Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Efficiently 3D Face Recognizing Method Using Range Image and Sparse Representation

Abstract-In order to eliminate the effect of the facial expression and illumination condition, as well as to speed up the recognition procedure, we propose a face recognition approach based on sparse representation. First, preprocessing and segmenting the face area from three dimensional (3D) face scans, we also apply coarse to fine registration to ensure the alignment of range images; second, mapping the 3D model to range image through a kind of geometry-based resampling method; finally, employ sparse representation classification method to identify 3D face. The experiment results in actual 3D face database demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Adaptive Predictive Functional Control with Stochastic Search

In this paper, an adaptive predictive functional control algorithm based on Laguerre model is presented. The performance of closed-loop system is discussed and stability condition is given based on Lyapunov stability theory. Three stochastic search optimized algorithms are given to compensating the control system. Their optimize effect is compared. Proposed method in this paper reduced online computation and presented strong robustness. It's validity has been verified by simulation
Differential 4-tap and 7-tap transverse filters in SiGe for 10Gb/s multimode fiber optic link equalization

Differential 4-tap and 7-tap transverse filters are designed in a 0.18/spl mu/m SiGe BiCMOS technology for equalization of 10Gb/s multimode fiber optic signals. The 7-tap equalizer reduced the ISI of a 10Gb/s signal received through 300m of 50/spl mu/m noncompliant next generation multimode fiber from 4.2dB to 0.8dB. The circuit dissipates 40mW from a 3.3V supply.
Quorum Quenching Revisited—From Signal Decays to Signalling Confusion

In a polymicrobial community, while some bacteria are communicating with neighboring cells (quorum sensing), others are interrupting the communication (quorum quenching), thus creating a constant arms race between intercellular communication. In the past decade, numerous quorum quenching enzymes have been found and initially thought to inactivate the signalling molecules. Though this is widely accepted, the actual roles of these quorum quenching enzymes are now being uncovered. Recent evidence extends the role of quorum quenching to detoxification or metabolism of signalling molecules as food and energy source; this includes “signalling confusion”, a term coined in this paper to refer to the phenomenon of non-destructive modification of signalling molecules. While quorum quenching has been explored as a novel anti-infective therapy targeting, quorum sensing evidence begins to show the development of resistance against quorum quenching.
Stabilization of Axon Branch Dynamics by Synaptic Maturation

The developmental refinement of topographic projections in the brain is reflected in the dynamic sculpting of axonal arbors that takes place as connections between CNS structures form and mature. To examine the role of synaptogenesis and synaptic maturation in the structural development of axonal projections during the formation of the topographic retinotectal projection, we coexpressed cytosolic fluorescent protein (FP) and FP-tagged synaptophysin (SYP) in small numbers of retinal ganglion cells in living albino Xenopus laevis tadpoles to reveal the distribution and dynamics of presynaptic sites within labeled retinotectal axons. Two-photon time-lapse observations followed by quantitative analysis of tagged SYP levels at individual synapses demonstrated the time course of synaptogenesis: increases in presynaptic punctum intensity are detectable within minutes of punctum emergence and continue over many hours. Puncta lifetimes correlate with their intensities. Furthermore, we found that axon arbor dynamics are affected by synaptic contacts. Axon branches retract past faintly labeled puncta but are locally stabilized at intensely labeled SYP puncta. Visual stimulation for 4 h enhanced the stability of the arbor at intense presynaptic puncta while concurrently inducing the retraction of exploratory branches with only faintly labeled or no synaptic sites.
Gender and Institutional Dimensions of Agricultural Technology Adoption: A Review of Literature and Synthesis of 35 Case Studies

This paper reviews and integrates findings from existing empirical studies and case studies received from 35 organizations in various countries to identify demand- and supply-side constraints and opportunities in access, adoption and impact of technological innovations. This review consistently finds that women have much slower observed rates of adoption of a wide range of technologies than men; and these are mainly due to differentiated access to complementary inputs and services. There are limited studies that looked at upstream stages including priority-setting and innovation processes, in which women continue to be underrepresented.
Constraining MgII absorber systems with the SDSS

Using a large sample of MgII absorbers with $0.4<z<2.2$ detected by Nestor et al. (2005) in the Early Data Release of the SDSS, we present new constraints on the physical properties of these systems based on two statistical analyses: (i) by computing the ratio between the composite spectra of quasars with and without absorbers, we measure the reddening effects induced by these intervening systems; and (ii) by stacking SDSS images centred on quasars with strong MgII absorption lines and isolating the excess light around the PSF, we measure the mean luminosity and colours of the absorbing galaxies. This statistical approach does not require any spectroscopic follow up and allows us to constrain the photometric properties of absorber systems.
Forests and Food Security: What’s Gender Got to Do with It?

Hunger remains a key development problem in the 21st century. Within this context, there is renewed attention to the importance of forests and their role in supplementing the food and nutrition needs of rural populations. With a concurrent uptake of “gender mainstreaming” for sustainable development, there is also a call for understanding the gendered dynamics of forest governance and food security. In this paper, we reviewed emerging research (2009–2014) on forests and food security and on the ways gender is said to matter. As with previous work on gender and natural resource management, we found that gender is an important variable; but how, to what degree and why are different in every context. That is, despite the suggestion of clear linkages, the relationships between gender, forests and food security are not generalizable across contexts. Understanding the relationship between forest resources and food security requires attention to gender disparities at the local level, but also to the broader political and economic context in which those disparities are reinforced. We flag the need to guard against ahistorical and technical approaches to gender and suggest some example research questions that use a more relational view of gender—one that examines how political economy and social power structure access to resources at multiple scales.
Integrating Events Across Levels of Consciousness

Our knowledge grows as we integrate events experienced at different points in time. We may or may not become aware of events, their integration, and their impact on our knowledge and decisions. But can we mentally integrate two events, if they are experienced at different time points and at different levels of consciousness? In this study, an event consisted of the presentation of two unrelated words. In the stream of events, half of events shared one component (“tree desk” … “desk fish”) to facilitate event integration. We manipulated the amount of time and trials that separated two corresponding events. The contents of one event were presented subliminally (invisible) and the contents of the corresponding overlapping event supraliminally (visible). Hence, event integration required the binding of contents between consciousness levels and between time points. At the final test of integration, participants judged whether two supraliminal test words (“tree fish”) fit together semantically or not. Unbeknown to participants, half of test words were episodically related through an overlap (“desk”; experimental condition) and half were not (control condition). Participants judged episodically related test words to be closer semantically than unrelated test words. This subjective decrease in the semantic distance between test words was both independent of whether the invisible event was encoded first or second in order and independent of the number of trials and the time that separated two corresponding events. Hence, conscious and unconscious memories were mentally integrated into a linked mnemonic representation.
Emotional Intelligence, Library Use and Academic achievement of University Students

ABSTRACT This paper, based on survey research, explores the association between emotional intelligence, library-use and academic achievement (GPA) among undergraduate university students in Pakistan. Participants (N = 725) from the three different types of universities in Peshawar, Pakistan, namely University of Peshawar, University of Engineering and Technology, and University of Agriculture, responded to the Schutte’s Emotional Intelligence scale and questions of library-use. Prior to the analysis, reliability of scale and normality of data were tested using SPSS (v.20). Results revealed that students with comparatively higher emotional intelligence score frequently visited their university library. A positive significant relationship was found between emotional intelligence and academic achievement (GPA) of these students. The researchers propose five levels of emotional intelligence on the basis of mean score and standard deviation. This work is an addition to the LIS literature that recommends library professionals to be aware of the importance of students’ emotional intelligence in their library-use behavior and will facilitate them in designing better information literacy and user services programs.
Legislatures and the Budget Process: The Myth of Fiscal Control

The legislative 'power of the purse' is an important constitutional principle across contemporary democracies. Yet, national legislatures differ in their approach to fiscal control. What is the role of legislatures in the budget process? Why does this role vary across democratic countries? Are powerful assemblies a threat to the prudent management of public finances? This unprecedented survey of legislative budgeting tackles these questions using quantitative data and case studies. The analysis reveals a striking variation in the budgetary role of national legislatures across contemporary democracies, which is influenced by colonial heritage as well as current political dynamics. It also finds consistent evidence that powerful legislatures are associated with higher public spending than those with limited authority. Based on in-depth accounts of fundamental reforms to the budget process in Sweden and South Africa, Legislatures and the Budget Process explores how the tension between legislative authority and fiscal discipline might be reconciled.
The Rationality of Public Policies - An Analytical Approach

Nowadays, public policies represent the most adequate instrument of action in view to achieve the public interest, no matter we talk about European, national or local level. The rational approach of public policies, representing the topic of the current publication, is or should be a steady feature of public policy making and implementing. We find the origins of this approach both in key papers of political and administrative sciences, as well as in those concerning the theory of rational choice. In the current book, a direct, causal relationship is established between public administration, public policies and the theory of rational choice. The context of that relationship holds a great structural and functional complexity, demonstrating that the juxtaposition of the three mentioned fields is not enough. The mechanisms for their connection highlight links of various, non-linear intensities, in view of a finality which should be related every time to the public interest. The public interest is also defined further a process of public choice, more or less a rational one. It is quantified in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, thus supporting the need to introduce the cost-benefit or cost-effectiveness analyses as instruments for assessing the impact of public policies in our research. The book is structured in five chapters, attempting to analyze, in an integrating vision, a joint, interdisciplinary issue, which is boosted by public policies process on public administration in the context of incorporating the theory of rational choice. The first three chapters have a theoretical character, generally a descriptive one, the fourth and fifth chapters aim to identify the influences or “prints�? of the theory of rational choice on public policy making at European and national level. The publication represents the outcome of researches achieved by authors in the framework of the Doctoral School in Administrative Sciences of the Faculty of Public Administration, National School of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest, Romania.
Contribution to reducing the critical faults in critical Software Systems

The software reliability plays an important role nowadays. From year to year the systems become more and more complex. Consequently, the software becomes more and more complex, too and this can cause more software errors. In this paper a new method is introduced, which serves to predict the reliability of software in a better way. Furthermore, the presumption that the hazard rate is constant is rebutted and a more realistic assumption is made. It is demonstrated that by the use of the new approach the prediction of the number of remaining errors is possible in a better way.
Improving the performance of AODV in hybrid WMN by architecture pattern

Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) have became the focus of many researchers as a promising technology for a broad range of applications due to their self-organizing, self-configuring and self-healing capability, in addition to their low equipments and deployment cost. WMNs may exist in the absence of a central infrastructure taking the form of a MANET. However on the other hand, they may exist as networks comprised of an infrastructure connecting extended ad hoc networks. One significant area of research within ad hoc networks is routing. The traditional ad hoc routing protocols which disseminate routing information by flooding, a technique which requires a significant consumption of energy and bandwidth, cannot achieve optimal performance especially in hybrid WMNs. In this paper, we use a technique to reduce the cost of disseminating information in a power-constrains environment by limiting the cardinality of the subset of nodes which retransmit a packet by using Architecture Pattern. This technique can improve the performance of AODV in hybrid mesh networks pattern.
Anther and pollen development: A conserved developmental pathway

Abstract Pollen development is a critical step in plant development that is needed for successful breeding and seed formation. Manipulation of male fertility has proved a useful trait for hybrid breeding and increased crop yield. However, although there is a good understanding developing of the molecular mechanisms of anther and pollen anther development in model species, such as Arabidopsis and rice, little is known about the equivalent processes in important crops. Nevertheless the onset of increased genomic information and genetic tools is facilitating translation of information from the models to crops, such as barley and wheat; this will enable increased understanding and manipulation of these pathways for agricultural improvement.
DecLiNe - Models for Decay of Links in Networks

The prediction of graph evolution is an important and challenging problem in the analysis of networks and of the Web in particular. But while the appearance of new links is part of virtually every model of Web growth, the disappearance of links has received much less attention in the literature. To fill this gap, our approach DecLiNe (an acronym for DECay of LInks in NEtworks) aims to predict link decay in networks, based on structural analysis of corresponding graph models. In analogy to the link prediction problem, we show that analysis of graph structures can help to identify indicators for superfluous links under consideration of common network models. In doing so, we introduce novel metrics that denote the likelihood of certain links in social graphs to remain in the network, and combine them with state-of-the-art machine learning methods for predicting link decay. Our methods are independent of the underlying network type, and can be applied to such diverse networks as the Web, social networks and any other structure representable as a network, and can be easily combined with case-specific content analysis and adopted for a variety of social network mining, filtering and recommendation applications. In systematic evaluations with large-scale datasets of Wikipedia we show the practical feasibility of the proposed structure-based link decay prediction algorithms.
Speed discrimination in the far monocular periphery: A relative advantage for interocular comparisons consistent with self-motion

Some animals with lateral eyes (such as bees) control their navigation through the 3D world using velocity differences between the two eyes. Other animals with frontal eyes (such as primates, including humans) can perceive 3D motion based on the different velocities that a moving object projects upon the two retinae. Although one type of 3D motion perception involves a comparison between velocities from vastly different (monocular) portions of the visual field, and the other involves a comparison within overlapping (binocular) portions of the visual field, both compare velocities across the two eyes. Here we asked whether human interocular velocity comparisons, typically studied in the context of binocularly overlapping vision, operate in the far lateral (and hence, monocular) periphery and, if so, whether these comparisons were accordant with conventional interocular motion processing. We found that speed discrimination was indeed better between the two eyes' monocular visual fields, as compared to within a single eye's (monocular) visual field, but only when the velocities were consistent with commonly encountered motion. This intriguing finding suggests that mechanisms sensitive to relative motion information on opposite sides of an animal may have been retained, or at some point independently achieved, as the eyes became frontal in some animals.
Central limit theorems for some graphs in computational geometry

Let Bn be an increasing sequence of regions in d-dimensional space with volume n and with union d. We prove a general central limit theorem for functionals of point sets, obtained either by restricting a homogeneous Poisson process to Bn, or by by taking n uniformly distributed points in Bn. The sets Bn could be all cubes but a more general class of regions Bn is considered. Using this general result we obtain central limit theorems for specific functionals such as total edge length and number of components, defined in terms of graphs such as the k-nearest neighbors graph, the sphere of influence graph and the Voronoi graph.
Vision-based Virtual Information and Semi-autonomous Behaviours for a Humanoid Robot

This paper considers the problem of a humanoid robot evolving in an unknown environment semi-autonomously through a high-level human supervision. In this case the problems are to build a representation of the world, perceive objects, plan a path to explore the environment, and move accordingly. The sensing system consider here is a stereoscopic vision system. Compare to wheeled robot where 2D representation [1] is often enough for evolving inside an environment, humanoid robot needs a 3D representation of the world. Indeed, they can step on and over obstacles [2] [3], go through narrow spaces and crawl [4]. Therefore in order to plan motions a 3D knowledge of the environment is needed. Gutmann in [5] suggest the construction of a 3D grid map to update a 2.5D navigation map on which an A* algorithm is performed. Kagami [6] used an online dense local 3D world reconstruction by merging depth maps, self localise using the RANSAC algorithm, and planned a trajectory on a projected 2.5 D map. In both case, interestingly, they are no justification on the choice of the destination. One possibility is to use the unknown part of the environment to plan the next position of the robots as proposed by Sujan in [7]. This is especially useful for a full coverage of a closed area. But the most likely application is to be used in conjunction with a remote operator. In this case, a human is able to analyse the scene and to guess that a path is possible for the robot. Our goal is to enhance the information available for the remote operator, and to develop the robot’s autonomy for an efficient collaborative work. In this
Extended methodology to synthesize high step-up integrated DC-DC converters

This paper proposes an extended methodology to generate high step-up DC/DC converters. The methodology is based on integration of the common circuits of the standard non-isolated DC/DC converters and association of the converters output sections. For the integration of two non-isolated converters, the output sections are series connected, meanwhile parallel and cascaded connection are only possible for the integration of one isolated converter with a non-isolated one. Further simulation and experimental analyses are carried out for the Integrated boost-Zeta and Integrated boost-flyback converters.
Increasing Salience of Crime Control in Finnish Parliamentary Data from the 1970s to the 2000s

In Finland, a post-war expansion of the welfare state was associated with a decline in the use of imprisonment. The 1990s marked the beginning of a more ambivalent era in Finnish criminal justice. How does this turning point appear in the public discourse on crime by political decision-makers? All parliamentary questions and members’ initiatives from 1975 to 2010 were examined with a keyword-based quantitative search, and further content analysis was conducted on data made up of 1589 written parliamentary questions about crime control from 1970 to 2010. The relative prevalence of criminal policy issues rose significantly in the early 1990s. During the same period, the political initiative moved towards the right and the views of the left seemed to move closer to the right concurrently. Although stances became tougher, expressions of leniency were in the minority before the 1990s too, which stresses the significance of the general level of political attention itself. Developments regarding specific types of crime are discussed. Keywords: Criminal justice, penal policy, legal history, parliamentary democracy, political parties, Finland.
Nonlinear network code for high throughput broadcasting with retransmissions

In a typical network coding scenario, a node has to broadcast a set of messages to a group of receiver nodes who have already received a subset of the messages through other links. In this paper, we will first present the achievable rate region for this broadcasting scenario, and then extend the result to the case with retransmissions. With the proposed nonlinear network coding strategy, the achievable rate region can be achieved without requiring the exact knowledge of a priori information available at the receiver nodes. The broadcasting node simply performs retransmissions with independent codebooks until every receiver node has received the whole set of messages. Through the analysis of network throughput, we will show that each receiver node is able to effectively accumulate mutual information over the multiple transmissions thus achieving higher overall throughput than the conventional random linear network coding strategy.