Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Realistic Facial Animation Review : Based on Facial Action Coding System

Making realistic facial animation is one of the most challenging research topics in facial animation field because producing realistic photo and sentimental virtual characters require a combination of face modeling , animating, and rendering. Techniques that commonly used for facial animation are in need of naturalism. The most popular expression coding systems are FACS (Facial Action Coding System) and MPEG-4 (Moving Pictures Experts Group-4) Facial animation models. FACS is a landmark technique that enables remarkable improvements in making realistic facial animations. Where MPEG-4 Facial Animation provides a standard way of encoding facial actions by defining various parameters for a talking face. In this paper, we made a review on how to achieve realistic facial animation, focusing on the applications and limitations of the FACS comparing to MPEG-4 facial animation. The review inferred that FACS helps animators to represent and build realistic facial expressions by configuring all possible facial animation units of the human face.
P2X3 Receptors Mediate Visceral Hypersensitivity during Acute Chemically-Induced Colitis and in the Post-Inflammatory Phase via Different Mechanisms of Sensitization

Objectives Experiments using P2X3 knock-out mice or more general P2X receptor antagonists suggest that P2X3 receptors contribute to visceral hypersensitivity. We aimed to investigate the effect of the selective P2X3 antagonist A-317491 on visceral sensitivity under physiological conditions, during acute colitis and in the post-inflammatory phase of colitis. Methods Trinitrobenzene sulphonic-acid colitis was monitored by colonoscopy: on day 3 to confirm the presence of colitis and then every 4 days, starting from day 10, to monitor convalescence and determine the exact timepoint of endoscopic healing in each rat. Visceral sensitivity was assessed by quantifying visceromotor responses to colorectal distension in controls, rats with acute colitis and post-colitis rats. A-317491 was administered 30 min prior to visceral sensitivity testing. Expression of P2X3 receptors (RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry) and the intracellular signalling molecules cdk5, csk and CASK (RT-PCR) were quantified in colonic tissue and dorsal root ganglia. ATP release in response to colorectal distension was measured by luminiscence. Results Rats with acute TNBS-colitis displayed significant visceral hypersensitivity that was dose-dependently, but not fully, reversed by A-317491. Hypersenstivity was accompanied by an increased colonic release of ATP. Post-colitis rats also displayed visceral hypersensitivity that was dose-dependently reduced and fully normalized by A-317491 without increased release of ATP. A-317491 did not modify visceral sensitivity in controls. P2X3 mRNA and protein expression in the colon and dorsal root ganglia were similar in control, acute colitis and post-colitis groups, while colonic mRNA expression of cdk5, csk and CASK was increased in the post-colitis group only. Conclusions These findings indicate that P2X3 receptors are not involved in sensory signaling under physiological conditions whereas they modulate visceral hypersensitivity during acute TNBS-colitis and even more so in the post-inflammatory phase, albeit via different mechanisms of sensitization, validating P2X3 receptors as potential new targets in the treatment of abdominal pain syndromes.
Remote Object Fetching with Descriptive Question Asking

Human-robot communication is ﬂawed because robots lack perfect knowledge of the world and human language is inherently imprecise. Therefore, we must develop novel frameworks for robots to overcome ambiguity in dialogue with humans. Given previous work by Whitney et al. [2017] towards asking simple questions to clarify intents in an object-fetching scenario using a POMDP, we describe a further extension to allow for clarifying dialogue with object attributes. Speciﬁcally, we deﬁne a model using predicates over attributes and their values as potential questions. This allows the model to clarify uncertainty efﬁciently. We show that this model is effective in a remote operation object-fetching scenario.
YouChoose: Choosing your Storage Device as a Performance Interface to Consolidated I/O Service

Currently the QoS requirements for storage systems are usually presented in the form of service-level agreement (SLA) to bound I/O measures such as latency and throughput of I/O requests. However, SLA is not an effective performance interface for users to specify their required I/O service quality for two major reasons. First, for users it is difficult to determine appropriate latency and throughput bounds to ensure their required application performance without resource over-provisioning. Second, for storage system administrators it is a challenge to estimate a user’s real resource demand because the specified SLA measures are not consistently correlated with the user’s resource demand. This makes resource provisioning and scheduling less informative and can greatly reduce system efficiency. We propose the concept of reference storage system (RSS), which can be a storage system chosen by users and whose performance can be measured offline and mimicked online, as a performance interface between applications and storage servers. By designating an RSS to represent I/O performance requirement, a user can expect the performance received from a shared storage server servicing his I/O workload is not worse than the performance received from the RSS servicing the same workload. The storage system is responsible for implementing the RSS interface. The key enabling techniques are a machine learning model that derives request-specific performance requirements and an RSS-centric scheduling that efficiently allocates resource among requests from different users. The proposed scheme, named as YouChoose, supports the user-chosen performance interface through efficiently implementing and migrating virtual storage devices in a host storage system. Our evaluation based on trace-driven simulations shows that YouChoose can precisely implement the RSS performance interface, achieve a strong performance assurance and isolation, and improve the efficiency of a consolidated storage system consisting of different types of storage devices.
THE TAXONOMIC STATUS OF FIG SHELLS , WITH NOTES ON FICUS VARIEGATA ( RÖDING , 1798 ) ( MOLLUSCA : GASTROPODA : FICOIDEA : FICIDAE )

The family Ficidae (fig shells) is the only known member in the superfamily Ficoidea (Meek, 1864). Although fig shells are closely related to the Tonnidae (tun shells), their shell shape distinguishes them apart (Verhaeghe & Poppe, 2000), hence they are placed in a separate superfamily Ficoidea. To date, there are 12 known species of Ficus (Röding, 1798) and one species of Thalassocyon (Barnard, 1960) within the Ficidae (Beesley et al., 1998; Liu & Wang, 1999). With numerous synonyms created for this genus (Table 1), the nomenclatural history of the Ficidae has been complex (Boss, 1982; Verhaeghe & Poppe, 2000). In earlier literature such as Rogers (1908), and Thiele (1935), the oldest available synonym for fig shells was Pyrulidae (Swainson, 1840). However, the valid name used in this paper is Ficidae, as suggested by Verhaeghe & Poppe (2000) citing the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) Article 40b as reference. According to Chuang (1973: 191, 196), an occasional Ficus ficus (Lamarck, 1758) could be found in the deep sand off the southeast part of Singapore. There were also recent local sightings of live Ficus variegata (Röding, 1798) on the shores of Singapore. Upon examination of the fig shell collections from the Zoological Reference Collection (ZRC) of the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity and Research (RMBR), National University of Singapore, together with further reading of the literature, taxonomic information of fig shells was generally disorganised and ambiguous. Hence, the current state of taxonomic nomenclature among some of the Ficus species is discussed in this paper.
Dry Markets and Superreplication Bounds of American Derivatives

This paper studies the impact of dry markets for underlying assets on the pricing of American derivatives, using a disrete time framework. Dry markets are characterized by the possibility of non-existence of trading at certain dates. Such non-existence may be deterministic or probabilistic. Using superreplicating strategies, we derive expectation representations for the range of arbitrage-free values of the dervatives. In the probabilistic case, if we consider an enlarged filtration induced by the price process and the market existence process, ordinary stopping times are required. If not, randomized stopping times are required. Several comparisons of the ranges obtained with the two market restrictions are performed. Finally, we conclude that arbitrage arguments are not enough to define the optimal exercise policy.
New neighborhood classifiers based on evidential reasoning

Neighborhood based classifiers are commonly used in the applications of pattern classification. However, in the implementation of neighborhood based classifiers, there always exist the problems of uncertainty. For example, when one use k-NN classifier, the parameter k should be determined, which can be big or small. Therefore, uncertainty problem occurs for the classification caused by the k value. Furthermore, for the nearest neighbor (NN) classifier, one can use the nearest neighbor or the nearest centroid of all the classes, so different classification results can be obtained. This is a type of uncertainty caused by the local and global information used, respectively. In this paper, we use theory of belief function to model and manage the two types of uncertainty above. Evidential reasoning based neighborhood classifiers are proposed. It can be experimentally verified that our proposed approach can deal efficiently with the uncertainty in neighborhood classifiers.
CHAPTER 1 Gene Trees , Species Trees , and Species Networks

The availability of whole-genome sequence data has provided a rich resource of deep insights into many biological, medical and pharmaceutical problems and applications, and is promising even more. Yet, along with these insights and promises, genomic data have given rise to many challenging problems, mainly due to the quantity and heterogeneity of such data. One of these major challenges is the phylogenetic analysis of multiple gene datasets that whole genomes provide.
Initial review of methods for cascading failure analysis in electric power transmission systems IEEE PES CAMS task force on understanding, prediction, mitigation and restoration of cascading failures

Large blackouts are typically caused by cascading failure propagating through a power system by means of a variety of processes. Because of the wide range of time scales, multiple interacting processes, and the huge number of possible interactions, the simulation and analysis of cascading blackouts is extremely complicated. This paper defines cascading failure for blackouts and gives an initial review of the current understanding, industrial tools, and the challenges and emerging methods of analysis and simulation.
An Algorithm to Enhance Elliptic Curves Scalar Multiplication Combining MBNR with Point Halving

Elliptic curves (EC) scalar multiplication over some finite fields, is an attractive research area, and it has been paid much attention by re- searchers in the recent years. Researchs still in progress to improve the imple- mentation of elliptic curves cryptography (ECC) and reducing its complexity. Elliptic curve point-halving algorithm proposed in (10), later double-base (DB) chain (3), and step multi-base representation (SMBR) (17) are among the ef- ficient techniques used in this field. The presented paper proposes a new algorithm combining SMBR and point halving. We extend the work done by (13), which combined DB chain with point halving technique. The experiment results show that our contribution can enhance EC scalar multiplication.
Surface water dynamics in the Amazon Basin: Application of satellite radar altimetry

[1] Satellite radar altimetry has the ability to monitor variations in surface water height (stage) for large wetlands, rivers, and associated floodplains. A clear advantage is the provision of data where traditional gauges are absent. As part of an international program, a complete altimetric analysis of the Amazon Basin is being undertaken. Here, an updated and more rigorous evaluation of the TOPEX/POSEIDON (T/P) data set is presented for the first ∼7.5 years of the mission. With an initial study group of 230 targets, height variability at many ungauged locations can be observed for 30–50%, the range reflecting the clarity of the variations in lieu of instrument limitations. An assessment of the instrument performance confirms that the minimum river width attainable is ∼1 km in the presence of some inundated floodplain. This constraint does allow observation of the main stem (Solimoes/Amazon) and the larger tributaries, but rugged terrain in the vicinity of the target additionally places severe limitations on data retrieval. First-order validation exercises with the deduced 1992–1999 time series of stage fluctuations reveal accuracies ranging from tens of centimeters to several meters (mean ∼1.1 m rms). Altimetric water levels in the Solimoes and Amazon are particularly well defined with amplitudes <13 m and variations in peak-level timing from May to July. The water-surface gradient of the main stem is found to vary both spatially and temporally, with values ranging from 1.5 cm/km downstream to 4.0 cm/km for more upstream reaches. In agreement with ground-based estimates, the seasonal variability of the gradients reveals that the hysteresis characteristic of the flood wave varies along the main stem and the derived altimetric velocity of this flood wave is estimated to be ∼0.35 m/s. Overall, the altimetric results demonstrate that the T/P mission is successfully monitoring the transient flood waves of this continental-scale river basin.
CLUSTER STABILITY ESTIMATION BASED ON A MINIMAL SPANNING TREES APPROACH

Among the areas of data and text mining which are employed today in science, economy and technology, clustering theory serves as a preprocessing step in the data analyzing. However, there are many open questions still waiting for a theoretical and practical treatment, e.g., the problem of determining the true number of clusters has not been satisfactorily solved. In the current paper, this problem is addressed by the cluster stability approach. For several possible numbers of clusters we estimate the stability of partitions obtained from clustering of samples. Partitions are considered consistent if their clusters are stable. Clusters validity is measured as the total number of edges, in the clusters’ minimal spanning trees, connecting points from different samples. Actually, we use the Friedman and Rafsky two sample test statistic. The homogeneity hypothesis, of well mingled samples within the clusters, leads to asymptotic normal distribution of the considered statistic. Resting upon this fact, the stand.
Controlling Rheological and Fluid Loss Properties of Sepiolite Based Muds under Elevated Temperatures

Geothermal well drilling is known as high temperature environment; therefore, it is difficult to formulate a drilling mud functioning adequately, particularly in temperatures above 100 C. Circulation breaks, abnormally high fluid losses and viscosities, and unacceptable high gel strengths are the main problems that are usually associated with geothermal wells. Although bentonite based mud with extremely expensive additives is commonly used in these drilling conditions, it does not meet the desired needs in higher temperatures above 150 C. There are geothermal fields having temperatures more than 240 C in both Turkey and the world. Therefore, sepiolite, a magnesium silicate clay mineral with fibrous texture, has been proposed as the bentonite replacement for both the high temperature and the high salinity environment. There might be temperature dependent minor changes in crystalline structure; nevertheless, sepiolite is stable at temperatures up to 260 C. Additionally, the basic structure of sepiolite is known to be firm in saturated saline-water phase. Turkey has the largest sepiolite clay deposits in the world; on the other hand, the usage of sepiolite clay as a drilling fluid not only in Turkey and but also in the world is negligible. This study is an attempt to characterize both rheological and fluid loss behavior of water-based drilling fluid prepared with five different raw sepiolite clay samples obtained around Sivrihisar-Eskisehir district of Turkey. The samples were not treated or purified by any chemical methods before and after grinding. API standards were followed throughout the experimental study. No additives other than salt have been used while formulating sepiolite muds to determine the rheological and filtration properties. Four out of five samples in ambient conditions have given better rheological property than that of indicated by the API standard. One of the four samples satisfying the requirement was selected and used later in the study along with additives. The results have indicated that the sepiolite based drilling fluid is superior to the bentonite based drilling fluids in terms of both rheological and fluid loss properties under elevated temperature and pressure conditions, particularly at high salt concentrations.
Antioxidants and lipid peroxidation status in diabetic patients with and without complications.

BACKGROUND Oxidative stress is involved in the pathophysiology of diabetes mellitus. METHODS In the present study, 68 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and 31 clinically healthy individuals were evaluated. The patients were divided into two groups. Group 1 included 29 patients without diabetic complications and group 2 consisted of 39 patients with diabetic complications. Erythrocyte glutathione, superoxide dismutase, and thiobarbituric acid-reactive substance levels as well as plasma antioxidant vitamins C and E, and serum total glutathione-S-transferase, ceruloplasmin, and protein thiols were estimated by using spectro-photometer. RESULTS A significant decrease of erythrocyte glutathione was observed in group 1 when compared with the controls. Thiols decreased in group 2. An increase in glutathione-S-transferase, ceruloplasmin, superoxide dismutase, and vitamins C and E levels was noted in patients with diabetes mellitus. Thiobarbituric acid-reactive substance levels decreased in group 1 but increased in group 2 when compared with the controls. CONCLUSION In the present study, tendency of most of the antioxidants to rise in diabetes could probably be due to an adaptive response to the pro-oxidant milieu of the diabetic state. Hence, we suggest that supplementation with dietary antioxidants especially antioxidant vitamins accompanied by change in lifestyle might help to reduce damage brought about by free radical toxicity in diabetes mellitus.
Optimal Power Efficient Photonic SWMR Buses

In this paper we solve the problem of minimizingthe power consumption in SWMR (single writer, multi reader)optical buses for both the ring and tree based configurations. Tominimize the power consumption it is necessary to design thebeam splitters in a SWMR bus optimally. A prior approach byBinzhang et al. [5] proposes to use an exponential time NLPbased solution for solving a related problem, and there are otherapproaches for solving this problem sub-optimally. In comparisonwe propose an optimal linear time algorithm for both ring andtree based buses. Additionally, we take into account the factthat the power loss in a splitter is dependent on the split ratio.Subsequently, we propose a hardware version of our algorithmthat takes 4 cycles for a 64-station ring, and 32 cycles for a 64-station balanced tree to compute an optimal configuration. Withthe help of exhaustive Synopsys RSoft simulations, we show thatour SWMR bus is 87% more power efficient than a popularlyused alternative approach proposed by Kurian et al. [9]. Forlarge number of stations, an optimally designed tree based busis a further 25% more power efficient than a ring.
A Unified Rolling Shutter and Motion Blur Model for 3D Visual Registration

Motion blur and rolling shutter deformations both inhibit visual motion registration, whether it be due to a moving sensor or a moving target. Whilst both deformations exist simultaneously, no models have been proposed to handle them together. Furthermore, neither deformation has been considered previously in the context of monocular full-image 6 degrees of freedom registration or RGB-D structure and motion. As will be shown, rolling shutter deformation is observed when a camera moves faster than a single pixel in parallax between subsequent scan-lines. Blur is a function of the pixel exposure time and the motion vector. In this paper a complete dense 3D registration model will be derived to account for both motion blur and rolling shutter deformations simultaneously. Various approaches will be compared with respect to ground truth and live real-time performance will be demonstrated for complex scenarios where both blur and shutter deformations are dominant.
Caecal and Colonic Uptake of both Linoleic Acid and Cholesterol in Rats Following Intestinal Resection

Caecal and colonic uptake of both linoleic acid and cholesterol were studied in rats after distal small bowel resection (DSBR}. The results showed that the surgical operation increased the caecal and colonic uptake of linoleic acid. Supplementation with linolenic acid inhibited caecal and colonic uptake of linoleic acid. Experiments carried out in the presence of rotenone and ouabain suggest that facilitated diffusion is the predominant mechanism of caecal and colonic linoleic acid absorption, at least at low concentrations. An increase in caecal and colonic uptake of cholesterol was observed after the surgical operation. The study showed that facilitated diffusion seems to be the mechanism of linoleic acid absorption in the caecum and colon, and that both organ growth and changes in transport function of the epithelial cells of caecum and colon appear to be involved in the adaptive response of the bowel to intestinal resection. Lipids 25, 594-597 (1990}.
Principles of delay-sensitive multimedia data storage retrieval

This paper establishes some fundamental principles for the retrieval and storage of delay-sensitive multimedia data. Delay-sensitive data include digital audio, animations, and video. Retrieval of these data types from secondary storage has to satisfy certain time constraints in order to be acceptable to the user. The presentation is based on digital audio in order to provide intuition to the reader, although the results are applicable to all delay-sensitive data. A theoretical framework is developed for the real-time requirements of digital audio playback. We show how to describe these requirements in terms of the consumption rate of the audio data and the nature of the data-retrieval rate from secondary storage. Making use of this framework, bounds are derived for buffer space requirements for certain common retrieval scenarios. Storage placement strategies for multichannel synchronized data are then categorized and examined. The results presented in this paper are basic to any playback of delay-sensitive data and should assist the multimedia system designer in estimating hardware requirements and in evaluating possible design choices.