Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Events S-C 17 A Brain Tumor Image Segmentation

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) are often successful in problems needing to extract information from complexe, high-dimensional inputs, for which useful features are not obvious to design. This paper presents our work on applying DNNs to brain tumor segmentation for the BRATS challenge. We are currently experimenting with several several DNN architectures, leveraging the recent advances in the field such as convolutional layers, max pooling, Maxout units and Dropout regularization. We present preliminary results, for our best performing network on the BRATS2013 training set, leaderboard dataset and challenge dataset. The results are obtained from the evaluation tool available on the Virtual Skeleton database. While we do not beat the best results of BRATS2013 participants with our current architecture, our results are promising.
PHYTOREMEDIATION OF PERCHLORATE FROM FIREWORKS 11 th INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON FIREWORKS 11 vo . SIMPOSIO INTERNACIONAL A FUEGOS ARTIFICIALES

Ammonium and potassium perchlorate are strong oxidants widely employed in the pyrotechnic compositions in fireworks. Although its reduction is thermodynamically highly favorable, the perchlorate anion’s reactivity is kinetically inhibited, primarily attributable to steric hindrance of access to the central chlorine atom within the tetrahedral ClO4 structure. This relative inactivity has historically made perchlorate a spectator anion in aqueous solution chemistry and explains its classification as a persistent environmental contaminant. The perchlorate anion is a potent competitive inhibitor of iodide (IG) transport by the sodium iodide symporter (NIS) expressed in the basolateral membranes of human thyroid follicular cells. This inhibition can result in the reduction of thyroid hormone production critical for the normal growth and development of fetuses, infants and young children. Perchlorate has no other adverse physiological effects and is normally excreted quantitatively. However, public concern over the suppression of thyroid function has engendered government regulation and the research, development and use of technologies for the detection, measurement and removal of perchlorate contamination in drinking water supplies. In 2005, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency adopted a Reference Dose (RfD) for ClO4 of 0.7 :g/kg/day and recently established an Interim Drinking Water Health Advisory level of 15 :g/l. In the last ten years, researchers have investigated the transformation of perchlorate to chloride (ClG), called mineralization, in which plants and plantmicrobe systems serve as the mediators. This plant-assisted degradation of perchlorate is an example of phytoremediation. Perchlorate can be decomposed in the plant’s leaves (phytodegradation) and in the root environment or rhizosphere (rhizodegradation). Phytodegradation is a slow process and is normally accompanied by phytoaccumulation, in which perchlorate is stored inside plant tissues. This accumulated perchlorate will likely either return to the plant’s local environment or enter the food chain. Rhizodegradation is a much faster process involving bacteria in anaerobic conditions in which perchlorate is sequentially converted to chlorate (ClO3G), chlorite (ClO2G) and chloride by reaction with many organic compounds (e.g., acetate). This rhizodegradation is hampered by the presence of nitrate, which is preferentially reduced by the bacteria in the root zone. Many species of terrestrial and aquatic plants are capable of remediating perchlorate, provided adequate levels of oxidizable (electron donating) organic compounds are available. A recently reported study of the contamination of
System-Level Design Framework for Insertion-Loss-Minimized Optical Network-on-Chip Router Architectures

An optical network-on-chip (NoC) has attracted increasing attention with the advancement of silicon photonics technology due to the explosive growth in communication traffic in system-on-chip and the diminishing returns of miniaturized metal interconnect. Compared with the traditional metallic interconnect, the optical interconnect has superior effective bandwidth, transmission latency, and power consumption. In this paper, we establish an algorithmic optical router design framework to minimize the insertion loss, which is the loss of signal power resulting from the insertion of microring resonators and waveguide crossings. By incorporating system-level considerations on the topology, routing algorithm, and traffic pattern in the optical NoC, the proposed technique provides a rapid design environment for a wide range of application-specific optical NoC architectures with minimized optical signal power loss.
Frames of mind in intertemporal choice

Recent research has demonstrated that choices between gambles are systematically influenced by the way they are expressed. Kahneman and Tversky's Prospect Theory Kahneman, D. , A. Tversky. 1979. Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica472 363-391. explains many of these "framing" effects as shifts in the point of reference from which prospects are evaluated. This paper demonstrates the applicability of the reference point concept to intertemporal choice. Three experiments demonstrate that when people choose between immediate and delayed consumption, the reference point used to evaluate alternatives can significantly influence choice. The first study elicited relative preference for immediate and delayed consumption using three methods, each of which differently framed choices between alternatives offering identical end-state consumption. The conventional discounted utility model predicts that the three methods of elicitation should yield similar estimates of time preference, but preferences were found to differ in accordance with a reference point model. The second and third studies extend and replicate the results from the first, the third using real rather than hypothetical choices.
NIPF Ownership Objective Categories , Willingness to Harvest Timber , and Interest in Non-Timber Uses

Fragmentation and parcelization of forestland represent two of the more significant issues for Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) in the United States. Resolving the problems resulting from these issues requires information about forest owners. This study illustrates a simultaneous-equation model to estimate interactions among ownership objective categories and planned behavior. This study categorized multiple ownership objectives including dimensions of non-timber benefits, monetary, farm or home site values, and bequest. Factors influencing those categories then were estimated and discussed. The study also estimates factors influencing willingness to harvest in the future and interest in managing for non-timber uses. The empirical results reveal that forest landowners are not homogenous and possess multiple ownership objectives. The interaction among ownership objective categories and planned behavior reveal that implementing incentives and revising U.S. forest policy with SFM objectives should be considered in order to remedy the current forest problems. Keyword: Nonindustrial private forest owner, Sustainable Forest Management, Objective Categories, Willingness to Harvest, Non-Timber Uses
Genetic structure and relationships among anadromous and landlocked populations of rainbow smelt, Osmerus mordax, Mitchill, as revealed by mtDNA restriction analysis

Larvae of anadromous rainbow smelt originating in various spawning tributaries are retained in the St Lawrence estuary. We proposed that these smelt represent one population genetically differentiated from adjacent populations characterized by geographically distinct larval retention areas. We also analysed four landlocked populations to evaluate the phylogenetic basis of dwarf and normal-sized phenotypes and their relation to anadromous smelt. A phylogenetic distinction was revealed between anadromous and landlocked smelt, with only one of the two mtDNA phylogenetic groups of anadromous fish observed among landlocked smelt. Significant geographical heterogeneity in the distribution of mtDNA genotypes was observed among landlocked smelt, suggesting that dwarfism in smelt may be polyphyletic in origin. St Lawrence smelt were genetically identical but distinct from adjacent populations, supporting the proposition that population genetic structure reflects the number of larval retention zones rather than spawning sites.
Strategic innovation in financial sector: Blockchain and the case of Spanish banks

Similarly to the rising of the Internet, Blockchain has the potential to disrupt multiple industries and make processes, more democratic, secure, transparent, and efficient. Entrepreneurs, startup companies’ investors, global organizations and governments have all identified Blockchain as a disruptive opportunity to change the current paradigm. Blockchain it is not much well known as Bitcoin, but it the backbone technology behind Bitcoin. Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that offers immutability in transactions and implies a change on the system and it is also is one of the hottest technologies currently in the market. Furthermore, according to Google analytics, since 2013 Google searches for “Blockchain” have risen 1900%. Banks are not characterized for being neither agile nor fast when embracing new technologies due to their legacy system. However, times are changing and new technologies are being offered. In order to adapt to new times and shifting to more scalable systems and interconnected world, banks will have to adapt to new technologies and embrace changes easily. Strategic Innovation is an approach that brings together all the creative assets, capabilities and disciplines to an organization in order to work together on producing breakthrough ideas and driving new business growth. At this point it is intended to view Blockchain as an opportunity for the Banks that is needed to be treated as strategic in order to not be left behind by the fintech startup companies. The main scope of this thesis will be indentify what functions in the financial landscape are suitable for a Blockchain based technology, focusing on banks in the Spanish region and more how strategic innovation could help on deploying this technology in banks. Key-words: Strategic Innovation, Digital Innovation, Financial Services, Blockchain, Smart Contracts
Extracting chemical energy by growing disorder: efficiency at maximum power

We consider the efficiency of chemical energy extraction from the environment by the growth of a copolymer made of two constituent units in the entropy-driven regime. We show that the thermodynamic nonlinearity associated with the information processing aspect is responsible for a branching of the system properties such as power, speed of growth, entropy production, and efficiency, with varying affinity. The standard linear thermodynamics argument which predicts an efficiency of 1/2 at maximum power is inappropriate because the regime of maximum power is located either outside of the linear regime or on a separate bifurcated branch, and because the usual thermodynamic force is not the natural variable for this optimization.
Analysis of bridge mobility of violins

This paper focuses on the bridge mobility of violins. The mobility, or mechanical admittance, quantifies the efficiency of the instrument body to vibrate when a force is applied to the structure. The computation of the mean mobility, after the Skudrzyk’s mean-value theorem, enables a global characterization of the bridge mobility. The choices made by the luthier, when he builds, restores, or adjusts an instrument, modify the mobility and the mean mobility: this is the signature of the instrument. This study shows that the bridge mobility measurement may be helpful for luthiers to objectively characterize an instrument. Two experimental applications on the violin are presented in the paper: the first one studies the characterization of the same violin in several configurations, corresponding to different positions of the soundpost. The second application studies the effect of a violin mute on both the bridge mobility and the spectral characteristics of the produced sound. This study is a part of the PAFI project, which aims to develop a set of tools dedicated to instrument makers.
Taking into account Tabbed Browsing in Predictive Web Usage Mining

Over the last few years, browser tabs have become a very common tool for web users and have been extensively used to perform parallel navigations. Tabbing facilitates web browsing but results in an imbrication of navigations, which makes it more difficult to understand users’ behavior. That is why very recent research has been focusing in analyzing this new kind of usage. This work follows a previous publication in which a new model was proposed to model parallel browsing. In this paper, we propose a new strategy to better take into account tabbing activity. Experiments are performed on an open browsing dataset. Results show that our model provides an accuracy similar to the one of a state-of-the-art model that implicitly takes into account parallel browsing. It thus constitutes a strong basis to estimate tabbing activity. We then present the statistics about parallel browsing that our approach provides. Keywords-web usage mining; web predictive modeling; Markov models; tabbing
Fiber Bragg Gratings in the Visible Spectral Range With Ultraviolet Femtosecond Laser Inscription

In this letter, we investigate the inscription of fiber Bragg gratings in the visible spectral range using deep ultraviolet femtosecond laser exposure and two-beam interferometry. The properties of first-order reflection gratings and third-order gratings for use in the visible wavelength range are compared. Stronger gratings have been achieved for first-order reflecting Bragg gratings compared with third-order gratings. We demonstrate a fiber Bragg grating with a grating period of 226 nm and a filtering efficiency of more than 30 dB.
Distributed Optimization for Non-Strongly

We develop primal-dual algorithms for distributed training of linear models in the Spark framework. We present the ProxCoCoA+ method which represents a generalization of the CoCoA+ algorithm and extends it to the case of general strongly convex regularizers. A primal-dual convergence rate analysis is provided along with an experimental evaluation of the algorithm on the problem of elastic net regularized logistic regression. We also develop the PrimalCoCoA+ method, a method that allows certain non-strongly convex regularizers to be trained in the ProxCoCoA+ theoretical framework; the algorithm works under the assumption that this regularizers are linearly separable and box constrained. This allows for primal-dual convergence rates for L1 regularized models, which are, to the best of our knowledge, the first of their kind; we also evaluate the practical efficiency of this method in the case of L1 regularized logistic on two real world datasets. Finally, we experimentally explore and prove the validity of ProxCoCoA+ Wild and PrimalCoCoA+ Wild, two new optimization methods that combine distributed and parallel optimization techniques and achieve significant speed-ups with respect to their non-wild variants.
Barriers to network innovation in UK ethnic fresh produce supply

This article investigates whether sectoral entrepreneurship by ethnic minorities is held back by network disconnection. Popular interest in localized production and consumption often gets offered up as an antidote to rapidly globalizing markets. However, fractures between local production and consumption prevent such markets from developing. This study investigates supply chains and networks that attempt to meet market demand for ‘specialist’ fresh produce, targeted at and run by ethnic minority-controlled foodservice businesses in the UK. The focus for attention is the West Midlands region. This region has a strong and entrepreneurial ethnic minority, predominant foodservice and wholesale sector and a strong agricultural/horticultural tradition, but the two are disconnected. Key findings indicate that latent demand exists for locally sourced specialist fresh produce to meet the needs of a growing ethnic minority population, but network integration is a barrier. Disconnection concerns the following: (a) there are predominant issues of price sensitivity, which dictate channel sourcing and market development, (b) foodservice businesses rely on the access, market information and availability provided by gatekeeper wholesale traders who are bound to overseas agencies and their produce and display an ingrained resistance to local and regional supply and (c) cultural disconnections separate rural (predominantly ‘white’) growers and (predominantly Asian) wholesale intermediaries and retail/foodservice businesses. This article identifies that ethnic entrepreneurship in specific sectors (such as specialist fresh produce) can be strong, but that there still are barriers to successful whole industry, regional and network developments. Poor motivation of both network ‘gatekeeper’ wholesalers and (and network collaboration) growers is preventing ethnic entrepreneurs at the foodservice and retail levels from benefitting from wider regional network source innovation. Recommendations are made for production, technical and marketing support at the grower and intermediary levels; and all stakeholders need educational and market support in the development of truly integrated food networks.
Wireless Multi-hop Ad-hoc Networks: A Review

Over the past decade wireless multi-hop ad-hoc networks have received a tremendous amount of research focus. Mobile devices equipped with wireless short range communication technologies make possible new applications for spontaneous communication, interaction and collaboration. The collaboration is used to facilitate communication when mobile devices are not able to establish direct communication paths. So the communication is multi-hop with intermediate nodes acting as routers that forward the messages addressed to other nodes. The concept of multi-hop ad-hoc networking was successfully applied in several classes of networks. This paper reviews the categories of wireless multi-hop ad-hoc networks and discusses main evolutions of wireless multi-hop ad-hoc networks specially the opportunistic networks.
Forecasting With Stable Seasonal Pattern Models With an Application to Hawaiian Tourism Data

We propose several variations of the stable seasonal pattern (SSP) model first introduced by Marshall and Oliver and study their prediction procedures. Depending on the type of data (count data or continuous variable), we propose different treatments. Previously SSP models have been applied to trendless data or adapted to trending data in ad hoc ways. In the models considered here, conditional independence allows the seasonal pattern and trend to be modeled separately, whereas prediction uses both efficiently. In an out-of-sample forecasting experiment conducted on Hawaiian tourism data, one of the proposed variations demonstrates its long-term forecasting potential relative to seasonal Box-Jenkins autoregressive integrated moving average and transfer function models.
Covalent chemical functionalization enhances the biodegradation of graphene oxide

Biodegradation of the graphene-based materials is an emerging issue due to their estimated widespread usage in different industries. Indeed, a few concerns have been raised about their biopersistence. Here, we propose the design of surface-functionalized graphene oxide (GO) with the capacity to degrade more effectively compared to unmodified GO using horseradish peroxidase (HRP). For this purpose, we have functionalized the surface of GO with two well-known substrates of HRP namely coumarin and catechol. The biodegradation of all conjugates has been followed by Raman, dynamic light scattering and electron microscopy. Molecular docking and gel electrophoresis have been carried out to gain more insights into the interaction between GO conjugates and HRP. Our studies have revealed better binding when GO is functionalized with coumarin or catechol compared to control GOs. All results prove that GO functionalized with coumarin and catechol moieties display a faster and more efficient biodegradation over GO.
Cluster observations of the high-latitude magnetopause and cusp: initial results from the CIS ion instruments

Abstract. Launched on an elliptical high inclination orbit (apogee: 19.6 RE) since January 2001 the Cluster satellites have been conducting the first detailed three-dimensional studies of the high-latitude dayside magnetosphere, including the exterior cusp, neighbouring boundary layers and magnetopause regions. Cluster satellites carry the CIS ion spectrometers that provide high-precision, 3D distributions of low-energy ( Key words. Magnetospheric physics (magnetopause, cusp, and boundary layers; magnetosheath) Space plasma physics (magnetic reconnection)
A Study of Strengthening Nano-Technology New Product Value by Using Internet-Marketing technology

Currently, the fast development of the nanotechnology takes all the attention of the world. Following the development of the nanotechnology, all over the world, including governments, companies, and academic communities all wants to gain profit by using this new technology. For Nano-technology firms, it is important to be able identify, select, assimilate, exploit, and protect its nano-related technologies they had developed, but an successful marketing strategies could give them enough competitive advantages in existing and often saturated markets to become market leaders in their respective markets. The marketing strategy is often critical to the firm's survival. As a result, for succeed in promoting nanotechnology product, it will be the most important to understand the market.
Case Series on Scrub Typhus from a tertiary care hospital of North East India

Introduction: Scrub typhus is a form of typhus caused by the intracellular parasite Orientia tsutsugamushi. The disease is endemic in many parts of India. Materials and Methods: This study describes the clinical profile of six scrub typhus positive cases admitted in a tertiary care hospital. Complete physical examination and all routine tests were done in all cases. In all the cases, scrub typhus was diagnosed using a rapid single step immunochromatographic assay. Results: Of the six cases three were females and three were males. Fever was the chief presenting symptom in all the cases. Other signs and symptoms were headache, myalgia, cough, hepatospleenomegaly, abdominal pain and lymphadenopathy. Only two patients had pathognomonic features of eschar and lymphadenopathy. Liver enzymes were elevated in all the patients. Hypotension, thrombocytopenia, hepatic dysfunction, hypoalbuminemia, hematuria and proteinuria were the complications observed. All the cases were successfully treated with doxycycline and there was no mortality. Conclusion: Our report emphasizes the fact that a diagnosis of scrub typhus should be suspected when a patient presents with fever and laboratory evidence of liver dysfunction, as early detection of the disease could reduce morbidity and mortality.