Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Discriminant analysis based on projection onto generalized difference subspace

This paper discusses a new type of discriminant analysis based on the orthogonal projection of data onto a generalized difference subspace (GDS). In our previous work, we have demonstrated that GDS projection works as the quasi-orthogonalization of class subspaces, which is an effective feature extraction for subspace based classifiers. Interestingly, GDS projection also works as a discriminant feature extraction through a similar mechanism to the Fisher discriminant analysis (FDA). A direct proof of the connection between GDS projection and FDA is difficult due to the significant difference in their formulations. To avoid the difficulty, we first introduce geometrical Fisher discriminant analysis (gFDA) based on a simplified Fisher criterion. Our simplified Fisher criterion is derived from a heuristic yet practically plausible principle: the direction of the sample mean vector of a class is in most cases almost equal to that of the first principal component vector of the class, under the condition that the principal component vectors are calculated by applying the principal component analysis (PCA) without data centering. gFDA can work stably even under few samples, bypassing the small sample size (SSS) problem of FDA. Next, we prove that gFDA is equivalent to GDS projection with a small correction term. This equivalence ensures GDS projection to inherit the discriminant ability from FDA via gFDA. Furthermore, to enhance the performances of gFDA and GDS projection, we normalize the projected vectors on the discriminant spaces. Extensive experiments using the extended Yale B+ database and the CMU face database show that gFDA and GDS projection have equivalent or better performance than the original FDA and its extensions.
A Novel Predictor Parameter for Active Recurrent Aphthous Stomatitis: C-Reactive Protein to Albumin Ratio

Objective Laboratory analysis results may provide an opportunity to predict the activity process of recurrent aphthous stomatitis. The goal of this study was to investigate whether there is a correlation between C-reactive protein to albumin ratio (CAR) and oral ulcer activity in patients with recurrent aphthous stomatitis. Materials and methods We included 72 patients (39 with active and 33 with inactive lesion) with recurrent aphthous stomatitis and 60 healthy controls. We compared blood test parameters including CAR, white blood cell count (WBC) and neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) among the groups. Additionally, we investigated the most significant parameter for the activity of oral ulcers. Results NLR was significantly higher both in the active (p<0.001) and inactive lesion groups (p<0.001), compared to the control group but did not significantly differ between active and inactive lesion groups (p=0.17). A significant difference in median CAR (p<0.001) and WBC (p<0.001) was evident among the three groups. Median WBC was significantly higher in the active lesion group compared to the control group (p<0.001) but did not significantly differ between active and inactive lesion groups (p=0.095). Median CAR was significantly higher in the active lesion group, compared both to the inactive lesion group (p=0.002) and the control group (p<0.001). Median CAR was also significantly higher in the inactive lesion group compared to the control group (p<0.001). Median hemoglobin, platelet to lymphocyte ratio and mean platelet volume did not significantly differ among three groups (p=0.16, p=0.85, p=0.19, respectively). Conclusion CAR could be used as a predictive parameter for inflammation and activity of oral ulcers in patients with recurrent aphthous stomatitis.
A Review on Indian Real Estate: Trends, Challenges and Prospectus

The real estate sector in India is presently worth USD15 billion and it is growing at a phenomenal rate of 30% per year. This sector is the second largest employer in India, after the agricultural sector. Having attained maturity, the real estate sector is attracting huge investments, especially FDI. Today, real estate in India addresses the demand for built-up space, from a variety of property segments such as offices, residential units, shopping malls, hospitality industry, manufacturing sector and logistics parks, to name a few. The real estate sector is also active in the establishment of SEZs and the building of townships; it is spreading to the smaller cities and underpins their growth. The concept of “green” buildings is being adopted by the sector, testifying to a significant emphasis on sustainability considerations. Infrastructure developments closely parallel real estate developments. This paper presents a panoramic view of the operations of Indian real estate sector in various property segments, the challenges faced by the sector and its prospects. The contents of this paper are based on research reports and other eminent published sources. This paper will be useful to a cross-section of readers, more particularly so to those associated with the real estate sector.
Validating a Dynamic EarthquakeModel to Produce Realistic GroundMotion

A dynamic earthquake model is validated by finding good agreement with an empirical ground-motion prediction equation (GMPE). The model replaces complex detailed deterministic processes on the nonplanar fault with a stochastic emergent law of stress on a planar fault. Initial stress on the fault plane is heterogeneous with a powerlaw spectrum that is self-similar. Rupture extent and moment are determined primarily by the specified lowest Fourier mode of initial stress. Higher modes are random with a self-similar spectrum that is tied to the amplitude of the lowest mode. Rupture stops naturally due to variation of initial stress. We calculate 10 random realizations with a velocity structure for a hard-rock site. The calculated mean response spectrum forMw 7 at a distance of 10 km agrees with the GMPE of Boore et al. (2014) within 25% of one standard deviation at periods from 0.3 to 10 s. The agreement of the ground-motion spectral response levels depends on the spatial stress spectrum being correctly related to the amplitude of the lowest mode, so that it is a consistent self-similar model. There are no arbitrary parameters in the model other than those that determine moment and rupture length and width. The standard deviation of the calculated ground motion is a substantial fraction of that of the GMPE.
How faithfully do HIV clinicians administer the PHQ-9 depression screening tool in high-volume, low-resource clinics? Results from a depression treatment integration project in Malawi

Background. Integration of mental health services into nonspecialist settings is expanding in low and middle income countries (LMICs). Among many factors required for success, such programs require reliable administration of mental health screening tools. While several tools have been validated in carefully conducted research studies, few studies have assessed how reliably nonspecialist clinicians administer these tools to low-literacy LMIC populations in routine care. Methods. Ninety-seven patients accessing human immunodeficiency virus primary care in Malawi who completed Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ)-9 depression screening with their clinician then completed a second PHQ-9 with a trained research assistant (RA) blinded to the first result. Results. Compared to clinicians, RAs identified more patients with any depressive symptoms (PHQ-9 score ⩾5: 38% v. 32%), moderate/severe symptoms (PHQ-9 ⩾ 10: 14% v. 6%), any suicidality (14% v. 4%), and active suicidality (3% v. 2%). Across these indicators, clinician and RA ratings had strong overall agreement (81–97%) but low corrected Kappa agreement (31–59%). Treating RA results as the reference standard of a carefully supervised research administration of the PHQ-9, clinician administration had high specificity (90–99%) but low sensitivity (23–68%) for these indicators. Conclusions. In routine care in LMICs, clinicians may administer validated mental health screening tools with varying quality. To ensure quality, integration programs must incorporate appropriate and ongoing training, support, supervision, and monitoring.
Multidimensional post-earthquake reconstruction: the Chakama Valley in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and the Uri Block in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir

The South Asian earthquake of October 2005 devastated large parts of Kashmir on both sides of the Line of Control (LOC) as well as significant parts of the North West Frontier province in Pakistan. The death toll in Pakistan was around 73,000 (almost 30,000 children) with another 70,000 severely injured or disabled and 4 million made homeless. On the Indian side, damage was confined to two districts with 1,300 deaths, 7,500 injured and over 37,000 buildings damaged. Within days of this catastrophe, the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) responded through its affiliate FOCUS, to provide relief assistance to the affected communities. On the Pakistan side, AKDN’s fleet of helicopters flew over 1,500 sorties, providing food, blankets, tents and tarpaulin, and evacuated nearly 2,000 injured from the affected areas. On the Indian side FOCUS provided winterized tents and warm clothing to nearly 400 families in 14 villages. On both sides of the LOC, nearly 200,000 people were assisted.
A Novel Cross-lingual Voice Cloning Approach with a Few Text-free Samples

In this paper, we present a cross-lingual voice cloning approach. BN features obtained by SI-ASR model are used as a bridge across speakers and language boundaries. The relationships between text and BN features are modeled by the latent prosody model. The acoustic model learns the translation from BN features to acoustic features. The acoustic model is fine-tuned with a few samples of the target speaker to realize voice cloning. This system can generate speech of arbitrary utterance of target language in cross-lingual speakers' voice. We verify that with small amount of audio data, our proposed approach can well handle cross-lingual tasks. And in intra-lingual tasks, our proposed approach also performs better than baseline approach in naturalness and similarity.
RIMES evaluation campaign for handwritten mail processing

The paper presents the French RIMES (Reconnaissance et Indexation de données Manuscrites et de fac similÉS / Recognition and Indexing of handwritten documents and faxes) project, which is an evaluation campaign dedicated to automatic systems of recognition and indexing of handwritten letters. Of particular interest are cases such as those sent by postal mail or fax by individuals to companies or administrations. This project is intended to all the key players of the handwritten recognition and document analysis communities. In particular, regular evaluation tests are provided to them (the first test took place in June 2007). In this framework, a new database of more than 5600 real mails completely annotated has been created as well as secondary databases of isolated characters, handwritten words (300,000 snippets) and logos. Beyond the evaluation, the other contribution of the RIMES project is to provide public access for the community to all these databases after the last test.
On Accounting for Screen Resolution in Adaptive Video Streaming: A QoE-Driven Bandwidth Sharing Framework

Screen resolution along with network conditions are main objective factors impacting the user experience, in particular for video streaming applications. Terminals on their side feature more and more advanced characteristics resulting in different network requirements for good visual experience [1]. Previous studies tried to link MOS (Mean Opinion Score) to video bit rate for different screen types (e.g., CIF, QCIF, and HD) [2]. We leverage such studies and formulate a QoE-driven resource allocation problem to pinpoint the optimal bandwidth allocation that maximizes the QoE (Quality of Experience) over all users of a provider located behind the same bottleneck link, while accounting for the characteristics of the screens they use for video playout. For our optimization problem, QoE functions are built using curve fitting on data sets capturing the relationship between MOS, screen characteristics, and bandwidth requirements. We propose a simple heuristic based on Lagrangian relaxation and KKT (Karush Kuhn Tucker) conditions for a subset of constraints. Numerical simulations show that the proposed heuristic is able to increase overall QoE up to 20% compared to an allocation with TCP look-alike strategies implementing max-min fairness. Later, we use a MPEG/DASH implementation in the context of ns-3 and show that coupling our approach with a rate adaptation algorithm (e.g., [3]) can help increasing QoE while reducing both resolution switches and number of interruptions.
Genetic Aspects and Family Studies of Noncompaction and Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

textabstractThe first reports of familial cardiac disorders appeared over 60 years ago. Since then, knowledge on cardiogenetic disorders has increased tremendously. And now cardiogenetics is a rapidly expanding field, including the familial cardiomyopathies, arrhythmias, congenital heart diseases and cardiovascular disorders. Most of these disorders have an autosomal dominant inheritance pattern. In the last decade many genes involved in these disorders have been identified and more discoveries are sure to follow. The growing insight in the genetic conditions of the cardiovascular system has led to a substantial increase in the number of patients referred to clinical genetic departments for genetic counselling and DNA diagnostics. Close collaboration of departments of cardiology and genetics resulted in the initiation of multidisciplinary cardiogenetic outpatient clinics to provide the optimum care and facilitate family studies of hereditary cardiologic conditions. This way family studies of more and more adult patients could be initiated which led to increasing numbers of at risk relatives visiting the cardiogenetic units. Similarly, the cardiogenetic units were involved in counselling and family studies of the families of paediatric patients. Over the years the total number of cardiogenetic counselling sessions rose from 53 in 2000 to 482 in 2008 at the department of clinical genetics of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam. In 2007 that number made up 12.6% of the total number of counselling sessions in Rotterdam. This is not only a local trend, it is observed nationwide. According to the numbers of the Dutch Society of Clinical Genetics (VKGN) the number of cardiogenetic counselling sessions rose from 538 in 2000, representing 4.5% of the total amount of counselling sessions, to 3216 in 2008, rising to 11.8% of all counselling sessions.
Pressure-volume loops in cardiac surgery

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Establishment and Characterization of a Murine Mucosal Mast Cell Culture Model

Accumulating evidence suggests that mast cells play critical roles in disruption and maintenance of intestinal homeostasis, although it remains unknown how they affect the local microenvironment. Interleukin-9 (IL-9) was found to play critical roles in intestinal mast cell accumulation induced in various pathological conditions, such as parasite infection and oral allergen-induced anaphylaxis. Newly recruited intestinal mast cells trigger inflammatory responses and damage epithelial integrity through release of a wide variety of mediators including mast cell proteases. We established a novel culture model (IL-9-modified mast cells, MCs/IL-9), in which murine IL-3-dependent bone-marrow-derived cultured mast cells (BMMCs) were further cultured in the presence of stem cell factor and IL-9. In MCs/IL-9, drastic upregulation of Mcpt1 and Mcpt2 was found. Although histamine storage and tryptase activity were significantly downregulated in the presence of SCF and IL-9, this was entirely reversed when mast cells were cocultured with a murine fibroblastic cell line, Swiss 3T3. MCs/IL-9 underwent degranulation upon IgE-mediated antigen stimulation, which was found to less sensitive to lower concentrations of IgE in comparison with BMMCs. This model might be useful for investigation of the spatiotemporal changes of newly recruited intestinal mast cells.
Modeling, Tracking, Annotating and Augmenting a 3D Object in less than 5 Minutes

This article presents a comprehensive augmented reality solution designed for professional uses. Recently, we introduced a new high-end visual tracking solution based on the concept of SLAM constrained with a 3D mesh model. Here, we push the concept even forward, proposing a complete framework that addresses the whole pipeline, from object modeling to its tracking and providing the augmentations. The solution being designed to target professional applications, it provides high robustness and accuracy in the tracking as well as an easy and fast deployment process. Moreover, this solution is completed by a new AR device, embedding an HD camera with buttons in a gun-style wearable device with a display deported on a flat screen. This device was developed to answer the ergonomic requirements in particular use cases such as quality control or workforce education. A video presenting the framework is available at [1].
Unsupervised Burned Area Estimation through Satellite Tiles: A Multimodal Approach by Means of Image Segmentation over Remote Sensing Imagery

Climate change is increasing the number and the magnitude of wildﬁres, which become every year more severe. An accurate delineation of burned areas, which is often done through time consuming and inaccurate manual approaches, is of paramount importance to estimate the economic impact of such events. In this paper we introduce Burned Area Estimation through satellite tiles (BAE), an unsupervised algorithm that couples image processing techniques and an unsupervised neural network to automatically delineate the burned areas of wildﬁres from satellite imagery. We show its capabilities by performing an evaluation over past wildﬁres across European and non-European countries.
Mobile Augmented Reality Application for Building Evacuation Using Intelligent Signs

It is critical that building patrons know how to evacuate, in case of an emergency. Live evacuation drills are ideal for training people to evacuate in an indoor or outdoor setting. However, live evacuation drills are timeconsuming and costly. They could also lead to injury to participants. Virtual evacuation training would help people visualize evacuation procedures. Emerging research supports augmented reality as an educational, training, and instructional tool. Motivated by augmented reality’s educational use and mobile technology’s ubiquitous presence, an Android-based mobile augmented reality application (MARA) was developed to show people how to evacuate a building. The MARA uses the Unity3D game engine and the Vuforia AR toolkit. This paper presents the use of intelligent signs to illustrate its benefits to the users during evacuation.
THE CONTRIBUTION OF ALTERNATIVE TRANSLATION START SITES TO HUMAN PROTEIN DIVERSITY

Motivation: According to the scanning model, 40S ribosomal subunits can either initiate translation at start AUG codon in a suboptimal context or scanthrough and initiate translation at downstream AUG(s). Functional significance of the usage of alternative translation start sites is still unknown. Results: Sequence organization of translation initiation signal of human mRNAs was analyzed. It was found that a suboptimal context of annotated start codon correlated with a significantly higher frequency of in-frame downstream AUG codons. We compared predicted subcellular localizations of annotated human proteins and their potential N-terminally truncated forms started from the nearest downstream in-frame AUG codons. It was found that the localization of full and N-truncated protein variants was often different: ca. 3.5 % of human genes tested could produce additional proteins with other targeting signals. It is likely that the in-frame downstream AUGs may be frequently utilized to synthesize additional proteins possessing new functional properties and such a translational polymorphism may serve as an important source of cellular and organelle proteomes.
Posture Shifts in Conversation: An Exploratory Study with Textile Sensors

Posture shifts involving movement of half or more of the body are one of the most conspicuous non-verbal events in conversation. Despite this we know less about what these movements signal about the interaction than we do about smaller scale movements such as nods and gestures. This paper reports an exploratory study of posture shifts in seated conversation. Using data from video analysis and bespoke pressure sensors in clothing, we are able to distinguish different types of posture shifts and detect them in speakers and listeners. The results show that large scale posture shifts are performed by both speaker and listener, appear to be distinct from smaller movements associated with preparing to speak and that the posture shifts associated with speech offset are less clearly defined. We discuss the potential of using pressure sensors to investigate these salient conversational states.
Thermal Covert Channels Leveraging Package-on-Package DRAM

Package-on-Package (PoP) is an intergraded circuit packaging technique where multiple separate packages are mounted vertically one on top of the other, allowing for more compact system design and reduction in the distance between modules. However, this can introduce security vulnerabilities. In particular, this work shows that due to the close physical proximity of a System-on-a-Chip (SoC) package and a PoP DRAM that is on top of it, a thermal covert channel exists between the SoC and the PoP DRAM. The thermal covert channel can allow multiple cores in the SoC to communicate by modulating the temperature of the PoP DRAM. Especially, it is possible for one core in the SoC to generate heat patterns, which encode data that is to be transmitted, and another core to observe the transmitted pattern by measuring the decay rate of DRAM cells. Further, a covert channel can be established between a remote user and an SoC core by modulating the PoP DRAM temperature that then affects errors in PoP DRAM PUF fingerprints that are sent to the remote user for device authentication. Following these ideas, this paper introduces two new covert channels: first leveraging the observation of the number of bit flips in the PoP DRAM directly, and second through observation of bit flips induced in PoP DRAM PUF fingerprints. This paper also evaluates the DRAM cell decay rates in PoP DRAM, when heated by execution of different instructions on the processor cores in the SoC underneath the DRAM module. The evaluation was performed on three Raspberry Pi B+ boards, which have PoP DRAM. The evaluation was done both in office environment and in a thermal chamber. To mitigate the new channels, a set of defenses is discussed.