Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Feature Extracto r PDML Classification Module Input Feature Prediction CrossEntropy Loss Online Extension

Semantic scene parsing is suffering from the fact that pixellevel annotations are hard to be collected. To tackle this issue, we propose a Point-based Distance Metric Learning (PDML) in this paper. PDML does not require dense annotated masks and only leverages several labeled points that are much easier to obtain to guide the training process. Concretely, we leverage semantic relationship among the annotated points by encouraging the feature representations of the intraand intercategory points to keep consistent, i.e. points within the same category should have more similar feature representations compared to those from different categories. We formulate such a characteristic into a simple distance metric loss, which collaborates with the point-wise cross-entropy loss to optimize the deep neural networks. Furthermore, to fully exploit the limited annotations, distance metric learning is conducted across different training images instead of simply adopting an image-dependent manner. We conduct extensive experiments on two challenging scene parsing benchmarks of PASCALContext and ADE 20K to validate the effectiveness of our PDML, and competitive mIoU scores are achieved.
The ZTSpeech system for CHiME-5 Challenge: A far-field speech recognition system with front-end and robust back-end

In this paper, we describe our ZTSpeech for two tracks of CHiME-5 challenge. For front-end, our experiments conduct the comparisons between several popular beamforming meth-ods. Besides, we also propose a omnidirectional minimum variance distortionless response (OMVDR) followed by weighted prediction error (WPE). Furthermore, we investigate the impact of data augmentation and data combinations. For back-end, several acoustic models (AMs) with different architectures are deeply investigated. N-gram-based and recurrent neural network (RNN)-based language models (LMs) are both evaluated. For single-array track, by combining the most effective approaches, our ﬁnal system can achieve 11.94% promotion on performance in evaluation set, from 73.27% to 61.33%. For multiple-array track, our ﬁnal system can achieve 12.29% improvement in evaluation set, from 73.30% to 61.01%.
Spitzer infrared spectrograph point source classification in the Small Magellanic Cloud

The Magellanic Clouds are uniquely placed to study the stellar contribution to dust emission. Individual stars can be resolved in these systems even in the mid-infrared, and they are close enough to allow detection of infrared excess caused by dust. We have searched the Spitzer Space Telescope data archive for all Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) staring-mode observations of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) and found that 209 Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) point sources within the footprint of the Surveying the Agents of Galaxy Evolution in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SAGE-SMC) Spitzer Legacy programme were targeted, within a total of 311 staring-mode observations. We classify these point sources using a decision tree method of object classification, based on infrared spectral features, continuum and spectral energy distribution shape, bolometric luminosity, cluster membership and variability information. We find 58 asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars, 51 young stellar objects, 4 post-AGB objects, 22 red supergiants, 27 stars (of which 23 are dusty OB stars), 24 planetary nebulae (PNe), 10 Wolf–Rayet stars, 3 H II regions, 3 R Coronae Borealis stars, 1 Blue Supergiant and 6 other objects, including 2 foreground AGB stars. We use these classifications to evaluate the success of photometric classification methods reported in the literature.
Environmental Protection , Interjurisdictional Transport , and the Demographic Distribution of Solid Waste Disposal

Using data on intercounty waste flows in California and a structural model of haulers’ decisions about where to deposit waste from each county, this paper studies the effects of environmental protection policies on the spatial and demographic distribution of solid waste. I find that waste is currently more likely to be hauled to disposal facilities in communities with higher percentages of blacks and Hispanics, even after I control for income, disposal fees, and transport distances, suggesting that unobserved characteristics of facilities and neighborhoods matter in haulers’ decisions. I account for these factors by allowing for facility fixed effects in the demand model for waste disposal facilities. The results show that policies that limit waste flows would reduce intercounty waste transport but they generally would not lead to a more equitable distribution of trash. In particular, these policies tend to lead to substitution of waste away from facilities near white residents and toward facilities near Hispanic residents, potentially exacerbating distributional concerns.
Knowledge Base, Exporting Activities, Innovation Openness and Innovation Performance: A SEM Approach Towards a Unifying Framework

In this paper we demonstrate the complexity that regulates the innovation-exports nexus. In particular we argue that innovation and exports should be treated as latent variables in order to account for as many facets possible thus, accounting for multifaceted heterogeneity. In this context, the role of innovation openness ought to be highlighted within a unified framework, as it is considered an additional activity of firms’ knowledge creation strategy. In this line, innovation and exporting orientation are ruled by the firms' strategic mix comprised of internal knowledge creation processes and the diversity of innovation openness. Theoretical and empirical links between these major components are identified and measured employing a Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach on a sample of Greek R&D-active manufacturing firms. Empirical findings corroborate the complexity of relationships and indicate that the firms’ knowledge base and open innovation strategy regulate via complementary and substitution relationships firms’ innovation and export performance.
Late Pleistocene human occupation of inland rainforest, Bird's Head, Papua

This paper reports new AMS dates for Late Pleistocene occupation of the Ayamaru Plateau in the central Bird's Head of Papua. Two cave sites, Kria Cave and Toe Cave, together provide occupation sequences that span the Holocene and extend back to the Last Glacial Maximum. The associated faunal remains suggest that this lowland area has supported continuous rainforest cover throughout the entire period of occupation. During the Last Glacial Maximum a suite of montane mammal species extended their altitudinal range down onto the plateau, some persisting locally until around 6000 BP. While the Late Pleistocene age of the basal deposit in Toe Cave was previously suggested, new AMS radiocarbon dates on Casuarius eggshell confirm occupation from 24,000 cal BP. Amino acid racemisation data paired with the AMS dates, provide additional support for the improved chronology. The new dates indicate consistent human exploitation of lowland rainforest environments in a relatively rugged and remote region of the central Bird's Head.
Contribution DUAL ROLE OF cAMP IN iNOS EXPRESSION IN GLIAL CELLS AND MACROPHAGES IS MEDIATED BY DIFFERENTIAL REGULATION OF p 38-MAPK / ATF-2 ACTIVATION AND iNOS STABILITY

Add tal Ne South 792 71 Abstract—We reported previously that cAMP analogues or cAMP synthesis activator (forskolin; FSK) inhibit lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced inducible nitric-oxide systase (iNOS) gene expression in astrocytes, while they enhance that in macrophages. Here, we report that the FSK-mediated inhibition of iNOS expression in C6 glial cells is due to its reduced transcriptional activity, while the FSK-mediated enhancement of iNOS expression in RAW264.7 macrophages is a result of increased stability of iNOS protein without transcriptional enhancement. The LPS/interferon-g (IFN)-induced iNOS transcription was inhibited by FSK via inhibition of p38-MAPK/ATF-2 activity in glial cells while it was not affected in macrophages. In both cell types, proteasome activities were required for the spontaneous degradation of iNOS protein, and the inhibition of proteasome activity by MG132 after maximum increase of iNOS protein levels further enhanced iNOS protein induction by LPS/IFN, suggesting the involvement of proteasome in iNOS degradation. More importantly, the iNOS protein levels were equalized by the MG132 posttreatment in macrophages treated with LPS/IFN alone and along with FSK, and ubiquitinated iNOS protein levels were reduced by FSK posttreatment, suggesting that the FSK-mediated inhibition of ubiquitination of iNOS protein and the following increased stability of iNOS protein are one of the mechanisms of cAMP-pathway-mediated enhancement of iNOS gene expression in macrophages. To our knowledge, this is the first evidence that cAMP regulates iNOS expression at the posttranslational level in macrophages. D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Cenozoic river profile development in the Upper Lachlan catchment (SE Australia) as a test of quantitative fluvial incision models

[1] We have used early Miocene valley-filling basalts to reconstruct fluvial long profiles in the Upper Lachlan catchment, SE Australia, in order to use these as well-constrained initial conditions in a forward model of fluvial incision. Many different fluvial incision algorithms have been proposed, and it is not clear at present which one of these best captures the behavior of bedrock rivers. We test five different formulations; the ability of these models to reproduce the observed present-day stream profiles and amounts of incision is assessed using a weighted-mean misfit criterion as well as the structure of the misfit function. The results show that for all models, parameter combinations can be found that reproduce the amounts of incision reasonably well. However, for some models, these best fit parameter combinations do not seem to have a physical significance, whereas for some others, best fit parameter combinations are such that the models tend to mimic the behavior of other models. Overall, best fit model predictions are obtained for a detachment-limited stream power model or an “undercapacity” model that includes a river width term that varies as a function of drainage area. The uncertainty in initial conditions does not have a strong impact on model outcomes. The model results suggest, however, that lithological variation may be responsible for variations in parameter values of a factor of 3–5.
Invited : Modeling and Optimization of Multititiered Server-Based Systems

Most analytic performance models only consider contention for hardware resources such as processors, storage devices, and networks. However, contention for software resources such as software threads, database locks, and critical sections can play an important role in the overall performance of a computer system. This paper uses a multi-tiered system with several multithreaded software servers to illustrate how performance models that consider both software and hardware contention should be used to address these situations. The paper also discusses the problem of determining the optimal number of threads for each software server so as to minimize the average response time at a given load level.
econstor Make Your Publications Visible . A Service of zbw

In the dynamic game we analyze, players are the members of a fixed network. Everyone is initially endowed with an information item that he is the only player to hold. Players are offered a finite number of periods to centralize the initially dispersed items in the hands of any one member of the network. In every period, each agent strategically chooses whether or not to transmit the items he holds to his neighbors in the network. The sooner all the items are gathered by any individual, the better it is for the group of players as a whole. Besides, the agent who first centralizes all the items is offered an additional reward that he keeps for himself. In this framework where information transmission is strategic and physically restricted, we provide a necessary and sufficient condition for a group to pool information items in every equilibrium. This condition is independent of the network structure. The architecture of links however affects the time needed before items are centralized in equilibrium.
Investigation on Flashover Development Mechanism of Polymeric Insulators by Time Frequency Analysis

This paper deals with the analysis of leakage current characteristics of silicone rubber insulator in order to develop a new condition monitoring tool to identify the flashover of outdoor insulators. In this work, laboratory based pollution performance tests are carried out on silicone rubber insulator under ac voltage at different pollution levels and relative humidity conditions with sodium chloride (NaCl) as a contaminant. Min-Norm spectral analysis is adopted to calculate the higher order harmonics and Signal Noise Ratio (SNR). Choi-Williams Distribution (CWD) function is employed to understand the time frequency characteristics of the leakage current signal. Reported results on silicone rubber insulators show that the flashover development process of outdoor polymer insulators could be identified from the higher order harmonics and signal noise ratio values of leakage current signals.
High-precision atomic clocks with highly charged ions: Nuclear-spin-zero f 12 -shell ions

Optical atomic clocks using highly-charged ions hold an intriguing promise of metrology at the 19th significant figure. Here we study transitions within the $4f^{12}$ ground-state electronic configuration of highly charged ions. We consider isotopes lacking hyperfine structure and show that the detrimental effects of coupling of electronic quadrupole moments to gradients of trapping electric field can be effectively reduced by using specially chosen virtual clock transitions. The estimated systematic fractional clock accuracy is shown to be below $10^{-19}$.
Privacy and Security in Data Storage Using Two Layer Encryption and MAC Verification

For the privacy and security of data stored in data storage a new Two Layer Encryption (TLE) approach is developed. This technique performs an encryption at two layers based on some ACP(Access Control Policies)on the data owner as well as on the datastorage.The data owner and the data storage utilizes a key management scheme with the help of a key generating algorithmABGKM (Attribute Based Group Key Management)whereby the actual keys do not need to be distributed by the users. The single layer encryption approach using keyword search has some drawbacks such as the privacy of the identity attributes of the users is not taken into account so that the data storage can learn some information about the users and the organization. The random keyword search request also cause loss of information and degrade the privacy of encrypted data. This thesis of two layer encryption allows more secure and private way to handle data updates, user dynamics and policy changes. If there is a change in user dynamics or policy the outer layer of encryption needs to be updated. Since the outer layer encryption is done at the data storage, no transmission of data required between the data owner and data storage. The user who satisfies the access control policies should be able to decrypt the keys twice in order to access the data makes the system more secure and private. Hence my propped thesis has a newly added advantage of two layer encryption using Attribute Based Group Key management (ABGKM) provides a strong secure layer for data storage in servers.
Building Parallel Corpora from Movies

This paper proposes to use DTW to construct parallel corpora from difficult data. Parallel corpora are considered as raw material for machine translation (MT), frequently, MT systems use European or Canadian parliament corpora. In order to achieve a realistic machine translation system, we decided to use movie subtitles. These data could be considered difficult because they contain unfamiliar expressions, abbreviations, hesitations, words which do not exist in classical dictionaries (as vulgar words), etc. The obtained parallel corpora can constitute a rich ressource to train decoding spontaneous speech translation system. From 40 movies, we align 43013 English subtitles with 42306 French subtitles. This leads to 37625 aligned pairs with a precision of 92,3%.
Using Laboratory Experiments to Design Efficient Market Institutions: Case of Wholesale Electricity Markets

This paper assesses the contribution of laboratory experiments to the economics of design applied to the electricity industry. The analysis is dedicated to wholesale markets, and reviews the results accumulated to date concerning both the general architecture of power markets and the very details of the market rules or institution, that is the auction rule. We argue that these experimental results contribute to a better understanding of the performances properties and implementation features of competitive market designs and that experimental economics has proven very useful to public authorities to inform the restructuring of the electricity industry. It thus confirms the role of experimental economics as a complement to theoretical approaches in the design effort
CFD Modelling of a Spark Ignition Internal Combustion Engine Fuelled with Syngas for a mCHP System

Micro Combined Heat and Power (mCHP) powered with biomass is nowadays a technology attracting increasing interest to develop a local supply chain to produce, process and valorise the available material in territorial areas as much as possible circumscribed, with a considerable reduction also of the CO2 related to transportation. Application for biomass powered mCHP produces environmental benefits by reducing primary energy consumption and associated greenhouse gas emissions and complies with the need for increased decentralization of energy supply. Of particular relevance is mCHP based on biomass gasification due to the negligible particulate matter release with respect to combustion.The present work describes a 3D CFD model of the spark ignition (SI) internal combustion engine (ICE) fuelled with syngas installed in the mCHP pilot system ECO20 manufactured by the Italian company Costruzioni Motori Diesel S.p.A. (CMD). The considered system is made of a gasifier combined with proper syngas cleaning devices, an ICE and a generator to deliver a maximum electrical and thermal power of 20 kW and 40 kW, respectively. For the proper initialisation of the 3D CFD model, the syngas composition is experimentally characterised using a gas-chromatograph on samples collected under real operation. The calculated pressure cycle is verified by comparison with the one calculated through a properly developed 1D ICE model. Main goals of the performed numerical analysis are to study into detail the combustion process and to assess the engine performance characteristics related to the use of syngas.
Perceived Parental Practices and Mental Health Problems : Cross-Cultural Validation of EMBU-C on Pakistani Adolescents

This study provides a validation of EMBU-C on Pakistani adolescents. 1279 adolescents were selected through multistage sampling with the age range of 12-18 (M 13.93, SD 1.83). The participants were given a modified version of EMBU-C Muris, Meesters, & van Brakel, 2003), School Children Problem Scale (SCPS, Saleem & Mahmood, 2011) and a demographic performa. The result showed that EMBU-C produced almost similar factorial structure to the original (4 factors). The EMBU-C was found to have satisfactory internal consistency and proved a reliable and valid scale for Pakistani culture. The results revealed the perceived Parental Warmth was found to be a negative predictors and Parental Rejection was found to be a positive predictor of mental health problems (p<0.001). The results are discussed in terms of gender differences and cultural and clinical implication of parental rearing practices.
A SPARQL engine for crowdsourcing query processing using microtasks - Technical Report

There are queries in Linked Data processing that cannot always be optimally answered through traditional data base management techniques. More often than not answering such queries relies on information that is incomplete, incorrect, or fuzzily specified; and on mere approximations of computationally advanced functionality for matching, aggregating, and ranking such information. As a means to deal with these limitations, we propose CrowdSPARQL, a novel approach to SPARQL query answering that brings together machine- and human-driven capabilities. We define extensions of the SPARQL query language and the Linked Data vocabulary VoID in order to capture those aspects of Linked Data query processing that per design are likely to benefit from the use of human-based computation. Based on this information, and on a set of statistics gathered during the use of our system, CrowdSPARQL is able to decide at run time which parts of a query are going to be evaluated using automatic query execution techniques, and which will be answered by the crowd via a microtask platform such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. We evaluated CrowdSPARQL in a scenario handling a representative subset of tasks that are amenable to crowdsourcing - ontological classification, entity resolution and subjective rankings - on the DBpedia and MusicBrainz data sets, in order to learn how specific parameters of microtask design influence the success of crowdsourced query answering.
Enhancing effects of Calcium phosphate nanoparticles adjuvant on the Immune response in calves vaccinated with Foot and Mouth Disease trivalent vaccine

Nanotechnology plays a unique and novel role to develop new methods for adjuvant preparation, which play an important role in the efficacy of vaccines. In this study we have studied the effects of Calcium phosphate nanoparticles (CaP) <150 nm particle size measuring with Electron microscope, on the magnitude and type of immunity elicited in response to inactivated FMD trivalent vaccine. A comprehensive sero-immunological study was conduced to reveal the adjuvant's effect of Calcium phosphate nanoparticles on the immune response to oil adjuvanted trivalent Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) in vaccinated calves. This study was conducted in three calve groups; group (A) vaccinated subcutaneously with trivalent oil FMD vaccine, group (B) vaccinated subcutaneously with trivalent FMD vaccine adjuvanted with Calcium Phosphate nonaoparticles (10 mg/dose). While group (C) vaccinated subcutaneously with trivalent FMD vaccine adjuvanted with both oil and CaP nanoparticles. The humeral and cellular immunoresponses were monitored in different tested groups. Results indicated that the incorporation of Calcium phosphate nanoparticles into inactivated FMD vaccine induces an increase of the specific protective immune response. Higher and longer period of immune responses were found in calves vaccinated with both oil and Calcium phosphate nanoparticles adjuvanted vaccine up to 40 week, while those vaccinated with Calcium Phosphate nanoparticles and with oil vaccine showed protected immunity up to 36 and 32 weeks respectively.