Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Global Image Segmentation Model of Inhomogeneous Noisy Type Images Using Increasing Natural Logarithmic Function

Abstract. This manuscript focuses on new image segmentation model for noisy and intensity inhomogeneity images on the basis of natural logarithmic increasing density function. Local image information is necessary for inhomogeneous images, but it is ineffective for noisy images. As a result local information misguides the motion of active contour. However, the natural logarithmic function in new proposed model is capable to capture minute details of images. Moreover, it also reduces the noise in the images and helps to clarify the exact boundaries. Comparing with local Chan-Vese Model, our new proposed model gives better performance while treating noisy and intensity inhomogeneity images. Experiments on noisy and intensity inhomogeneity images show the robustness of our new proposed model.
Early-onset versus late-onset obsessive–compulsive disorder: an immunological comparative study

Objectives This study was conducted to investigate the possible role of streptococcal infection in obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) and to clarify whether the age of onset could affect its clinical presentation and immunological results. Participants and methods The study was carried on 96 participants. They were divided into 46 OCD patients with a mean age of 30.76 years and 50 healthy controls with a mean age of 28.94 years. The patients group was subdivided according to the age of onset into the early-onset group include 21 patients with onset age of 18 years or less and the late-onset group include 25 patients with onset age above 18 years. All participants were subjected to psychometric and serological assessments of serum antibasal ganglia autoantibodies (ABGA) and antistreptolysin O titer (ASOT). Results Rates of ABGA positivity were 26.1% in the OCD group compared with 30% in the control group, with no significant difference (P=0.670). ASOT positivity were 6.5% in the OCD group, whereas none of the controls had positive ASOT (P=0.160). Positivity for ASOT and ABGA was not associated with the age of onset as 95.2 and 71.4% of the early-onset group had positive ASOT and ABGA results against 92 and 76% in the late-onset group, respectively, with no significant differences (P≥0.05) or clinical variables. Positivity for ASOT was not associated with ABGA positivity. Conclusion The negative results of this study do not exclude the role of autoimmunity in OCD pathogenesis. Further investigations are needed to establish this role.
Do Exchange Rates Affect Inflation? Evidence from Emerging Market Economies

After the 1980s, chronic inflation in Turkey has shaken confidence in the domestic currency, and thus operating debit-credit transactions through dollars. The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of exchange rate pass-through into inflation in both Turkey and emerging market economies that were highly dollarized and shifted to a flexible exchange rate regime, together with inflation targeting policy in an attempt to switch to the advanced economy. This paper also studies whether stabilization programs under flexible exchange rate regimes and particularly inflation targeting policy may have eliminated dollarization in the periods 1995-2001 and 20022010.
Plasmon phonon modes and optical resonances in n-GaN

We study theoretically and experimentally transverse and longitudinal electromagnetic waves in n-GaN epitaxial layers. The studies are carried out on the epitaxial layers with various doping levels. Simulation of the reflectivity and absorptivity spectra is performed in a wide frequency range. Additionally, the radiation emission spectra are simulated for various temperatures of the GaN epitaxial layer. It is shown that the resonance peculiarities of the optical spectra are located closely to the frequencies of the coupled plasmon phonon modes. Experimental studies of the reflectivity spectra have been performed in the spectral range 2-20 THz. The experimental spectra are well fitted by the simulated ones and can be used for contactless determination of the electron concentration and mobility in GaN epitaxial layers. The experimental and theoretical results of the present work provide insights for the development of GaN-based devices aimed to absorb/emit terahertz or mid infrared radiation selectively.
Knowledge Discovery in Data: A Case Study

It is common in industrial construction projects for data to be collected and discarded without being analyzed to extract useful knowledge. A proposed integrated methodology based on a five-step Knowledge Discovery in Data (KDD) model was developed to address this issue. The framework transfers existing multidimensional historical data from completed projects into useful knowledge for future projects. The model starts by understanding the problem domain, industrial construction projects. The second step is analyzing the problem data and its multiple dimensions. The target dataset is the labour resources data generated while managing industrial construction projects. The next step is developing the data collection model and prototype data ware-house. The data warehouse stores collected data in a ready-for-mining format and produces dynamic On Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) reports and graphs. Data was collected from a large western-Canadian structural steel fabricator to prove the applicability of the developed methodology. The proposed framework was applied to three different case studies to validate the applicability of the developed framework to real projects data.
Nematic liquid crystal alignment on chemical patterns

Patterned Self‐Assembled Monolayers (SAMs) promoting both homeotropic and planar degenerate alignment of 6CB and 9CB in their nematic phase were created using microcontact printing of functionalized organothiols on gold films. The effects of a range of different pattern geometries and sizes were investigated, including stripes, circles and checkerboards. Evanescent wave ellipsometry was used to study the orientation of the liquid crystal (LC) on these patterned surfaces during the isotropic‐nematic phase transition. Pretransitional growth of a homeotropic layer was observed on 1 µm homeotropic aligning stripes, followed by a homeotropic monodomain state prior to the bulk phase transition. Accompanying Monte Carlo simulations of LCs aligned on nanoscale‐patterned surfaces were also performed. These simulations also showed the presence of the homeotropic monodomain state prior to the transition.
SOFTWARE FOR COMPUTER SYSTEMS TROJANS DIAGNOSING AS A SAFETY- CASE TOOL

A behavioral model of Trojans which formalizes the features of Trojans functioning in computer systems is proposed. Software for computer systems Trojans diagnosis was developed. It is based on methods of diagnosing computer systems in monitor and scanner modes and allows improving reliability and efficiency. Trojan diagnosis software makes it possible to detect the new Trojans with high reliability and efficiency.
Accelerated and Shared Growth in South Africa : Determinants , Constraints and Opportunities 18-20 October 2006 Infrastructure and Growth in South Africa : Direct and Indirect Productivity Impacts of Nineteen Infrastructure Measures

Empirical explorations of the growth and productivity impacts of infrastructure have been characterized by ambiguous (countervailing signs) results with little robustness. A number of explanations of the contradictory findings have been proposed. These range from the crowd-out of private by public sector investment, non-linearities generating the possibility of infrastructure overprovision, simultaneity between infrastructure provision and growth, and the possibility of multiple (hence indirect) channels of influence between infrastructure and productivity improvements. This paper explores these possibilities utilizing panel data for South Africa over the 1970-2000 period, and a range of 19 infrastructure measures. Utilizing a number of alternative measures of productivity, the prevalence of ambiguous (countervailing signs) results, with little systematic pattern is also shown to hold for our data set in estimations that include the infrastructure measures in simple growth frameworks. We demonstrate that controlling for potential endogeneity of infrastructure in estimation robustly eliminates virtually all evidence of ambiguous impacts of infrastructure, due for example to possible overinvestment in infrastructure. Indeed, controlling for the possibility of endogeneity in the infrastructure measures renders the impact of infrastructure capital not only positive, but of economically meaningful magnitudes. These findings are invariant between the direct impact of infrastructure on labour productivity, and the indirect impact of infrastructure on total factor productivity.
Designing Non-greedy Reinforcement Learning Agents with Diminishing Reward Shaping

This paper intends to address an issue in RL that when agents possessing varying capabilities, most resources may be acquired by stronger agents, leaving the weaker ones "starving". We introduce a simple method to train non-greedy agents in multi-agent reinforcement learning scenarios with nearly no extra cost. Our model can achieve the following goals in designing the non-greedy agent:non-homogeneous equality, only need local information, cost-effective, generalizable and configurable. We propose the idea of diminishing reward that makes the agent feel less satisfied for consecutive rewards obtained. This idea allows the agents to behave less greedy with-out the need to explicitly coding any ethical pattern nor monitor other agents' status. Given our framework, resources distributed more equally without running the risk of reaching homogeneous equality. We designed two games, Gathering Game and Hunter Prey to evaluate the quality of the model.
Retraction Notice: Classification Optimization Clustering Model Simulation Based on User
Interest

Clustering analysis was carried out on the user’s interests is of great significance to the study of consumer psychology. Considering user’s interests is a kind of classification optimization clustering model, improve the user’s interests using the algorithm of ID3 decision tree classification calculation speed, the attribute of the highest information gain as the test attributes of nodes before, to ensure the result of decomposition users interested in samples required minimum amount of information, building user interest classification optimization of adaptive fuzzy clustering objective function, the update matrix clustering prototype, under adaptive fuzzy clustering model, clustering prototype iterative equation is given directly, guarantee the accuracy of the classification. Experiment result shows that the proposed model is compared with traditional clustering model is not easy to fall into local optimal solution, has higher recall ratio and precision, and has great significance for further user behavior research.
Team Cappadocia Design for MAGIC 2010

Team Cappadocia is participating in the Multi Autonomous Ground-robotic International Challenge (MAGIC 2010), with a set of fully autonomous ground vehicles that can execute an Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) mission in a dynamic urban environment. The design incorporates dynamic mission planning with automatic task assignment and optimized route generation, automated object of interest detection and tracking, decision making, automatic Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) image processing, automated local and global map and information integration, and a novel system architecture with modules compliant with the Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems (JAUS). The cooperators in the team formed under the leadership of ASELSAN Inc. of Turkey are The Ohio State University of USA (Control & Intelligent Transportation Research Lab), The Middle East Technical University (Robotics & Vision Labs), the Bilkent University (Robotics Lab) and the Bogazici University (AI Lab) of Turkey.
Genetic diversity assay of maize (Zea mays L.) inbreds based on morphometric traits and SSR markers

Twenty maize genotypes (19 inbred lines and a commercial hybrid) were studied assessing the extent of genetic diversity for 21 qualitative and quantitative morpho-metric traits and 18 expressed sequence tags-simple sequence repeats (EST-SSR) markers. A wide range of variation was observed among the 20 maize genotypes for quantitative traits predominantly for plant height, ear height, days to tasseling, days to silking, and kernel yield per plant. Among the qualitative traits, green-glume base, green inter-node, conico-cylindrical, flint grain texture, and white stone type were found predominant. The 18 primer pairs produced 92 different markers with polymorphism information content (PIC) value ranging from 0 to 0.87. Three different dendrograms based upon the dis/similarity coefficients were constructed. Poor and no correlations were observed among the sets of dendrograms patterns depicted from qualitative and quantitative traits and molecular markers. However, wide variation among genotypes of different clusters and within clusters was observed for different methods of clustering. It was concluded that the selection of suitable clustering system of genotypes should be determined by the purpose of clustering. Key words: Genetic diversity, maize, morphometric traits, simple sequence repeats (SSR) markers, cluster analysis.
Classification System based on New Pathological Features for Diagnosing Stages of BilIN

BilIN (Biliary INtraepithelial Neoplasm) is a precursor lesion of Intrahepatic CholangioCarcinoma (ICC). It is important to diagnose ICC and distinguish its stages for the prevention of ICC and proper treatment for a patient. BilIN is classified into BilIN-1, BilIN-2, and BilIN-3 by the morphological change and loss of polarity of epithelial cell and the structural abnormality of epithelium. This paper proposes two quantitative features based pathological knowledge for distinguishing stages of BilIN. The first feature is LumenBoundaryAbnomality (LBA) to measure the abnormal structure of epithelium; the second feature is NucleiPolarity for determine loss of polarity of epithelial cells. The experiment performed the stage classification of BilIN using following features; nonepithelial nuclei features, epithelial nuclei features, proposed features, non-epithelial nuclei and proposed features, epithelial nuclei and proposed features. The classification learning algorithm is used back-propagation Artificial Neural Networks. The classification result showed classification accuracies of 35% with non-epithelial features, 40% with epithelial features, 74% with proposed features, and 35% with non-epithelial and proposed features, and 46% with epithelial and proposed features.
Aspects of sepsis/SIRS - An experimental study on fluid therapy, vitamin C and plasma volume in increased permeability

In sepsis, after major surgery or severe trauma, the human body may suffer from various degrees of generalized inflammation, a syndrome called Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (SIRS). One feature of SIRS is increased capillary permeability, caused by disruption of the capillary endothelium due to e.g. bacterial toxins, cytokines, pro-inflammatory hormones and free oxygen radicals. This will result in leakage of plasma fluid to the interstitum with subsequent intravascular hypovolemia and potentially harmful tissue oedema. Restoration of plasma volume with intravenous fluids is a cornerstone in the treatment of SIRS, but the infused fluids would be expected to leak through the capillary membrane to a greater extent, being less effective and further aggravating oedema Thus, an important challenge in patients with increased capillary permeability will therefore be to achieve and maintain normovolemia with as little plasma volume substitution as possible. Also, finding a treatment that could seal the leaking capillaries would be of great value. Study I and II, performed in a sepsis/SIRS animal model, showed that the plasma volume expansion of 5% albumin, 6% HES 130/0.4, 4% gelatin and 6% dextran 70 measured 3 hours after start of infusion was larger when given with a slow infusion rate than when given with a fast infusion rate. This effect was not seen with 0.9% NaCl. In study III, performed in rat models, we compared the initial plasma volume expanding effect of 0.9% NaCl in sepsis/SIRS, after a standardized hemorrhage, and in a normal condition. It showed that the increase in plasma volume in relation to the infused volume of 0.9% NaCl (32 mL/kg) were 0.6% in in sepsis/SIRS, 20% after hemorrhage, and 12% when given to rats in a normal state. This means that efficacy of 0.9% NaCl is highly affected by pathophysiological changes in sepsis/SIRS, e.g. increased capillary permeability. In study IV, two different treatment regimes of high-dose vitamin C, initiated 3 hours after induction of sepsis, were investigated regarding their effect on plasma volume loss. None of the treatment regimes were found to have any effect on the loss of plasma volume, or any of the physiological parameters analysed, in the early stage of severe sepsis/SIRS in the rat. (Less)
Variation in morphological productivity in the BNC: Sociolinguistic and methodological considerations

Abstract The first aim of this work is to examine gender-based variation in the productivity of the nominal suffixes -ness and -ity in present-day British English. Possible interpretations are presented for the findings that -ity is used less productively by women, while with -ness there is no gender difference. The second aim is to analyse the validity of hapax-based measures of productivity in sociolinguistic research. It is discovered that they require a significantly larger corpus than type-based ones, and that the category-conditioned degree of productivity P is unusable when comparing subcorpora based on social groups. Otherwise, hapax legomena remain a theoretically well-founded component of productivity measures.
Investigation of Heat Affected Zone of Steel P92 Using the Thermal Cycle Simulator

This work is focused on mechanical properties and microstructure of heat affected zone (HAZ) of steel P92. The thermal cycle simulator was used for modeling a fine grained zone of HAZ. Hardness and impact toughness were measured on simulated samples. Microstructural analysis using optical microscopy was performed on selected samples. Achieved results were compared with the values of a real welded joint. The thermal cycle simulator allows transferring the properties of very small HAZ to the sufficiently large sample where the tests of the mechanical properties can be performed. A satisfactory accordance was found when comparing the microstructure and mechanical properties of real welds and simulated samples. Keywords—Heat affected zone, impact test, thermal cycle simulator and time of tempering.
AWARD NUMBER: W81XWH-10-1-1024 TITLE: Diagnosis of Compartment Syndrome Based on Tissue Oxygenation PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR:

Objective: We investigated the ability of direct continuous measurement of intramuscular tissue oxygenation (PmO2) to detect acute ischaemia in the leg in patients at risk for acute extremity compartment syndrome. Following tibia fracture treated by intramedullary nailing, we compared the proportions of PmO2 and compartment pressure (CP) measurements that met the warning criteria for compartment syndrome. Methods: Participants included 10 patients sustaining acute isolated closed tibia shaft fractures treated by intramedullary nailing. A tissue oxygenation probe and a CP probe were percutaneously placed into the anterior compartment of the leg. PmO2 and CP in the anterior compartment were measured in the injured leg for 48 h postoperatively. Measurements meeting the warning criteria were defined as PmO2 < 10 mmHg, CP > 30 mmHg and perfusion pressure DP < 30 mmHg. Results: None of the patients developed compartment syndrome. Comparison of CP and PmO2 showed a CP > 30 mmHg in 50.39% of CP measurements in all patients and a PmO2 < 10 mmHg in 0.75% of PmO2 measurements in two patients (P = 0.005). Comparison of DP and PmO2 showed a DP < 30 mmHg in 31.01% of DP measurements in nine patients and a PmO2 < 10 mmHg in 0.76% of PmO2 measurements in one patient (P = 0.01). Conclusion: In the absence of compartment syndrome, pressure measurements following tibia fracture treated with intramedullary nailing often met the warning criteria, whereas PmO2 did not, suggesting that measurement of intramuscular tissue oxygenation may represent a potential method for the identification of acute compartment syndrome that deserves continued investigation. 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
SEMIOTICS OF UMBERTO ECO IN A LITERARY TRANSLATION CLASS: THE MODEL READER AS THE COMPETENT TRANSLATOR1

Classroom environment can be thought as an absolute place to practice and improve translation skills of students. They have the possibility to brainstorm and discuss problematic points they face with each other during a translation activity. It can be estimated in the same way in a literary translation class. Students who are supposed to become model readers need to use their background knowledge, vocabulary, and encyclopedia to understand the text properly, to infer the unsaid from said, and to translate them into a target language without disrupting the structure and taste of the source text. Bearing Umberto Eco’s view in mind, the structure of literary texts requires the cooperation of the reader -which is a sophisticated processand most of the words tend to be used with their connotations. When it is thought with the term of Umberto Eco, as the structure of literary texts which require the cooperation of the reader is sophisticated and most of the words are tend to be used with their connotations, students who are supposed to become model readers each need to use their background knowledge, vocabulary and encyclopedia not only to understand the text properly but also to infer the unsaid from already said and to translate them into a target language without disrupting the structure and taste of source text. Therefore, becoming a competent translator in order to conduct literary translation can be considered a crucial notion. This study aims at determining whether students, as translator candidates, are future ‘competent translator’ enough for literary translation. To achieve this goal, a case study is carried out in literary translation class. In this process, translations of 10 sophomore students from Trakya University, Division of English-Turkish Translation and Interpretation will be gone through. Students are asked to translate the short story titled Hopeless Romantic written by Susan Daitch into Turkish. To analyze the translations of students, the ‘Reviewing Model of Competent Translator’ is devised with the favor from Eco’s thoughts and experiences in Mouse or Rat: Translation as Negotiation. In this study, through Eco’s thoughts, experiences and the translation reviews, the applicability of ‘Reviewing Model of Competent Translator’ will be evaluated. It can be thought that this study will not only shed light on the researches in literary translation but also suggest a new model to evaluate the texts of translators.
Ludwigite from central Sweden: new data and crystal structure refinement

Abstract Ludwigite from B-bearing iron ores in the Bergslagen area of central Sweden and in the coastal area north of Stockholm has been studied using chemical and single-crystal diffraction techniques. Structure refinements, completed for three crystals showing slightly different Al contents, in the space group Pbam (agreement factor: 2.42 ≤ R ≤ 2.79) indicate that: (1) octahedral M1, M2 and M3 bond distances are similar, although the calculated site population suggests that M1 and M2 are nearly completely occupied by Mg whereas M3 also contains Fe2+ and Fe3+; (2) in the M4 octahedron Fe3+ and Al dominate over Mg (and Fe2+); and (3) the distortion parameter, BLD, indicates that M3 is the most regular, whereas M4 is the most distorted octahedron.