Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Depth Map Enhancement on RGB-D Video Captured by Kinect V2

The quality of depth map is one key factor contributing to the quality of 3D video and virtual reality (VR) rendering. In this study, we use RGB-D camera (Microsoft Kinect for Windows v2) to capture the color sequences and depth sequences as our system inputs. The captured depth map contains various noises and artifacts in addition to the occlusion regions. We use the color sequences in both spatial domain and time domain to improve the quality of the depth map. Our main contributions are alignment between color and depth images and reducing artifacts in the reflection regions. Several techniques are adopted, modified, and re-designed such as moving object compensation, unreliable depth pixel detection, and locally adaptive depth pixel refinement algorithm. The experimental results show that the quality of the depth map is significantly improved.
Soil Moisture Retrieval From SAR and Optical Data Using a Combined Model

Remote sensing inversion of vegetation-covered soil moisture is often affected by crop canopy, surface roughness, and other factors. In order to eliminate the scattering influence of vegetation effectively, this paper developed a modified vegetation backscattering model to retrieve vegetation-covered soil moisture based on multi-temporal RADARSAT-2 data and field measurements. This model combined the advantages of optical and radar methods by considering scattering contributions of underlying bare soil and vegetation canopy. Vegetation coverage was used to separate the scattering mechanism of the vegetation from bare soil component in a pixel. In addition, advanced integral equation method was presented to define the scattering of underlying bare soil. PROSAIL optical model was applied to calculate crown water content, which is an important variable associated with the scattering of vegetation canopy. Results demonstrated that the modified model on March 29, 2014 performed better in soil moisture retrieval than that at other growth stages with R2 of 0.806 and root-mean-square error of 0.043 m3·m−3, respectively. Soil moisture can be effectively retrieved by using the modified model in an agricultural region where the surface type is ranging from relatively sparse to full cover. Overall, the modified model provides an insight into extensive application of vegetation-covered soil moisture retrieval in agricultural regions.
Qualitative Findings from Study of Interdisciplinary Education in Computational Modeling for Life Sciences Student Researchers from Emerging Research Institutions

This Work-in-Progress paper in the Research Category explores the unique challenges and opportunities of interdisciplinary education in computational modeling for life sciences student researchers at emerging research institutions (ERIs), specifically in predominantly undergraduate institutions (PUIs), and minority serving institutions (MSIs). Engineering approaches such as computational modeling have underappreciated potential for capacity building for the biomedical research enterprises of ERIs. We perform a bibliometric analysis to assess the prevailing use of computational modeling in life sciences research at MSIs, and PUIs. Additionally, we apply Social and Cognitive Theory to identify unique attitudinal, social and structural barriers for student researchers in learning and using computational modeling approaches at each of these types of institutions. Specifically, we use quantitative retrospective pre- and post-survey data and qualitative interviews of students who have attended a short-format computational modeling training course. We supplement these data with qualitative interviews of the students’ faculty sponsors. Upon completion, this study will provide deeper understanding of issues related to computer science and engineering education at non-Research I institutions.
Many-to-Many Voice Conversion based on Bottleneck Features with Variational Autoencoder for Non-parallel Training Data

This paper proposes a novel approach to many-to-many (M2M) voice conversion for non-parallel training data. In the proposed approach, we first obtain bottleneck features (BNFs) as speaker representations from a deep neural network (DNN). Then, a variational autoencoder (VAE) implements the mapping function (i.e., a reconstruction process) using both the latent semantic information and the speaker representations. Furthermore, we propose an adaptive scheme by intervening the training process of the DNN, which can enrich the target speaker's personality feature space in the case of limited training data. Our approach has three advantages: 1) neither parallel training data nor explicit frame alignment process is required; 2) consolidates multiple pair-wise systems into a single M2M model (many-source speakers to many-target speakers); 3) expands M2M conversion task from closed set to open set when the training data of target speaker is very limited. The objective and subjective evaluations show that our proposed approach outperforms the baseline system.
An Empirical Investigation of Technology Acceptance Model of using C2C Mobile Business Application in Oman

Customer-to-Customer (C2C) e-business is a technology that provides services where the customer can sell and buy from another customer. The organizations presenting Customer-to-Customer on-line offerings don’t have a proper understanding and knowledge of the Customer-to-Customer exchange conduct and are unable to offer satisfied and effective layout for an internet C2C mobile application. The purpose this study is to investigate the acceptance of the particular business application by the users. The questionnaire has been created by using Google forms and distributed electronically through mail, and other social networking sites. The research is based on the theory of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and its extensions. The study was conducted in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. The questionnaire contains 19 survey questions and 7 demographic statements. Data were collected from 218 respondents belongs to various nationalities in which 210 are the valid responses. The structural equation modeling (SEM) method become used to assess the causal model and to look at the reliability and validity of the measurement model. The variables used in this study are perceived quality, perceived convenience, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment and intention to use. The eight hypotheses have been tested. The implications of the research have also been discussed. The dataset used for the research is male-dominated and young users of the smartphones that deprive us to make the generalization.
Cyclooxygenase-2 Up-regulates CCR7 via EP2/EP4 Receptor Signaling Pathways to Enhance Lymphatic Invasion of Breast Cancer Cells*

Recent studies demonstrate that cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression is frequently associated with lymph node metastasis. However, the mechanism by which COX-2 increases the invasion of cancer cells to lymph node is unclear. CCR7 is a chemokine receptor that plays important roles in the mediation of migration of leukocytes and dendritic cells toward lymphatic endothelial cells (LECs) that express receptor ligand CCL21. We found that treatment of prostaglandin E2 or ectopic expression of COX-2 in MCF-7 cells up-regulated CCR7 expression. On the contrary, knockdown of COX-2 by small hairpin RNA reduced CCR7 in COX-2-overexpressing MDA-MB-231 cells. Interaction of CCR7 and CCL21 was important for the migration of breast cancer cells toward LECs because antibodies against these two molecules inhibited the migration. We also found that COX-2 increased CCR7 expression via the EP2 and EP4 receptor in breast cancer cells. EP2 and EP4 agonists stimulated CCR7 in MCF-7 cells, whereas antagonists or small hairpin RNA of EP2 and EP4 attenuated CCR7 in MDA-MB-231 cells. Protein kinase A and AKT kinase were involved in COX-2-induced CCR7. Pathological analysis demonstrated that COX-2 overexpression was associated with CCR7, EP2, and EP4 expressions in breast tumor tissues. In addition, CCR7 expression in COX-2-overexpressing tumors was significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis. Collectively, we suggest that CCR7 is a down-stream target for COX-2 to enhance the migration of breast cancer cells toward LECs and to promote lymphatic invasion.
A Flexible and Efficient Reconfigurable Architecture based on Multi-Agent Systems

Nowadays, reconfigurable architectures (RAs) are very popular to design digital systems. One of the most important property of this system is flexibility. Runtime remapping is the concern that related to the flexibility concern. Recently some methods have been presented for runtime remapping. These methods aren’t reliable because a single agent or compiler remap the architecture. In this paper, we propose an intelligent reconfigurable architecture that its structure is based on a hierarchical multi-agent system. The method prepares runtime remapping for RA by interview and interaction between the system’s agents. We designed the structure in three layers. In this work, the aim of runtime remapping is enhancing flexibility and lifetime of the RA. For evaluation, we have simulated and implemented the method by HDL coding to study its feasibility and practicality. We evaluated the RA by three benchmarks. Results show the effect of our method on the lifetime and flexibility of the system. We see in results that the RA’s lifetime and flexibility enhanced significantly.
Efficiency monitoring of photovoltaic inverters considering weather conditions

The Renewable Energies study has gained attention in the last decades because these kind of energies could help to solution the actual energy consumption problem. Among the different renewable energies, the solar energy is of great interest since this energy is cheap, reliable, non-polluted and can be widely distributed. The use of this energy is exploited through the photovoltaic generation process, which integrates a power converter among its elements in order to perform the signal conversion from the DC level to the AC level, since almost all the electric and electronic devices make use of the AC signal source. However, the energy conversion efficiency strongly depends on the efficiency of the power inverter and several factors affect this process, for instance weather conditions. A system designed for monitoring the signals from a photovoltaic inverter would help to evaluate this efficiency. This paper shows how the weather conditions directly affect the efficiency reached by the photovoltaic power inverter and stablishes the relationship between these conditions and the photovoltaic inverter efficiency through a proprietary system called PQ-UAQ. Several tests were carried out storing the data of voltage, current, irradiance and temperature for three days with different climatic conditions and then the data was processed to determine the relationship existing between them. The obtained results demonstrate that weather conditions affect the irradiance and temperature profiles affecting in turn the photovoltaic inverter efficiency due to the existing correlation between them.
6.8 A 36Gb/s Adaptive Baud-Rate CDR with CTLE and 1-Tap DFE in 28nm CMOS

Baud-rate clock-and-data recovery circuits (CDR) are ubiquitous in recent receiver designs as a means of lowering power consumption by sampling the data only once per UI. To further reduce power, prior works in pattern-based baud-rate PD [1] and FD [2] combine clock & data recovery by sharing comparators between the DFE and the PD. However, both CDRs [1, 2] were manually tuned by sweeping the equalization settings of the CTLE and the comparator levels in order to achieve lock. Since the two settings are correlated, it is time-consuming and tedious to sweep the entire solution space. In this paper, we propose an adaptive engine where the CDR system searches and converges to an optimal lock and sampling point. The proposed scheme, implemented in 28nm CMOS and operating at 36Gb/s, relies on the data eye to autonomously adapt the parameters of a CTLE, a 1-tap DFE, and the PD locking point.
Bacitracin and nisin resistance in Staphylococcus aureus: a novel pathway involving the BraS/BraR two‐component system (SA2417/SA2418) and both the BraD/BraE and VraD/VraE ABC transporters

Two‐component systems (TCSs) are key regulatory pathways allowing bacteria to adapt their genetic expression to environmental changes. Bacitracin, a cyclic dodecylpeptide antibiotic, binds to undecaprenyl pyrophosphate, the lipid carrier for cell wall precursors, effectively inhibiting peptidoglycan biosynthesis. We have identified a novel and previously uncharacterized TCS in the major human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus that we show to be essential for bacitracin and nisin resistance: the BraS/BraR system (Bacitracin resistance associated; SA2417/SA2418). The braRS genes are located immediately upstream from genes encoding an ABC transporter, accordingly designated BraDE. We have shown that the BraSR/BraDE module is a key bacitracin and nisin resistance determinant in S. aureus. In the presence of low antibiotic concentrations, BraSR activate transcription of two operons encoding ABC transporters: braDE and vraDE. We identified a highly conserved imperfect palindromic sequence upstream from the braDE and vraDE promoter sequences, essential for their transcriptional activation by BraSR, suggesting it is the likely BraR binding site. We demonstrated that the two ABC transporters play distinct and original roles in antibiotic resistance: BraDE is involved in bacitracin sensing and signalling through BraSR, whereas VraDE acts specifically as a detoxification module and is sufficient to confer bacitracin and nisin resistance when produced on its own. We show that these processes require functional BraD and VraD nucleotide‐binding domain proteins, and that the large extracellular loop of VraE confers its specificity in bacitracin resistance. This is the first example of a TCS associated with two ABC transporters playing separate roles in signal transduction and antibiotic resistance.
8.3 A 10.9W 93.4%-Efficient (27W 97%-Efficient) Flying-Inductor Hybrid DC-DC Converter Suitable for 1-Cell (2-Cell) Battery Charging Applications

The annual increase in performance and feature density of mobile products has driven the need for batteries with higher capacity and thus higher power-delivery solutions to maintain sensible charging times. The USB-C power-delivery specification was developed to meet these higher demands by enabling the input supply VBUS voltage at a higher setting, e.g., 9V, to allow higher power delivery, up to 100W, while minimizing current levels and associated IR drops across the USB-C cable. To bridge the increased gap from this input voltage to charge one-and two-cell battery products, a power-and space-efficient DC-DC converter is desirable.
18.1 A -105dBc THD+N (-114dBc HD2) at 2.8VPP Swing and 120dB DR Audio Decoder with Sample-and-Hold Noise Filtering and Poly Resistor Linearization Schemes

Three major design issues that arise for high-fidelity audio decoders are: 1) DAC reference noise limiting achievable SNR [1], [2]; 2) THD+N degradation at large output swing [3], [4]; and 3) Distortion arising from limited amplifier loop gain as a consequence of high output load capacitance (CL) [5]. In the first issue, reference noise along with individual DAC cell noise generally limits SNR for a full-scale signal. The use of large device sizes [1], source degeneration [2] and chopping can mitigate 1/f noise, but none are effective for reducing thermal noise. Consequently, either more power or an external bypass capacitor for noise filtering is necessary for reducing DAC reference noise. In the second issue, THD+N of high-output-swing amplifiers degrades proportionally as the output swing increases above 1.6VPP, even with a 4.5V supply [3], [4]. The primary cause of this severe 2nd-order harmonic distortion (HD2) is due to the depletion effect of poly resistors [6]. Lastly, for adequate stability margin, the UGB and loop gain of the conventional nested Miller compensation (NMC) amplifier is restricted by an output limiting pole $(\omega _{\mathrm{limit}})$ and CL. In [5], a frequency compensation scheme is proposed to push the UGB close to $\omega _{\mathrm{limit}}$ and enhance the loop gain over the audio band (20Hz to 20kHz) while handling a CL up to 10nF. However, with a CL of 22nF, the amplifier begins to ring for a transient step. In this work, three solutions are presented to solve the aforementioned issues: 1) an area- and power-efficient sample-and-hold (S&H) noise filtering technique is introduced to shape the 1/f and thermal noise of the reference to frequencies below the audio band, thus greatly improving SNR for a full-scale signal; 2) a poly resistor linearization scheme is presented to improve HD2 by mitigating the depletion effect of resistors; and 3) a frequency compensation method for multistage amplifiers is introduced that boosts loop gain and thus enhances amplifier linearity without being limited by large CL. Combining these techniques, the decoder and amplifier achieve -105dBc THD+N (-114dBc HD2) and 120dB DR, and can support a CL up to 22nF.
8.1 A 93.8% Peak Efficiency, 5V-Input, 10A Max ILOAD Flying Capacitor Multilevel Converter in 22nm CMOS Featuring Wide Output Voltage Range and Flying Capacitor Precharging

Power delivery for compute SoCs has become a major challenge due to increasing current demands, shrinking form factors, as well as highly dynamic load patterns. Traditional inductive topologies like buck converters still require large inductances since switching frequencies cannot be increased without degrading efficiency. As a result, converter sizes are difficult to scale and transient responses are slow. On the other hand, switched capacitor converters (SCCs) are promising for small form factors and offer fast transient response since they do not require large inductors. However, SCCs can achieve high efficiency only at fixed conversion ratios, thus limiting their usage since a wide continuous range of input and output voltages are needed in SoC platforms. Hybrid converters offer the combined benefits of conventional buck and SC topologies [1]–[3]. They can provide superior power density and efficiency by reducing both inductance and capacitance requirements significantly. Since they use stacked low voltage transistors like SCCs, higher switching frequencies can be achieved without degrading efficiency. In addition, soft-charging of the flying capacitors through the inductor eliminates charge-sharing losses present in pure SCCs.
Collaborative Learning in MOOCs Approaches and Experiments

This Research-to-Practice paper examines the practical application of various forms of collaborative learning in MOOCs. Since 2012, about 60 MOOCs in the wider context of Information Technology and Computer Science have been conducted on our self-developed MOOC platform. The platform is also used by several customers, who either run their own platform instances or use our white label platform. We, as well as some of our partners, have experimented with different approaches in collaborative learning in these courses. Based on the results of early experiments, surveys amongst our participants, and requests by our business partners we have integrated several options to offer forms of collaborative learning to the system. The results of our experiments are directly fed back to the platform development, allowing to fine tune existing and to add new tools where necessary. In the paper at hand, we discuss the benefits and disadvantages of decisions in the design of a MOOC with regard to the various forms of collaborative learning. While the focus of the paper at hand is on forms of large group collaboration, two types of small group collaboration on our platforms are briefly introduced.
Single-Beam Leaky-Wave Antenna With Lateral Continuous Scanning Functionality Based on Spoof Surface Plasmon Transmission Line

A continuous beam scanning leaky-wave antenna (LWA) supporting lateral radiation is proposed in this paper. It is based on a spoof surface plasmon (SSP) transmission line (TL) which is a single-layer conductor structure. The proposed SSP TL is slotted periodically with rectangular holes on the metallic strip conductor. Circular patches are loaded periodically along one side of the SSP TL to achieve an additional momentum for converting the slow-wave mode to a fast-wave mode and then modulate the SSP wave into a spatial wave. The proposed SSP LWA produces a single lateral beam rather than double beams usually existed in conventional SSP LWAs, as highly desired in many applications. As operating frequencies increase from 7 to 15 GHz, the proposed SSP LWA achieves a continuous beam scanning range of 65° from forward to backward with stable high gains. As its primary advantage, this proposed SSP LWA does not lose radiation efficiency even at broadside, which is often suffered by conventional LWAs. Both the transmission characteristics of the SSP TL and the radiation mechanism of the SSP LWA are investigated. Finally, the proposed SSP LWA is designed, fabricated, and measured. The measured results agree well with the simulated ones over a wide operating frequency range, which validates its good performances. The proposed SSP LWAs provide a low-cost solution to planarly integrated communication systems.
Differential targeting of the dopamine transporter to recycling or degradative pathways during amphetamine‐ or PKC‐regulated endocytosis in dopamine neurons

The dopamine transporter (DAT) clears the extracellular dopamine released during neurotransmission and is a major target for both therapeutic and addictive psychostimulant amphetamines. Amphetamine exposure or activation of protein kinase C (PKC) by the phorbol ester PMA has been shown to down‐regulate cell surface DAT. However, in dopamine neurons, the trafficking itinerary and fate of internalized DAT has not been elucidated. By monitoring surface‐labeled DAT in transfected dopamine neurons from embryonic rat mesencephalic cultures, we find distinct sorting and fates of internalized DAT after amphetamine or PMA treatment. Although both drugs promote DAT internalization above constitutive endocytosis in dopamine neurons, PMA induces ubiquitination of DAT and leads to accumulation of DAT on LAMP1‐positive endosomes. In contrast, after amphetamine exposure DAT is sorted to recycling endosomes positive for Rab11 and the transferrin receptor. Furthermore, quantitative assessment of DAT recycling using an antibody‐feeding assay reveals that significantly less DAT returns to the surface of dopamine neurons after internalization by PMA, compared with vehicle or amphetamine treatment. These results demonstrate that, in neurons, the DAT is sorted differentially to recycling and degradative pathways after psychostimulant exposure or PKC activation, which may allow for either the transient or sustained inhibition of DAT during dopamine neurotransmission. —Hong, W. C.Amara, S. G. , Differential targeting of the dopamine transporter to recycling or degradative pathways during amphetamine‐ or PKC‐regulated endocytosis in dopamine neurons. FASEB J. 27, 2995–3007 (2013). www.fasebj. org