARDS and (II) tidal pressure cycles to simulate mechanical ventilation of patients with ARDS. In Chapter 2, It is shown that there exist distinct differences between healthy and injured respiratory systems in the order of magnitudes of parameters of their P-V model equation. Moreover, average mechanical properties of
KPHMMER: Hidden Markov Model generator for detecting KEGG PATHWAY-specific genes

Motivation Reinforcement of HMMER search for secondary metabolism-specific Pfam domains should contribute to discover novel biosynthetic machinery of clinically important natural products. Results Here we provide a Python-based command line tool, named as KPHMMER, to extract the Pfam domains that are specific in the user-defined set of pathways in the user-defined set of organisms registered in the KEGG database. KPHMMER outperformed the previous study in detecting secondary metabolism-specific Pfam domain set. Furthermore, it was proven that KPHMMER helps reduce the computational cost compared with the case using the whole Pfam-A HMM file. We believe that KPHMMER is a powerful tool enabling to deal with many other genome-sequenced species for more general purpose. Availability KPHMMER is implemented as a Python package freely available via the package management system “pip” and also at https://github.com/suecharo/KPHMMER Contact maskot@chemsys.t. u-tokyo.ac. jp
Systematics and geographical distribution of Galba species, a group of cryptic and worldwide freshwater snails

Cryptic species can present a significant challenge to the application of systematic and biogeographic principles, especially if they are invasive or transmit parasites or pathogens. Detecting cryptic species requires a pluralistic approach in which molecular markers facilitate the detection of coherent taxonomic units that can then be analyzed using various traits (e.g., internal morphology) and crosses. In asexual or self-fertilizing species, the latter criteria are of limited use. We studied a group of cryptic freshwater snails (genus Galba) from the family Lymnaeidae that have invaded almost all continents, reproducing mainly by self-fertilization and transmitting liver flukes to humans and livestock. We aim to clarify the systematics, distribution and phylogenetic relationships of these species with an integrative approach that includes morphology (shell and reproductive anatomy), molecular markers, wide-scale sampling across America, and data retrieved from GenBank (to include Old World samples). Our phylogenetic analysis suggests that the genus Galba originated ca. 22 Myr ago and today comprises six clusters of species. Four of these clusters (G. truncatula, G. cubensis/viator, G. humilis and G. schirazensis) are morphologically cryptic and constitute species or species complexes with wide variation in their genetic diversity, geographic distribution and invasiveness. The other two clusters constitute a single species or a species complex (Galba cousini/meridensis) that demonstrate more geographically restricted distributions and exhibit an alternative morphology more phylogenetically derived than the cryptic one. Further genetic studies are required to clarify the status of both G. cousini/meridensis and G. cubensis/viator. We emphasize that no Galba species should be identified without molecular markers and that additional sampling is required, especially in North America, Eurasia and Africa to clarify remaining questions in systematics and biogeography. We also discuss several hypotheses that can explain crypsis in Galba, such as convergence and morphological stasis, and hypothesize a role for stabilizing selection in amphibious (rather than strictly freshwater) habitats.
An Experience Report. Using Maps to Bridge the Socio-technical Gap

In my projects, devoted to the implementation of management systems, I have to take into account several social and technical features and I have to link and merge social and technical environments. To bridge the gap between these environments I find a useful support in maps and mapping. These topics are presented through a cluster of projects I developed in large sized companies, where exploring the context could be difficult and time consuming and the relationships are structured as a complex network. I focus on the maps that describe relationships between organizational structures and IT technologies. I detail two cases: a success and a failure of my socio-technical approach. The lessons I learned from my experiences are presented and proposed as reflection on the socio-technical perspective.
Influence Maximization Based Global Structural Properties: A Multi-Armed Bandit Approach

The influence maximization problem is defined by identifying the seed set that has the most influence on other users in the network, which when selected, the cascading process reaches a large number of users. We use a greedy algorithm and an epsilon-greedy algorithm from the MAB models in this work, unlike prior works that used the MAB models to quantify the unknown propagation probability in the diffusion models. In this paper, we did not also make any assumption regarding the diffusion models and tries to learn to identify the most influential users based on designed reward function “hybrid edge strength-similarity” using global centrality measures and by trying to find a tradeoff between exploitation and exploration strategies. The new proposed reward function initializes the MAB algorithms using global characteristics that quantify the strength of each arm (edge). The proposed reward will feed algorithms from MAB models uses hybridization of edge betweenness centrality and Jaccard similarity measures with some level of participation of each measure. Then, three algorithms are proposed for the extraction of relevant influencers, namely: SRI-CGSS FEXPL-GREEDY) algorithm which almost exploiting the best arm; the SRI_CGSS FEXPR-GREEDY which is almost exploring; and the SRI-MAB $\epsilon $ -GREEDY algorithm that alternate between exploring and exploiting the best arms. We conduct extensive experiments on a large-scale graph in terms of influence spread, efficiency performance in terms of running time and space complexity, and how the reward parameters impact cumulative regret.
StruCtural analySIS of PePtIde BIndIng to ClaSS I MHC ProteIn

In this case study we start from two X-ray structures, 1HHI and 1HHK. Both of these MHC-peptide complexes were part of the training set used in a study of predicting peptide binding affinities based on empirical free energy scoring functions (Rognan et al, 1999). The MHC molecule is of the subtype HLA-A2. The peptide in 1HHK is from the Influenza A virus, and the peptide in 1HHI is from the Human T-lymphotropic virus HTLV-1.
Entropy Generation of Forced Convection during Melting of Ice Slurry

This paper looks at entropy generation during ice slurry flow in straight pipes and typical heat exchanger structures used in refrigeration and air-conditioning technology. A dimensionless relationship was proposed to determine the interdependency between flow velocity and the volume fraction of ice, for which the entropy generation rates were at the minimum level in the case of non-adiabatic ice slurry flow. For pipe flow, the correlation between the minimum entropy generation rate and the overall enhancement efficiency was analyzed. As regards heat exchange processes in heat exchangers, the authors analyzed the relationship between the minimum entropy generation rate and the heat exchange surface area and exchanger efficiency.
Driving Forces Behind Volatility in Both Growth- and Value- Firms

Firms are often valued using the future cash flows they will generate. A proxy for these cash flows are the company earnings. But while these earnings show an arguably predictable trend, the stock prices are considered to be unpredictable. This research will investigate the relation between stock price movement and earnings growth and volatility. It uses the Kalman Filter to establish whether or not a persistent trend can be found in earnings. Then, it will investigate the relation between the earnings and price movement for both growth and value firms. We used the largest firms in the CRSP US Mega Cap Growth and Value Index. We found that the firms in the data set show persistence in earnings growth. But in general, no relation is found between the earnings growth and price movement. For some firms we find that the earning trend shocks has an effect on the trading volume and volatility of the stock price. But no general statement can be made.
Distributed Personal Cloud Storage without Third Parties

We present the “It's My Data file system” (IMDfs), a personal, version-tracking, distributed file system that allows users to take custody of their cross-device data management needs, without depending on cloud storage providers. Such a system may be desirable to privacy-conscious users, who worry about the increasing number of cloud storage incidents involving data leakage and corruption, or simply want to synchronize their devices without depending on third parties. IMDfs provides a global, unified view of a user's distributed data collection from any device, user-controlled replication of data across devices, transparent remote access, and support for non-restrictive conflict management. IMDfs achieves all this without sacrificing fault-tolerance or performance and with modest storage overhead. We present the design, implementation, and detailed performance evaluation of IMDfs using benchmarks and traces from real workloads, and we demonstrate that: 1) IMDfs, as a local file system, has reasonable overhead compared with a FUSE loopback file system and Wayback, a local versioning file system, and 2) IMDfs, as a network file system, outperforms NFS and Ori, a state-of-the-art file system for cross-device data management.
Design and Manufacturing of Tendon-Driven Soft Foam Robots

Summary A design and manufacturing method is described for creating a motor tendon–actuated soft foam robot. The method uses a castable, light, and easily compressible open-cell polyurethane foam, producing a structure capable of large (~70% strain) deformations while requiring low torques to operate (<0.2 N·m). The soft robot can change shape, by compressing and folding, allowing for complex locomotion with only two actuators. Achievable motions include forward locomotion at 13 mm/s (4.3% of body length per second), turning at 9◦/s, and end-over-end flipping. Hard components, such as motors, are loosely sutured into cavities after molding. This reduces unwanted stiffening of the soft body. This work is the first demonstration of a soft open-cell foam robot locomoting with motor tendon actuators. The manufacturing method is rapid (~30 min per mold), inexpensive (under $3 per robot for the structural foam), and flexible, and will allow a variety of soft foam robotic devices to be produced.
Nonparametric cost‐minimized Shewhart‐type process monitoring with restricted false alarm probability

Traditional Duncan‐type models for cost‐efficient process monitoring often inflate type I error probability. Nevertheless, controlling the probability of type I error or false alarms is one of the key issues in sequential monitoring of specific process characteristics. To this end, researchers often recommend economic‐statistical designs. Such designs assign an upper bound on type I error probability to avoid excessive false alarms while achieving cost optimality. In the context of process monitoring, there is a plethora of research on parametric approaches of controlling type I error probability along with the cost optimization. In the nonparametric setup, most of the existing works on process monitoring address one of the two issues but not both simultaneously. In this article, we present two distribution‐free cost‐efficient Shewhart‐type schemes for sequentially monitoring process location with restricted false alarm probability, based, respectively, on the sign and Wilcoxon rank‐sum statistics. We consider the one‐sided shift in location parameter in an unknown continuous univariate process. Nevertheless, one can easily extend our proposed schemes to monitor the two‐sided process shifts. We evaluate and compare the actual performance of the two monitoring schemes employing extensive computer simulation based on Monte Carlo. We investigate the effects of the size of the reference sample and the false alarm constraint. Finally, we provide two illustrative examples, each based on a realistic situation in the industry.