Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Unified HDR reconstruction from raw CFA data

HDR reconstruction from multiple exposures poses several challenges. Previous HDR reconstruction techniques have considered debayering, denoising, resampling (alignment) and exposure fusion in several steps. We instead present a unifying approach, performing HDR assembly directly from raw sensor data in a single processing operation. Our algorithm includes a spatially adaptive HDR reconstruction based on fitting local polynomial approximations to observed sensor data, using a localized likelihood approach incorporating spatially varying sensor noise. We also present a realistic camera noise model adapted to HDR video. The method allows reconstruction to an arbitrary resolution and output mapping. We present an implementation in CUDA and show real-time performance for an experimental 4 Mpixel multi-sensor HDR video system. We further show that our algorithm has clear advantages over state-of-the-art methods, both in terms of flexibility and reconstruction quality.
Inference for Subsets of Parameters in Partially Identi ed Models

We propose a con dence set for the subsets of parameters under partially identi ed models characterized by moment inequalities. The subvector inference is based on the speci cation testing of Guggenberger, Hahn, and Kim (2006) who discuss the dual characterization between the speci cation testing of the moment inequalities and the multi-dimensional one-sided tests. We exploit the idea that a speci cation testing has natural implications for the construction of a CS for a subset component of a vector-valued parameter. To be precise, let be the full parameter vector in a model. We decompose = ( 1; 2) and consider a con dence set for 1. The CS for 1 is constructed as a set of all e 1 2 1, which are not rejected by the speci cation testing whether there exists a 2 in 2 that does not reject the model given the value of e 1. We modify CS by restricting the values that 2 can take to a rst step con dence set C2(1 2;e 1) that covers the true value of 2 with asymptotic coverage level equal to 1 2 given the value of e 1. Then, we collect the values of e 1 that survives this modi ed speci cation test. We show that the constructed CS of 1 in this way has at least 1 1 2 asymptotic coverage probability of the true value of 1 where the second step signi cance level is set to 1 following Bonferroni-type arguments. We also nd that our proposed CS for the subsets of parameters is asymptotically locally equivalent to the infeasible CS with known true parameter set of the other parameters. Keywords: moment inequalities, partial identi cation, speci cation test, testing subsets of parameters, dual characterization JEL classi cation numbers: C12 Correspondence: kyookim@umn.edu, Address: 4-129 Hanson Hall, 1925 Fourth Street South, Minneapolis, MN55455
Cognitive Flexibility Training: A Large-Scale Multimodal Adaptive Active-Control Intervention Study in Healthy Older Adults

As aging is associated with cognitive decline, particularly in the executive functions, it is essential to effectively improve cognition in older adults. Online cognitive training is currently a popular, though controversial method. Although some changes seem possible in older adults through training, far transfer, and longitudinal maintenance are rarely seen. Based on previous literature we created a unique, state-of-the-art intervention study by incorporating frequent sessions and flexible, novel, adaptive training tasks, along with an active control group. We created a program called TAPASS (Training Project Amsterdam Seniors and Stroke), a randomized controlled trial. Healthy older adults (60–80 y.o.) were assigned to a frequent- (FS) or infrequent switching (IS) experimental condition or to the active control group and performed 58 half-hour sessions over the course of 12 weeks. Effects on executive functioning, processing- and psychomotor speed, planning, verbal long term memory, verbal fluency, and reasoning were measured on four time points before, during and after the training. Additionally, we examined the explorative question which individual aspects added to training benefit. Besides improvements on the training, we found significant time effects on multiple transfer tasks in all three groups that likely reflected retest effects. No training-specific improvements were detected, and we did not find evidence of additional benefits of individual characteristics. Judging from these results, the therapeutic value of using commercially available training games to train the aging brain is modest, though any apparent effects should be ascribed more to expectancy and motivation than to the elements in our training protocol. Our results emphasize the importance of using parallel tests as outcome measures for transfer and including both active and passive control conditions. Further investigation into different training methods is advised, including stimulating social interaction and the use of more variable, novel, group-based yet individual-adjusted exercises.
Soil methane oxidation in both dry and wet temperate eucalypt forests shows a near-identical relationship with soil air-filled porosity

Abstract. Well-drained, aerated soils are important sinks for atmospheric methane (CH4) via the process of CH4 oxidation by methane-oxidising bacteria (MOB). This terrestrial CH4 sink may contribute towards climate change mitigation, but the impact of changing soil moisture and temperature regimes on CH4 uptake is not well understood in all ecosystems. Soils in temperate forest ecosystems are the greatest terrestrial CH4 sink globally. Under predicted climate change scenarios, temperate eucalypt forests in south-eastern Australia are predicted to experience rapid and extreme changes in rainfall patterns, temperatures and wild fires. To investigate the influence of environmental drivers on seasonal and inter-annual variation of soil–atmosphere CH4 exchange, we measured soil–atmosphere CH4 exchange at high-temporal resolution (
Usability of pairing-based cryptography on smartphones

This paper deals with the usability of pairing-based cryptography on smartphones. Pairing-based cryptographic schemes can offer many advanced cryptographic primitives such as privacy protection, identity-based encryption and so on. These schemes are used to secure services and applications that may run on hand-held devices. Nevertheless, pairing operations are more expensive than modular arithmetic operations that are used in conventional cryptographic schemes. In this work, we investigate the performance of pairing operations on current smartphones. Then, we implement and evaluate a pairing-based group signature scheme on smartphones. Further, we show optimization techniques that can reduce expensive pairing operations in pairing-based schemes. Our results help to clarify whether these schemes are suitable to run on current smartphones.
Social network exploitation for data sharing in disconnected MANET

Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) is form of Ad Hoc Network that can change the location and configure itself. In MANET, mobile devices are connected without wires and have no infrastructure. Increasing usage of Social Network through the mobile devices contributed to the need of data sharing between the mobile users. Peer-to-peer file sharing applications enable users to share various files without a central server and with more scalability. For efficient file searching nodes that has common interest and frequently meet are grouped to form a community. The nodes with the common interest are identified based on the threshold value. The node mobility and threshold governs the community construction process. For intra-community searching, the nodes with more frequent links with community members is chosen as community coordinator and for inter-community file searching, the highly mobile nodes that visit foreign communities is selected as community ambassadors. The values of the threshold used in the community construction process are determined based on the application type, interest of nodes and nodes count in the network. The Optimized Threshold Selection Mechanism (OTSM) is introduced for selecting the optimal threshold. For optimization, the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) which is a method of optimizing the solution to a problem by iteratively trying the possible solutions with respect to the threshold. Altering the count of community coordinator and community ambassadors which depends on the size of the network can be done to avoid the overloading which provides a much better file sharing competence.
Directing a Quality Enhancement Plan

This paper is drawn from a project aimed at enhancing the quality of instructional practice and improving studentlearning outcomes in classes across an urban university located in the southern region of the United States. The strategies, employed by the project leader, are discussed in detail as framed by a new problem-solving leadership design called the Alloy Improvement Model (AIM). Data collected at the end of the second full year and reported in this paper indicated all project goals were met and that the utilization of the AIM was central to project success.
Finite-size effects in the spherical model of finite thickness

A detailed analysis of the finite-size effects on the bulk critical behaviour of the d-dimensional mean spherical model confined to a film geometry with finite thickness L is reported. Along the finite direction different kinds of boundary conditions are applied: periodic (p), antiperiodic (a) and free surfaces with Dirichlet (D), Neumann (N) and a combination of Neumann and Dirichlet (ND) on both surfaces. A systematic method for the evaluation of the finite-size corrections to the free energy for the different types of boundary conditions is proposed. The free energy density and the equation for the spherical field are computed for arbitrary d. It is found, for 2 < d < 4, that the singular part of the free energy has the required finite-size scaling form at the bulk critical temperature only for (p) and (a). For the remaining boundary conditions the standard finite-size scaling hypothesis is not valid. At d = 3, the critical amplitude of the singular part of the free energy (related to the so-called Casimir amplitude) is estimated. We obtain Δ(p) = −2ζ(3)/(5π) = −0.153 051…, Δ(a) = 0.274 543… and Δ(ND) = 0.019 22…, implying a fluctuation-induced attraction between the surfaces for (p) and repulsion in the other two cases. For (D) and (N) we find a logarithmic dependence on L.
Scheduling on hierarchical clusters using malleable tasks

The model of malleable task (MT) was introduced some years ago and has been proved to be an efficient way for implementing parallel applications. It considers a target application at a larger level of granularity than in other models (corresponding typically to numerical routines) where the tasks can themselves be executed in parallel. Clusters of SMP (symmetric Multi-Processors) are a cost effective alternative to parallel supercomputers. Such hierarchical clusters are parallel systems made from m SMP composed each by k identical processors. They are more and more popular, however, designing efficient software that tale full advantage of such systems remains difficult. This work describes a 2 — 2÷k approximation algorithm for scheduling a set of independent malleable tasks for the minimization of the parallel execution time, where k is a power of 2 (k > 2). For k = 2, a special treatment leads to the bound of 3/2 which is the best known for non hierarchical tasks. The algorithm presented here is a fully polynomial approximation scheme running in &Ogr;(nmk) time.
Symbols and quantities in parietal cortex: elements of a mathematical theory of number representation and manipulation

In this chapter, I put together the first elements of a mathematical theory relating neurobiological observations to psychological laws in the domain of numerical cognition. The starting point is the postulate of a neuronal code whereby numerosity—the cardinal of a set of objects—is represented approximately by the firing of a population of numerosity detectors. Each of these neurons fires to a certain preferred numerosity, with a tuning curve which is a Gaussian function of the logarithm of numerosity. From this logGaussian code, decisions are taken using Bayesian mechanisms of log-likelihood computation and accumulation. The resulting equations for response times and errors in classical tasks of number comparison and same–different judgments are shown to tightly fit behavioral and neural data. Two more speculative issues are discussed. First, new chronometric evidence is presented supporting the hypothesis that the acquisition of number symbols changes the mental number line, both by increasing its precision and by changing its coding scheme from logarithmic to linear. Second, I examine how symbolic and nonsymbolic representations of numbers affect performance in arithmetic computations such as addition and subtraction.
Towards generalized performance metrics for human-robot interaction

In order for cognitive robots to act adequately and safely in real world, they must be able to perceive and have abilities of reasoning up to a certain level. Toward this end, performance evaluation metrics are used as important measures to achieve these goals. This paper intends to be a further step towards identifying common metrics for task-oriented human-robot interaction. We believe that within the context of human-robot interaction systems, both human and robot independent actions and joint interactions can significantly affect the quality of the accomplished task, thus proposing a generic performance metric to assess the performance of the human-robot team. Toward the efficient modelling of such metric, we also propose a fuzzy temporal model to evaluate the human trust in automation while interacting with robots and machines to complete some tasks. Trust modelling is critical as it directly influences the interaction time that should be directly and indirectly dedicated toward interacting with the robot. Another fuzzy temporal-based model is also presented to evaluate the human reliability during interaction time, as many research studies state that a large percentage of system failures are due almost equally to humans and machines, and therefore, assessing this important factor in human-robot interaction systems is also crucial. The proposed framework is based on the most recent work in the area of cognitive human-machine interaction and performance evaluation.
Converging verbal phrases in related languages A case study from Faro-Danish and Danish-German language contact situations*

The paper deals with Danish-Faroese and Danish-German language contact, in particular Faro-Danish and Danish-German verb phrases that are constructed under heavy influence of Faroese and German, respectively. The theoretical framework is the Abstract Level Model (2002) as well as further developments by Fredsted (2008) and Kuhl (2008). The focus of the work described is on the process and the results of convergence. It will be shown how semantic information, syntactic information (predicate-argument-structure) and the morphological realization patterns are transferred extensively from one language to another, without this being evidenced by an insertional kind of code-switching.
Fatores sociodemográficos associados ao grau de conhecimento em saúde bucal de gestantes

❚ RESUMO Objetivo: Avaliar o conhecimento em saúde bucal e os fatores sociodemográficos associados em gestantes. Métodos: Estudo com delineamento transversal, com amostra de 195 gestantes atendidas na Unidade Básica de Saúde de Paraisópolis I, em São Paulo (SP). Para a análise estatística, utilizou-se teste χ2 ou teste exato de Fisher e a regressão logística múltipla. Assumiu-se um nível de significância de 5% para todas as análises. Resultados: Escolaridade igual ou maior a 8 anos de estudo e presença de um a dois filhos estiveram associadas a conhecimento adequado sobre saúde bucal. Conclusão: Estratégias de promoção de saúde bucal durante o pré-natal devem levar em consideração aspectos sociodemográficos.
The molecular chaperone SecB is released from the carboxy‐terminus of SecA during initiation of precursor protein translocation

The chaperone SecB keeps precursor proteins in a translocation‐competent state and targets them to SecA at the translocation sites in the cytoplasmic membrane of Escherichia coli. SecA is thought to recognize SecB via its carboxy‐terminus. To determine the minimal requirement for a SecB‐binding site, fusion proteins were created between glutathione‐S‐transferase and different parts of the carboxy‐terminus of SecA and analysed for SecB binding. A strikingly short amino acid sequence corresponding to only the most distal 22 aminoacyl residues of SecA suffices for the authentic binding of SecB or the SecB–precursor protein complex. SecAN880, a deletion mutant that lacks this highly conserved domain, still supports precursor protein translocation but is unable to bind SecB. Heterodimers of wild‐type SecA and SecAN880 are defective in SecB binding, demonstrating that both carboxy‐termini of the SecA dimer are needed to form a genuine SecB‐binding site. SecB is released from the translocase at a very early stage in protein translocation when the membrane‐bound SecA binds ATP to initiate translocation. It is concluded that the SecB‐binding site on SecA is confined to the extreme carboxy‐terminus of the SecA dimer, and that SecB is released from this site at the onset of translocation.
Influence Operations: Action and Attitude

This paper investigates the relationships between attitudes, behaviour and influence. The major objective of influence operations is predominantly to exert soft power and in doing this there is an assumption that it will change attitudes. It is assumed that by changing attitudes favourable to the influencer that behaviours will be changed. However, this is a problematic assumption. Influence operations whose messages seem to contradict the real behaviour of the influencer tends to nullify the message; and, in fact, might reinforce the attitudes and behaviours of the foe and begin to alienate friends. Messages should be based on a credible reality; actions that prove that reality to be false might actually have a negative impact and reinforce unwanted behaviours.
Association between Genetic Polymorphisms in Interleukin Genes and Recurrent Pregnancy Loss – A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Interleukins are a group of immunomodulatory proteins that mediate a variety of immune reactions in the human body. To investigate the association between interleukin gene polymorphisms and recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL), we reviewed 21 studies from MEDLINE, EMBASE, OVID SP and PubMed to evaluate RPL-related interleukin gene polymorphisms. Meta-analysis was performed on 12 of the polymorphisms, and a review included the others. Our integrated results indicated that IL-1β (-511C/T) (P = 0.02, 95% CI 0.77[0.62,0.96]), IL-6 (-634C/G) (P<0.001, 95% CI 2.91[2.01,4.22]), IL-10 (-1082G/A, –819T/C) (P = 0.01, 95% CI 0.80[0.67,0.96]; P<0.01, 95% CI 0.66[0.49,0.89]), and IL-18 (-137G/C, -105G/A) (P<0.01, 95% CI 1.69[1.24,2.31]; P = <0.01, 95% CI 1.41[1.17,1.70]) consistently associated with RPL after meta-analysis. IL-17A rs2275913 and IL-17F rs763780, IL-21 rs2055979 and rs13143866, IL-1β (-31C/T), IL-6 (-2954G/C), and IL-10 (-536A/G) were reported only once as having a significant association with RPL. The potential mechanism underlying miscarriage and these polymorphisms and future research directions are also discussed.
Selection Mapping Identifies Loci Underpinning Autumn Dormancy in Alfalfa (Medicago sativa)

Autumn dormancy in alfalfa (Medicago sativa) is associated with agronomically important traits including regrowth rate, maturity, and winter survival. Historical recurrent selection experiments have been able to manipulate the dormancy response. We hypothesized that artificial selection for dormancy phenotypes in these experiments had altered allele frequencies of dormancy-related genes. Here, we follow this hypothesis and analyze allele frequency changes using genome-wide polymorphisms in the pre- and postselection populations from one historical selection experiment. We screened the nondormant cultivar CUF 101 and populations developed by three cycles of recurrent phenotypic selection for taller and shorter plants in autumn with markers derived from genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS). We validated the robustness of our GBS-derived allele frequency estimates using an empirical approach. Our results suggest that selection mapping is a powerful means of identifying genomic regions associated with traits, and that it can be exploited to provide regions on which to focus further mapping and cloning projects.
Effects of Digoxin on Morbidity and Mortality in Diastolic Heart Failure: The Ancillary Digitalis Investigation Group Trial

Background— About half of the 5 million heart failure patients in the United States have diastolic heart failure (clinical heart failure with normal or near-normal ejection fraction). Except for candesartan, no drugs have been tested in randomized clinical trials in these patients. Although digoxin was tested in an appreciable number of diastolic heart failure patients in the Digitalis Investigation Group ancillary trial, detailed findings from this important study have not previously been published. Methods and Results— Ambulatory chronic heart failure patients (n=988) with normal sinus rhythm and ejection fraction >45% (median, 53%) from the United States and Canada (1991 to 1993) were randomly assigned to digoxin (n=492) or placebo (n=496). During follow-up with a mean length of 37 months, 102 patients (21%) in the digoxin group and 119 patients (24%) in the placebo group (hazard ratio [HR], 0.82; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.63 to 1.07; P=0.136) experienced the primary combined outcome of heart failure hospitalization or heart failure mortality. Digoxin had no effect on all-cause or cause-specific mortality or on all-cause or cardiovascular hospitalization. Use of digoxin was associated with a trend toward a reduction in hospitalizations resulting from worsening heart failure (HR, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.59 to 1.04; P=0.094) but also a trend toward an increase in hospitalizations for unstable angina (HR, 1.37; 95% CI, 0.99 to 1.91; P=0.061). Conclusions— In ambulatory patients with chronic mild to moderate diastolic heart failure and normal sinus rhythm receiving angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and diuretics, digoxin had no effect on natural history end points such as mortality and all-cause or cardiovascular hospitalizations.
LIMITS FOR CUMULATIVE INPUT PROCESSES TO QUEUES

We establish functional central limit theorems (FCLTs) for a cumulative input process to a fluid queue from the superposition of independent on–off sources, where the on periods and off periods may have heavy-tailed probability distributions. Variants of these FCLTs hold for cumulative busy-time and idle-time processes associated with standard queueing models. The heavy-tailed on-period and off-period distributions can cause the limit process to have discontinuous sample paths (e.g., to be a non-Brownian stable process or more general Lévy process) even though the converging processes have continuous sample paths. Consequently, we exploit the Skorohod M1 topology on the function space D of right-continuous functions with left limits. The limits here combined with the previously established continuity of the reflection map in the M1 topology imply both heavy-traffic and non-heavy-traffic FCLTs for buffer-content processes in stochastic fluid networks.