Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Liver hydatid CT image segmentation based on localizing region active contours and modified parametric active contours

Liver hydatid disease is a common parasitic disease in farm and pastoral areas and seriously damages people's health. Based on CT imaging features of this disease, we perform experiments on the segmentation of the Liver hydatid CT image. The experimental results show that: according to the intensity distribution characteristics expressed by different tissues in liver hydatid CT image, localizing region active contours and modified parametric active contours is practical to liver and hydatid lesions segmentation simultaneously from liver hydatid CT images. we obtain the optimal segmentations and improve the internal and external statistical smoothness of liver hydatid CT image by adjusting local selected area size and a reasonable location dimension should be commonly employed because of the sensitive of the initialization.
RoPS: A local feature descriptor for 3D rigid objects based on rotational projection statistics

The proper choice of local surface feature descriptors is a key step for an accurate and robust surface matching between different range images. This paper presents a novel 3D feature descriptor for free form objects based on rotational projection statistics. A rotation invariant local reference frame for each feature point is defined by performing an eigenvalue decomposition on the covariance matrix formed by all points lying on the local surface. The feature descriptor is then constructed by rotationally projecting the neighboring 3D points onto 2D planes and by calculating low order moments and the entropy of the 2D distribution matrix on these planes. Experiments were performed on a dataset comprised of 45 scenes, and the results show that the proposed method is robust to noise and variations in mesh resolution.
Globular Clusters in Elliptical Galaxies: Constraints on Mergers

There exists a relationship between globular cluster mean metallicity and parent galaxy luminosity (e.g. Brodie & Huchra 1991; Forbes et al. 1996), which appears to be similar to that between stellar metallicity and galaxy luminosity. The globular cluster relation has a similar slope but is offset by about 0.5 dex to lower metallicity. The similarity of these relations suggests that both the globular cluster system and their parent galaxy have shared a common chemical enrichment history. If we can understand the formation and evolution of the globulars, we will also learn something about galaxy formation. With this aim in mind we have created the SAGES (Study of the Astrophysics of Globular clusters in Extragalactic Systems) project. Project members include Brodie, Elson, Forbes, Freeman, Grillmair, Huchra, Kissler-Patig and Schroder. We are using HST Imaging and Keck spectroscopy to study extragalactic globular cluster systems. Further details are given at http://www.ucolick. org/~mkissler/Sages/sages.html.
Protective actions of nebivolol on chronic nitric oxide synthase inhibition-induced hypertension and chronic kidney disease in the rat: a comparison with angiotensin II receptor blockade.

BACKGROUND Nitric oxide (NO) deficiency contributes to chronic kidney disease (CKD) progression and hypertension. The β-blocker, nebivolol (N), also enhances NO production, and we studied whether N attenuates CKD and hypertension caused by chronic NO synthase inhibition (CNOSI). METHODS Male Sprague-Dawley rats on 6 weeks of CNOSI (L-NAME, 150 mg/L drinking water) received placebo (P), N (10 mg/kg/day), olmesartan (O, 2.5 mg/kg/day) or N + O. Blood pressure (BP) and urine protein and NOx (metabolites of NO) were monitored throughout. We measured glomerular sclerosis (GS), creatinine clearance (C(Cr)) and components of the NO and oxidant pathways in the renal cortex. RESULTS BP increased >50 mmHg in P by weeks 4-6, but no change occurred in N, O or N + O. P rats developed proteinuria and GS and C(Cr) was ∼30% of normal. In N, O and N + O, all values remained normal. In renal cortex of P, p22phox and nitrotyrosine abundance as well as H(2)O(2) levels were higher and extracellular superoxide dismutase (EC SOD) was lower versus normal kidneys. N, O and N + O normalized p22phox, H(2)O(2) and EC SOD and increased Mn SOD above normal. The cortical neuronal NO synthase (nNOS) β abundance increased in P and this was prevented by N, O and N + O. CONCLUSION We suggest that the major benefit from both N and O is reduction in oxidative stress in the renal cortex, which may potentiate residual local NO. There was no additive benefit of N + O since each drug effectively prevented injury, but a combination may be beneficial where protection is incomplete with each drug. The increased nNOSβ protein seen early in the course of the CKD may contribute to the evolving GS.
Baseline cytology, human papillomavirus testing, and risk for cervical neoplasia: a 10-year cohort analysis.

BACKGROUND Annual Pap smear screening has been favored over less frequent screening in the United States to minimize the risk of cervical cancer. We evaluated whether simultaneous screening with a Pap test and human papillomavirus (HPV) testing is useful for assessing the risk for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) 3 or cervical cancer. METHODS We enrolled 23 702 subjects in a study of HPV infection at Kaiser Permanente, Northwest Division, Portland, OR. Data were analyzed for 20 810 volunteers who were at least 16 years old (mean = 35.9 years) with satisfactory baseline Pap tests and suitable samples for HPV testing. Women were followed for up to 122 months (from April 1, 1989, to June 30, 1999) to determine the risk for histopathologically confirmed CIN3 or cancer. RESULTS Among 171 women with CIN3 or cancer diagnosed over 122 months, 123 (71.9%, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 65.2% to 78.7%) had baseline Pap results of atypical squamous cells or worse and/or a positive HPV test, including 102 (86.4%, 95% CI = 80.3% to 92.6%) of the 118 cases diagnosed within the first 45 months of follow-up. During this 45-month period, the cumulative incidence of CIN3 or cancer was 4.54% (95% CI = 3.61% to 5.46%) among women with a Pap test result of atypical squamous cells or worse, positive HPV tests, or both compared with 0.16% (95% CI = 0.08% to 0.24%) among women with negative Pap and HPV tests. Age, screening behavior, a history of cervical cancer precursors, and a history of treatment for CIN minimally affected results. CONCLUSIONS Negative baseline Pap and HPV tests were associated with a low risk for CIN3 or cancer in the subsequent 45 months, largely because a negative HPV test was associated with a decreased risk of cervical neoplasia. Negative combined test results should provide added reassurance for lengthening the screening interval among low-risk women, whereas positive results identify a relatively small subgroup that requires more frequent surveillance.
Cannabinoid receptor‐G protein interactions: Gαi1‐bound structures of IC3 and a mutant with altered G protein specificity

The structure of the C‐terminal region of the third cytoplasmic loop (IC3) of the cannabinoid receptor one (CB1) bound to Gαi1 has been determined using transferred nuclear Overhauser effects (NOEs). The wild‐type IC3 sequence is helical when associated with Gαi1. In contrast, a peptide containing the amino‐acid inversion, Ala341‐Leu342 adopts a single turn. These findings correlate with the attenuated Gi association of CB1 with the Ala341‐Leu342 mutation previously observed in vivo and the diminished stimulation of Gαi1 GTPase activity by the corresponding peptide demonstrated in vitro here. These results, the first to report the structure of a GPCR domain while associated with G protein, imply the C‐terminus of CB1 IC3, a region with high‐sequence conservation among G‐protein coupled receptors, must be helical for efficient coupling and activation of the Gi protein.
Recursive MIS Computation for Streaming BDPT on the GPU

Bidirectional Path Tracing (BDPT) is a robust unbiased rendering algorithm that samples paths by connecting eye and light paths. By optimally combining different sampling strategies using Multiple Importance Sampling (MIS), BDPT efficiently renders scenes with complex light effects. However, BDPT does not map well on a streaming architecture such as the GPU; Stochastic path lengths lead to an uneven workload between BDPT samples and a large memory footprint that depends on the maximum allowed path length. In this paper, we present a streaming alternative to BDPT, called SBDPT. We present a novel scheme for recursively computing balance heuristic MIS weights. This scheme allows for bidirectional connections to be evaluated independently, only requiring data from the light and eye vertex directly involved in the connection. Using this property, we modify the BDPT algorithm to generate a new eye path for each light vertex. The resulting SBDPT algorithm only requires temporary storage for the last vertex on both eye and light paths. Our implementation achieves high performance and has a fixed low memory footprint, independent of the maximum path length.
A coupled HMM for solving the permutation problem in frequency domain BSS

Permutation of the outputs at different frequency bins remains as a major problem in convolutive blind source separation (BSS). A coupled hidden Markov model (CHMM) effectively exploits the psychoacoustic characteristics of signals to mitigate such permutations. A joint diagonalization algorithm has been used for convolutive BSS; it incorporates a non-unitary penalty term within the cross-power spectrum-based cost function in the frequency domain. The proposed CHMM system couples a number of conventional HMMs, equivalent to the number of outputs, by making state transitions in each model dependent, not only on its own previous state, but also on some aspects of the state of the other models. Using this method, the permutation effect is substantially reduced; it is demonstrated using a number of simulation studies.
The Effects of Work Requirements on Welfare Participation

This paper investigates whether work requirements has effects on welfare participation, employment and disposable income. To identify a causal effect, we make use of an exogenous variation that was generated by the gradual implementation of a welfare reform in the town districts in the city of Stockholm. The reform implies that the town districts introduced work requirements for individuals on welfare, and is very suitable for examining the question at hand for two reasons. First, the reform was clean in the sense that no other policy instruments, like time limits or tax credits, were introduced at the same time, implying that we are able to estimate the direct effects of work requirements. Second, the reforms were initiated at different time points in different town districts, which will ease identification. Overall, we find that work requirements decrease welfare participation and increase employment. Also, the reform has a positive effect on disposable income, making the individuals better off as a result of the reform. We also find that work requirements seem to work best for young people and for people born outside the Western world.
Gravitational wave constraints on multi-brane inflation

A class of non-canonical inflationary models is identified, where the leading-order contribution to the non-Gaussianity of the curvature perturbation is determined by the sound speed of the fluctuations in the inflaton field. Included in this class of models is the effective action for multiple coincident branes in the finite n limit. The action for this configuration is determined using a powerful iterative technique, based upon the fundamental representation of SU(2). In principle the upper bounds on the tensor–scalar ratio that arise in the standard, single-brane DBI inflationary scenario can be relaxed in such multi-brane configurations if a large and detectable non-Gaussianity is generated. Moreover models with a small number of coincident branes could generate a gravitational wave background that will be observable in future experiments.
Opportunistic and efficient resource block allocation algorithms for LTE uplink networks

This work proposes two new Resource Block (RB) allocation algorithms for the LTE uplink. They take into account the RB adjacency constraint and update the allocation metric. Two different heuristics are proposed: an Opportunistic and Efficient RB allocation Algorithm (OEA) and a Quality of Service based Opportunistic and Efficient RB allocation Algorithm (QoS based OEA). Both algorithms seek to maximize the aggregate throughput and avoid RB wastage unlike other algorithms in the literature. The complexity of the proposed algorithms are also computed analytically and compared to other well known heuristics.
Parental involvement and mobile usage among adolescents: a comparative study of hostlers and dayscholars

The present study was conducted to assess the parental involvement and mobile usage among adolescents: A comparative study of hostlers and dayscholars. The study was comprised of 200 adolescents (100 hostlers and 100 dayscholars) belonging to middle socio-economic status in 17-18 years of age range, purposively selected from two colleges of Punjab Agricultural University of Ludhiana city. Further the sample was equally distributed over the two sexes (50 boys and 50 girls) from hostlers and dayscholars. SocioEconomic Status Scale by Meenakshi (2010) was used to determine the socio-economic status of adolescents. The Parental Involvement Scale (TPIS) (Chauhan and Arora 2009) was used to assess the parental involvement among adolescents. A self structured Mobile Usage Questionnaire was used to assess the mobile usage among adolescents. Results revealed that differences in parental involvement were non – significant among hostler and dayscholar adolescents but significant in gender differences. Among hostlers, both male and female adolescents had high parental involvement whereas in dayscholars, females had higher parental involvement as compared to males. Majority of the hostlers recharged their mobile phones more frequently as compared to dayscholars and their parents paid the monthly bills. All the respondents used their mobile phones for whole of the day for calling and chatting. Hostlers opined mobile phone as informative but also divides the people whereas dayscholars felt that it helps to express sentiments and unites the people. Hostlers used mobile phones more for text messaging and calling followed by download music, films and pictures, pass time and assignments. Males used mobile phone mainly for chatting followed by download music, films and pictures, websites and assignments purpose. All the respondents used their mobile phone for surfing internet. Males surfed internet mainly for pornographic sites and whatsapp followed by chatting, educational sites, religious sites, twitter and e-mail while females surfed mainly entertainment sites and search engines. Correlation between parental involvement and mobile usage was observed to be statistically negatively significant among all the respondents.
A Person Identification Method in CUG Using Voice Pitch Analysis

Acoustic features of voice are different according to gender due to physiological differences of the male and female speakers. Since this difference is observed in frequency range of voice, analyzing voice pitch related to this feature is useful in person identification. In this paper, we first propose a person identification method by measuring maximum and minimum frequencies of person's voice. We then propose a speech recognition method, which receives the person's voice via microphone, and transforms his/her voice to text. The proposed methods is used in a meeting management system, where it is useful to identify a person in a closed user group (CUG), and to keep a track of his/her speech.
Mexican Rice Borer (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) Injury to Corn Greater Than to Sorghum and Sugarcane Under Field Conditions

ABSTRACT The Mexican rice borer, Eoreuma loflini (Dyar) (Lepidoptera: Crambidae), is the key pest of sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) in Texas; it can attack several grassy crop and noncrop host plants and has spread into Louisiana. Through small-plot, commercial field, and pheromone trap experiments, this study demonstrates that the pest uses corn, Zea mays L. , more than sugarcane and sorghum, Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench, but when corn is harvested in late summer, injury to nearby sugarcane strongly increases during the next ≈2 mo to harvest. Corn was more infested than sugarcane and sorghum in commercial fields regardless of whether sampling occurred on field edges or farther into field interiors. Differences in numbers of infested stalks and in numbers of larval entry holes between field edges and interiors were not detected. We found that Mexican rice borer infestation of corn can cause loss of ears, and lodging, shattering, and complete destruction of maturing stalks. The larger quantities of adult Mexican rice borers captured in pheromone-based traps placed at corn field edges compared with sorghum and sugarcane field edges further indicates that corn is preferred to sugarcane and sorghum. The basis for the pest's attraction to corn and implications to potential range expansion to other U.S. sugarcane-growing regions are discussed.
The Variation of Galaxy Morphological Type with Environmental Shear

Recent N-body simulations indicate that the assembly history of galactic halos depends on the density of the large-scale environment. This implies that galaxy properties such as age and size of the bulge may also vary with the surrounding large-scale structures, which are characterized by tidal shear as well as density. Using a sample of 15,882 well-resolved nearby galaxies from the Tully catalog and the real-space tidal field reconstructed from the 2MASS Redshift Survey, we investigate the dependence of galaxy morphological type on the shear of the large-scale environment in which they are embedded. We first calculate the large-scale dimensionless overdensities (δ) and ellipticities (e) of the regions where the galaxies are located, classify them according to morphological type, and create subsamples selected at similar δ-values but spanning different ranges in e. We calculate the mean ellipticity, ⟨e⟩, averaged over each subsample and find a signal of variation of ⟨e⟩ with morphological type: for 0.5 ≤ δ ≤ 1.0, elliptical galaxies are preferentially located in regions with low ellipticity; for –0.3 ≤ δ ≤ 0.1, the latest-type spirals are preferentially located in regions with high ellipticity. The null hypothesis that the mean ellipticities of the regions where the ellipticals and the latest-type spirals are located are the same as the global mean ellipticity averaged over all types is rejected at the 3 σ level when –0.3 ≤ δ ≤ 0.1. Yet, no signal of a galaxy-shear correlation is found in highly overdense or underdense regions. The observed trend suggests that the formation epochs of galactic halos might be a function of not only halo mass and large-scale density but also large-scale shear. Since the statistical significance of the overall trend is low, a sample of at least 100,000 galaxies is required to verify this correlation.
Using support vector machines in multi-objective optimization

In many practical engineering design problems, the form of objective functions is not given explicitly in terms of design variables. Given the value of design variables, under this circumstance, the values of objective functions are obtained by real/computational experiments such as structural analysis, fluid-mechanical analysis, thermodynamic analysis, and so on. Since these experiments are considerably expensive and also time consuming, thus it is actually almost impossible to find the exact solution to those problems by using conventional optimization methods. Recently, approximation methods using computational intelligence, for example, evolutionary algorithms and neural networks have been developed remarkably. Even those algorithms need a tremendous number of experiments to obtain an approximate solution. Furthermore, most engineering design problems should be formulated as multi-objective optimization problems so as to meet the diversified demands of designer. This paper suggests applying the support vector machines (SVM) in order to make the number of experiments for finding the solution of problem with multi-objective functions as few as possible. It is shown that the proposed method can approximate Pareto frontiers in multi-objective optimization problems effectively by employing support vectors in SVM. Finally, the effectiveness of our method is illustrated through numerical examples.
An immanant formulation of the dual canonical basis of the quantum polynomial ring

We show that dual canonical basis elements of the quantum polynomial ring in $n^2$ variables can be expressed as specializations of dual canonical basis elements of $0$-weight spaces of other quantum polynomial rings. Our results rely upon the natural appearance in the quantum polynomial ring of Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomials, $R$-polynomials, and certain single and double parabolic generalizations of these.
Simulating Flying Insects Using Dynamics and Data-Driven Noise Modeling to Generate Diverse Collective Behaviors

We present a biologically plausible dynamics model to simulate swarms of flying insects. Our formulation, which is based on biological conclusions and experimental observations, is designed to simulate large insect swarms of varying densities. We use a force-based model that captures different interactions between the insects and the environment and computes collision-free trajectories for each individual insect. Furthermore, we model the noise as a constructive force at the collective level and present a technique to generate noise-induced insect movements in a large swarm that are similar to those observed in real-world trajectories. We use a data-driven formulation that is based on pre-recorded insect trajectories. We also present a novel evaluation metric and a statistical validation approach that takes into account various characteristics of insect motions. In practice, the combination of Curl noise function with our dynamics model is used to generate realistic swarm simulations and emergent behaviors. We highlight its performance for simulating large flying swarms of midges, fruit fly, locusts and moths and demonstrate many collective behaviors, including aggregation, migration, phase transition, and escape responses.
A Critical Study of Factors Promoting Cyberloafing in Organizations

With recent advancements in employee surveillance systems monitoring employee activities, there is still a huge gap in the prevention of cyberloafing activities within an organization. Cyberloafing not only discloses the effectiveness of organizational usage policy but the practices that employees follow. This paper aims to identify the factors that support cyberloafing through a proper review. As a part of the review process, we will draw observations as to how cyberloafing depends on those said factors.