Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structural information-based image quality assessment using LU factorization

The goal of the objective image quality assessment is to quantitatively measure the image quality of an arbitrary image. The objective image quality measure is desirable if it is close to the subjective image quality assessment such as the mean opinion score. Image quality assessment algorithms are generally classified into two methodologies: perceptual and structural information-based. This paper proposes a structural information-based image quality assessment algorithm, in which LU factorization is used for representation of the structural information of an image. The proposed algorithm performs LU factorization of each of reference and distorted images, from which the distortion map is computed for measuring the quality of the distorted image. Finally, the proposed image quality metric is computed from the two-dimensional distortion map. Experimental results with the laboratory for image and video engineering database images show the efficiency of the proposed method, calibrated by linear and logistic regressions, in terms of the Pearson correlation coefficient and root mean square error. In commercial systems, the proposed algorithm can be used for quality assessment of mobile contents and video coding, which effectively replaces the peak signal to noise ratio or the mean square error.
HIV and AIDS Programmes in Zimbabwe: Implications for the Health System

This paper analyzes the implications of HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment, and care programmes on the health system in Zimbabwe. The programmes have been spearheaded by various stakeholders that include the public and private sectors, nongovernmental organizations, formal and informal institutions, and intergovernmental organizations. There has been a tremendous increase of the programmes as they adapt to local contexts, accommodate new funders, and changes in population attitudes, and expectations in the country. Through a comprehensive literature review, this paper focuses on Behaviour Change, the Antiretroviral Therapy, Home-Based Care, Prevention to Mother To Child Transmission and Voluntary Counselling and Testing programmes and services in relation to the components of the health system that include health service delivery, human resources, finance, leadership and governance, and the medical products and technologies. Thus far, the implications are uneven throughout the health system and there is need to integrate the HIV and AIDS programmes within the health system in order to achieve positive heath outcomes.
Low trap-state density and long carrier diffusion in organolead trihalide perovskite single crystals

Large-crystal perovskite films The performance of organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite planar solar cells has steadily improved. One outstanding issue is that grain boundaries and defects in polycrystalline films degrade their output. Now, two studies report the growth of millimeter-scale single crystals. Nie et al. grew continuous, pinhole-free, thin iodochloride films with a hot-casting technique and report device efficiencies of 18%. Shi et al. used antisolvent vapor-assisted crystallization to grow millimeter-scale bromide and iodide cubic crystals with charge-carrier diffusion lengths exceeding 10 mm. Science, this issue p. 522, p. 519 Solution processing techniques enable the growth of high-quality, large-area perovskite crystals for solar cells. The fundamental properties and ultimate performance limits of organolead trihalide MAPbX3 (MA = CH3NH3+; X = Br– or I–) perovskites remain obscured by extensive disorder in polycrystalline MAPbX3 films. We report an antisolvent vapor-assisted crystallization approach that enables us to create sizable crack-free MAPbX3 single crystals with volumes exceeding 100 cubic millimeters. These large single crystals enabled a detailed characterization of their optical and charge transport characteristics. We observed exceptionally low trap-state densities on the order of 109 to 1010 per cubic centimeter in MAPbX3 single crystals (comparable to the best photovoltaic-quality silicon) and charge carrier diffusion lengths exceeding 10 micrometers. These results were validated with density functional theory calculations.
Design and implementation of an ASIC-based sensor device for WSN applications

The practical applications of wireless sensor networks require the sensor devices to be high in computation ability, low in power consumption, small in size, as well as competitive in cost. In addition, there are other particular attributes which require special consideration in sensor device design. These include, for example, the capabilities in protecting the embedded program from foreign intrusion and supporting efficient air-programming, which are very common requirements in many large-scale applications. In this paper, we describe the system architecture and design methodology of an ASCI-based sensor network device to meet those attributes for a class of applications. Compared with existing works, the unique features of the sensor device include: (1) a module-based extensible processor and co-processor cooperation architecture is designed with application-specific components to accelerate the signal collection, processing, and networking via hardware-software co-design to balance computation efficiency and design flexibility; (2) a program protection mechanism is developed based on un-resemble coder algorithm to protect the program data from being read out by system intruders so as to improve the security of the sensor device; (3) an air-programming component is proposed to enable an efficient remote programming which is a very common requirement in network deployment and maintenance. In this paper, we present the design, implementation, and evaluation of the prototype sensor device based on a general configurable FPGA platform for developing next-generation sensor devices. Initial results of the first version of prototype chip will also be introduced.
Middle Miocene closure of the Central American Seaway

Early closing between oceans The Central American Seaway, which once separated the Panama Arc from South America, may have closed 10 million years earlier than is believed. Montes et al. report that certain minerals of Panamanian provenance began to appear in South America during the Middle Miocene, 15 to 13 million years ago (see the Perspective by Hoorn and Flantua). The presence of the minerals indicates that rivers were flowing from the Panama Arc into the shallow marine basins of northern South America. One interpretation of this finding is that large-scale ocean flow between the Atlantic and Pacific had ended by then. If this is true, then many models of paleo-ocean circulation and biotic exchange between the Americas need to be reconsidered. Science, this issue p. 226; see also p. 186 The ocean gateway that once separated South America from North America disappeared longer ago than was thought. [Also see Perspective by Hoorn and Flantua] Uranium-lead geochronology in detrital zircons and provenance analyses in eight boreholes and two surface stratigraphic sections in the northern Andes provide insight into the time of closure of the Central American Seaway. The timing of this closure has been correlated with Plio-Pleistocene global oceanographic, atmospheric, and biotic events. We found that a uniquely Panamanian Eocene detrital zircon fingerprint is pronounced in middle Miocene fluvial and shallow marine strata cropping out in the northern Andes but is absent in underlying lower Miocene and Oligocene strata. We contend that this fingerprint demonstrates a fluvial connection, and therefore the absence of an intervening seaway, between the Panama arc and South America in middle Miocene times; the Central American Seaway had vanished by that time.
Spatially structured photons that travel in free space slower than the speed of light

Slowing down light with added structure We are taught that the speed of light in free space is one of the universal physical constants: c. Giovannini et al. now show that there are certain conditions under which such certainty can be broken (see the Perspective by Sambles). Adding spatial structure to an optical beam of single photons reduced the speed of light. The magnitude of the decrease depended on the complexity of the structure imprinted onto the photons. Science, this issue p. 857; see also p. 828 Introducing spatial structure to an optical beam reduces the speed of light. [Also see Perspective by Sambles] That the speed of light in free space is constant is a cornerstone of modern physics. However, light beams have finite transverse size, which leads to a modification of their wave vectors resulting in a change to their phase and group velocities. We study the group velocity of single photons by measuring a change in their arrival time that results from changing the beam’s transverse spatial structure. Using time-correlated photon pairs, we show a reduction in the group velocity of photons in both a Bessel beam and photons in a focused Gaussian beam. In both cases, the delay is several micrometers over a propagation distance of ~1 meter. Our work highlights that, even in free space, the invariance of the speed of light only applies to plane waves.
The Stress Process in Palliative Cancer Care: A Qualitative Study on Informal Caregiving and its Implication for the Delivery of Care

Objective: The primary objective of this study was to examine how the comprehensive nature of the Stress Process Model could elucidate on the stressors associated with caring for a palliative cancer patient. Method: A qualitative research strategy involving home-based face-to-face interviews with 12 bereaved family caregivers was used to examine the caregiving experience. Results: The primary stressors associated with caring for the palliative cancer care patients stemmed from care recipient symptoms and personal care needs. The absence of adequate support from the formal health care delivery system was a consistent message from all participants. There was evidence of financial stress primarily associated with the purchase of private home care to supplement formal care. In contrast, the resources that family caregivers relied on to moderate the stressful effects of caregiving included extended family, friends, and neighbors. While the stress of direct caregiving was high, the study revealed that formal care was also a significant source of stress for family caregivers. Conclusion: It was concluded that an appropriately financed, integrated system of care that followed a person-centered philosophy of care would best meet the needs of the patient and his or her family.
Automatic Detection of Neovascularization on Optic Disk Region with Feature Extraction and Support Vector Machine

Neovascularization (NV) is a definitive indicator for the onset of Proliferative Diabetic Retinopathy (PDR). The new vessels are fragile and prone to bleed, leading to high risk of sudden vision loss. Automatic detection of NV is an important task in automatic Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) screening as a consequence of the unmet requirement between the growing number of DR patients and limited number of ophthalmologists. This paper focuses on the computer aided detection of neovascularization in the optic disk region. We propose a novel image processing approach that involves vessel segmentation using multi-level Gabor filtering, feature extraction from vessel related features and texture features, and image classification based on machine learning. 21 features were extracted from each NVD image. The extracted features were trained and tested on 66 retinal images, which contains 16 NVD and 50 normal images, and achieved an sensitivity of 15/16 and specificity of 47/50.
Mountain gorilla genomes reveal the impact of long-term population decline and inbreeding

Genomes in the mist The mountain gorilla is an iconic species that is at high risk of extinction. Xue et al. have sequenced 13 gorillas from two different populations to probe their genetic diversity. The genomes show large tracts of homozygosity and the loss of highly deleterious genetic variants, indicating population bottlenecks and inbreeding. This loss of genetic diversity appears to have started over 20,000 years ago and may have been caused by changes in climate and human-associated effects. Science, this issue p. 242 Inbreeding in mountain gorillas increases the threat from disease and environmental change but has purged deleterious mutations. Mountain gorillas are an endangered great ape subspecies and a prominent focus for conservation, yet we know little about their genomic diversity and evolutionary past. We sequenced whole genomes from multiple wild individuals and compared the genomes of all four Gorilla subspecies. We found that the two eastern subspecies have experienced a prolonged population decline over the past 100,000 years, resulting in very low genetic diversity and an increased overall burden of deleterious variation. A further recent decline in the mountain gorilla population has led to extensive inbreeding, such that individuals are typically homozygous at 34% of their sequence, leading to the purging of severely deleterious recessive mutations from the population. We discuss the causes of their decline and the consequences for their future survival.
A new approach to mitigate the effect of force variation on pattern recognition for myoelectric control

In myoelectric prosthetic control, the motion classification performance would be decayed if an electromyography (EMG) pattern to be recognized differs significantly from the one used for classifier training. Generally, the training signals are acquired when a subject performs motions with a proper force. In practical use of a myoelectric prosthesis, however, the variation of force levels to do a motion would be inevitable, which will cause a change of EMG patterns. In this study, we proposed a Parallel Classification Strategy consisting of three parallel classifiers created at low, medium, and high force levels, respectively, and designed a regulation to categorize the input signals into corresponding classifiers for pattern recognition. The pilot experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method could enhance the classification accuracy at different force levels with an average classification rate of 98.8%, which was higher than the current method (91.9%). Thus, the proposed method might improve the control performance for present myoelectric prostheses.
Competition between MPS1 and microtubules at kinetochores regulates spindle checkpoint signaling

How cells sense connected chromosomes Cells have a “checkpoint” that pauses cell division until all chromosomes are properly arranged on the mitotic spindle to allow precise distribution of one copy of each chromosome to each daughter cell. Hiruma et al. and Ji et al. explain the molecular mechanism by which cells sense that they are ready to divide. The protein kinase MPS1 associates with a protein complex at the kinetochore of the chromosome. Its activity produces signals that pause the cell cycle. When the chromosome becomes properly attached to the mitotic spindle, microtubules of the spindle physically compete for binding to the same site on the kinetochore where MPS1 is bound. Thus, once the kinetochore is properly attached, MPS1 dissociates, the inhibitory signal is lost, and cell division is allowed to proceed. Science, this issue pp. 1264 and 1260 A sensor for the mitotic spindle assembly checkpoint is revealed. Cell division progresses to anaphase only after all chromosomes are connected to spindle microtubules through kinetochores and the spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC) is satisfied. We show that the amino-terminal localization module of the SAC protein kinase MPS1 (monopolar spindle 1) directly interacts with the HEC1 (highly expressed in cancer 1) calponin homology domain in the NDC80 (nuclear division cycle 80) kinetochore complex in vitro, in a phosphorylation-dependent manner. Microtubule polymers disrupted this interaction. In cells, MPS1 binding to kinetochores or to ectopic NDC80 complexes was prevented by end-on microtubule attachment, independent of known kinetochore protein-removal mechanisms. Competition for kinetochore binding between SAC proteins and microtubules provides a direct and perhaps evolutionarily conserved way to detect a properly organized spindle ready for cell division.
Low bandwidth YCbCr data processing technique for video applications in handheld devices

Battery powered handheld devices with video playback and multimedia capabilities are becoming ubiquitous. Advances in technology have facilitated the use of these devices for enjoying high resolution and high definition content through media playback, streaming and recording applications. Such multimedia intensive applications consume lot of power and drain the battery quickly. There are certain cases where very high quality video is not expected and moderate to low quality video can be tolerated especially when the battery is running low. This paper describes a method for processing YCbCr data in battery powered multimedia devices with video display capability. The proposed method aims to reduce the load on the memory bus and minimize the computation thereby reducing the power consumption and increasing the performance.
Interleukin-3 amplifies acute inflammation and is a potential therapeutic target in sepsis

A new therapeutic target for sepsis Infections can sometimes unleash powerful immune responses that careen out of control, leading to sepsis, organ failure, and death. Although antibiotics can help to quash the infection, sepsis patients also need therapies that will rein in the immune response. Weber et al. now identify one potential target, the secreted protein interleukin-3 (IL-3) (see the Perspective by Hotchkiss). In sepsis patients, higher serum concentrations of IL-3 were correlated with higher rates of mortality. In septic mice, IL-3 caused the immune system to produce large amounts of cells called monocytes and neutrophils, which secrete highly inflammatory proteins. Blocking IL-3 protected mice from sepsis-induced death. Science, this issue p. 1260; see also p. 1201 The cytokine interleukin-3 drives sepsis in mice and is associated with worse prognosis in septic patients. [Also see Perspective by Hotchkiss] Sepsis is a frequently fatal condition characterized by an uncontrolled and harmful host reaction to microbial infection. Despite the prevalence and severity of sepsis, we lack a fundamental grasp of its pathophysiology. Here we report that the cytokine interleukin-3 (IL-3) potentiates inflammation in sepsis. Using a mouse model of abdominal sepsis, we showed that innate response activator B cells produce IL-3, which induces myelopoiesis of Ly-6Chigh monocytes and neutrophils and fuels a cytokine storm. IL-3 deficiency protects mice against sepsis. In humans with sepsis, high plasma IL-3 levels are associated with high mortality even after adjusting for prognostic indicators. This study deepens our understanding of immune activation, identifies IL-3 as an orchestrator of emergency myelopoiesis, and reveals a new therapeutic target for treating sepsis.
Theory and Practice of Histological Techniques

The second edition of this book is a complete and well-written work on histological techniques, and I recommend it highly. Its 31 chapters and 22 authors leave very little subject matter untreated. In addition to chapters on routine and special stains, there are chapters on electron microscopy, including the techniques of scanning electron microscopy, electron probe, freeze fracture, and electron immunohistochemistry; on immunohistochemistry, including the newer p -aminophenazone (PAP) immunoperoxidase method; on histomorphometry, including stereology; on plastic-embedding techniques; on autoradiography; and on bone evaluation, including quantitation of osteoid in undecalcified specimens. These appear with excellent discussions of fixation, laboratory safety, staining theory, frozensection techniques, and amyloid. Potentially important omissions were few but included Bank's method for secondary fixation with zinc sulfate, 1 Michel's transport-fixative solution for preservation of immunoglobulins, 2 Wright's potassium permanganate technique for differentiating AA amyloid from other amyloids, 3 Warkel's modified Warthin-Starry stain for melanin, 4 use
A novel TxID insertion system for ATSC DTV auxiliary data transmission

This paper presents a new TxID (Transmitter Identification) data insertion system for ATSC DTV auxiliary data transmission. Because the functional description of TxID was not included in the early ATSC transmission standard, most of the conventional DTV transmitters and translators cannot transmit TxID signal which should be generated during 8-VSB (Vestigial Side Band) symbol generation process. The proposed system generates RF signal of TxID and then combines it synchronously with the RF signal of the legacy ATSC transmitter. This combination enables the conventional DTV transmitters and translators to transmit TxID signal with auxiliary data based on RF watermark technique. The proposed system is implemented and its performance is evaluated through laboratory tests.
Fine-scale diversity and extensive recombination in a quasisexual bacterial population occupying a broad niche

Quasi-sexual microbe populations Astonishing levels of fine-scale microbial diversity have been uncovered by DNA sequencing of natural populations. How this diversity is shaped and maintained and what its environmental or clinical implications might be is unclear. Using custom-made advanced statistical methods, Rosen et al. analyzed the evolutionary structure of a photosynthetic bacterium that grows in the hot springs of Yellowstone Park (see the Perspective by Desai and Walczak). The populations behaved neither as clones nor “ecotypes” but more like sexual organisms. These cyanobacteria have high recombination rates that maintain diversity and prevent selective sweeps that would otherwise reduce diversity. Science, this issue p. 1019; see also p. 977 The genetics of a natural cyanobacterial biofilm population has sexual characteristics that maintain its diversity. [Also see Perspective by Desai and Walczak] Extensive fine-scale genetic diversity is found in many microbial species across varied environments, but for most, the evolutionary scenarios that generate the observed variation remain unclear. Deep sequencing of a thermophilic cyanobacterial population and analysis of the statistics of synonymous single-nucleotide polymorphisms revealed a high rate of homologous recombination and departures from neutral drift consistent with the effects of genetic hitchhiking. A sequenced isolate genome resembled an unlinked random mixture of the allelic diversity at the sampled loci. These observations suggested a quasisexual microbial population that occupies a broad ecological niche, with selection driving frequencies of alleles rather than whole genomes.
A motion and similarity-based fake detection method for biometric face recognition systems

In this paper, a motion and similarity-based fake detection algorithm is presented for biometric face recognition systems. First, an input video is segmented as foreground and background regions. Second, the similarity is measured between a background region, i.e., a region without a face and upper body, and an original background region recorded at an initializing stage. Third, a background motion index is calculated to indicate the amount of motion in the background region compared with the motion in the foreground region. By combining the result of similarity and the result of background motion index, a fake video can be detected robustly with a regular USB camera.