Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automation and Integration of Industries through Computer Vision Systems

Computer vision is the enterprise of automating and integrating a wide range of processes and representations used for vision perception. It includes many techniques that are useful by themselves, such as image processing (transforming, encoding, and transmitting images) and statistical pattern classification (statistical decision theory applied to general patterns, visual or otherwise). Moreover, it also includes techniques for geometric modeling and cognitive processing. The field of computer vision may be best understood by considering different types of applications. Many of these applications involve tasks that require either work in a hostile environment, a high rate of processing, access and use of large databases of information, or are tedious for people to perform. Computer vision systems are used in many and various types of environments – from manufacturing plants, to hospital surgical suits, and to the surface of Mars. For example, in manufacturing systems, computer vision is often used for quality control. In this application, the computer vision system scans manufactured items for defects and provides control signals to a robotic manipulator to remove defective parts automatically. Current examples of medical systems being developed include: systems to diagnose skin tumors automatically, systems to aid neurosurgeons during brain surgery, systems to perform clinical tests automatically, etc. The field of law enforcement and security is also an active area for computer vision system development with applications ranging from automatic identification of fingerprints to DNA analysis. The aim of this paper is to show some of the most important vision-related topics which can have a more or less direct impact on the machine vision and industrial automation research fields. The paper covers a general Tushar Jain & Meenu 964 purpose computer or machine vision systems with its industrial applications.
Climate effects of dust aerosols over East Asian arid and semiarid regions

East Asia is a major dust source in the world. Mineral dusts in the atmosphere and their interactions with clouds and precipitation have great impacts on regional climate in Asia, where there are large arid and semiarid regions. In this review paper, we summarize the typical transport paths of East Asian dust, which affect regional and global climates, and discuss numerous effects of dust aerosols on clouds and precipitation primarily over East Asian arid and semiarid regions. We hope to provide a benchmark of our present understanding of these issues. Compared with the aerosols of Saharan dust, those of East Asian dust are more absorptive of solar radiation, and its direct radiative forcing at the top of atmosphere is nearly positive or nil. It means that aerosols of East Asian dust can influence the cloud properties not only by acting as cloud condensation nuclei and ice nuclei (via first indirect effect, second indirect effect, and invigoration effect) but also through changing the relative humidity and stability of the atmosphere (via semidirect effect). Converting visible light to thermal energy, dust aerosols can burn clouds to produce a warming effect on climate, which is opposite to the first and second indirect effects of aerosols. The net dust aerosol radiative effects are still highly unclear. In addition, dust can inhibit or enhance precipitation under certain conditions, thus impacting the hydrological cycle. Over Asian arid and semiarid regions, the positive feedback loop in the aerosol‐cloud‐precipitation interaction may aggravate drought in its inner land.
Innovativeness and Factors that Affect the Information Technology Adoption in the Classroom by Primary Teachers in Chile

This research examines the factors that influence the intention to use information tech - nology in the classroom by primary school teachers based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology and their technological predisposition. In particular, the relationship be-tween teachers’ innovativeness and their beliefs associated with the use of technology in the classroom was analyzed. To this end, 212 teachers from three provinces of Chile were surveyed. Data were analyzed using partial least squares statistical technique. Results indicate that performance expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions influence the intention to use information technology in the classroom. It was found that the intention to use construct is a determinant of the use of technology, which validates the robustness of the model in a context of primary education. In addition, it was validated that teachers’ innovativeness determines their beliefs about the use of information technology in the classroom.
Differential Effects of Controllable Stress Exposure on Subsequent Extinction Learning in Adult Rats

Deficits in fear extinction are thought to be related to various anxiety disorders. While failure to extinguish conditioned fear may result in pathological anxiety levels, the ability to quickly and efficiently attenuate learned fear through extinction processes can be extremely beneficial for the individual. One of the factors that may affect the efficiency of the extinction process is prior experience of stressful situations. In the current study, we examined whether exposure to controllable stress, which is suggested to induce stress resilience, can affect subsequent fear extinction. Here, following prolonged two-way shuttle (TWS) avoidance training and a validation of acquired stress controllability, adult rats underwent either cued or contextual fear-conditioning (FC), followed by an extinction session. We further evaluated long lasting alterations of GABAergic targets in the medial pre-frontal cortex (mPFC), as these were implicated in FC and extinction and stress controllability. In cued, but not in contextual fear extinction, within-session extinction was enhanced following controllable stress compared to a control group. Interestingly, impaired extinction recall was detected in both extinction types following the stress procedure. Additionally, stress controllability-dependent alterations in GABAergic markers expression in infralimbic (IL), but not prelimbic (PL) cortex, were detected. These alterations are proposed to be related to the within-session effect, but not the recall impairment. The results emphasize the contribution of prior experience on coping with subsequent stressful experiences. Moreover, the results emphasize that exposure to controllable stress does not generally facilitate future stress coping as previously claimed, but its effects are dependent on specific features of the events taking place.
Collaborative Public Management: New Strategies for Local Governments

Preface 1. Collaboration at the Core 2. Managing in an Age of Collaboration 3. Models of Collaborative Management 4. Collaborative Activity and Strategy 5. Linkages in Collaborative Management 6. Policy Design and Collaborative Management 7. Jurisdiction-Based Management 8. The Future of Public Management and the Challenge of Collaboration Appendixes A. Survey Design and Administration B. Economic Characteristics of the Sample Cities References Index
Evaluation and Determinants of Underprescription of Erythropoiesis Stimulating Agents in Pre-Dialysis Patients with Anaemia

Background: Inadequate anaemia correction (haemoglobin (Hb) <11 g/dl without receiving an erythropoiesis-stimulating agent (ESA) is common in pre-dialysis patients, but little is known about its determinants. We used data from the French end-stage renal disease (ESRD) registry to investigate these determinants and the patients’ anaemia status 1 year after starting dialysis. Methods: Pre-dialysis anaemia care was studied in 6,271 incident ESRD patients from 13 regions, who were first treated between 2003 and 2005. Data included pre-dialysis Hb measure and ESA use, patient’s condition and modalities of dialysis initiation. Anaemia status at 1 year was studied in 925 patients from four regions who started dialysis in 2003 and 2004, were still on dialysis one year later, and had completed the annual registry data form. Results: Overall, 34.7% of the patients had inadequate pre-dialysis anaemia correction, with variations across regions from 21.1 to 43.2%. Inadequate anaemia correction decreased from 38.0% in 2003 to 33.2% in 2005. It was less likely in patients with diabetic or polycystic kidney disease and more likely in those with malignancy, unplanned haemodialysis, and low glomerular filtration rate or low serum albumin at dialysis initiation. One year after starting dialysis, inadequate correction concerned only 2.6% of the patients. Hb level had risen from 10.3 g/dl in pre-dialysis to 11.7 g/dl, but remained lower in those with inadequate pre-dialysis correction. Conclusion: Despite improvement over time, inadequate correction with ESAs remains high in pre-dialysis patients in contrast with those on dialysis. As the timing of dialysis initiation is uncertain, continuous management of anaemia is requested.
Independent and tight regulation of transcriptional units in Escherichia coli via the LacR/O, the TetR/O and AraC/I1-I2 regulatory elements.

Based on parameters governing promoter activity and using regulatory elements of the lac, ara and tet operon transcription control sequences were composed which permit the regulation in Escherichia coli of several gene activities independently and quantitatively. The novel promoter PLtetO-1 allows the regulation of gene expression over an up to 5000-fold range with anhydrotetracycline (aTc) whereas with IPTG and arabinose the activity of Plac/ara-1 may be controlled 1800-fold. Escherichia coli host strains which produce defined amounts of the regulatory proteins, Lac and Tet repressor as well as AraC from chromosomally located expression units provide highly reproducible in vivo conditions. Controlling the expression of the genes encoding luciferase, the low abundance E.coli protein DnaJ and restriction endonuclease Cfr9I not only demonstrates that high levels of expression can be achieved but also suggests that under conditions of optimal repression only around one mRNA every 3rd generation is produced. This potential of quantitative control will open up new approaches in the study of gene function in vivo, in particular with low abundance regulatory gene products. The system will also provide new opportunities for the controlled expression of heterologous genes.
Probabilistic Models for Collective Entity Resolution Between Knowledge Graphs

The growing popularity of structured knowledge bases such as knowledge graphs necessitates integrating multiple knowledge sources. A key component of this integration is entity resolution (ER), reconciling instances of a single entity occurring in different knowledge graphs. In contrast to the conventional ER problem setting, we consider the scenario where ER judgments for related entities are made collectively while also determining when a new entity should be added to the graph. Our approach uses hinge-loss Markov random fields to define a joint probability distribution over entity coreferences. We apply this model to two publicly-available knowledge graphs, MusicBrainz and Freebase where relational structure allows us to collectively resolve musical artists and albums, achieving an F1 of 0.84. 1 Motivation Knowledge base construction is a problem of growing importance, and a number of projects are working to use human collaboration[1, 5] or automatic methods[6] to produce structured knowledge bases of entities and their attributes and relationships referred to as knowledge graphs (KGs). The rise of KGs motivates the problem of integrating information between KGs, which often includes subproblems such as entity resolution, schema mapping, and data fusion. We are interested in the problem of integrating facts and entities from a source KG, such as MusicBrainz, into a target KG, such as Freebase. We assume that the predicates have been aligned; however, for each source entity e1, we need to determine if it matches an existing target entity e2, or if it is a new entity e3. In our case, the entities correspond to musicians, albums, and tracks on albums, but the technique is quite general. 2 Approach and Preliminary Results Our approach is to generate a set of candidate matches C(e1) based on matching names, and then to pick e2 ∈ C(e1) such that sim(e1, e2) is maximized. The problem is that the similarity of two entities depends on which other entities they are connected to, so the entity resolution decisions have to be made jointly. Collective entity resolution[4] techniques have shown much promise, and in our ∗work performed while at Google Inc.
Whole-body scanning PCR; a highly sensitive method to study the biodistribution of mRNAs, noncoding RNAs and therapeutic oligonucleotides

Efficient tissue-specific delivery is a crucial factor in the successful development of therapeutic oligonucleotides. Screening for novel delivery methods with unique tissue-homing properties requires a rapid, sensitive, flexible and unbiased technique able to visualize the in vivo biodistribution of these oligonucleotides. Here, we present whole body scanning PCR, a platform that relies on the local extraction of tissues from a mouse whole body section followed by the conversion of target-specific qPCR signals into an image. This platform was designed to be compatible with a novel RT-qPCR assay for the detection of siRNAs and with an assay suitable for the detection of heavily chemically modified oligonucleotides, which we termed Chemical-Ligation qPCR (CL-qPCR). In addition to this, the platform can also be used to investigate the global expression of endogenous mRNAs and non-coding RNAs. Incorporation of other detection systems, such as aptamers, could even further expand the use of this technology.
Is there an interaction between human immunodeficiency virus and Plasmodium falciparum?

BACKGROUND There is a potential for interaction between malaria and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. HIV infection might reduce immunity to malaria resulting in more frequent and severe infections; conversely malaria might enhance the progression of HIV infection to AIDS. In this paper we have reviewed some of the studies that have addressed this topic. METHODS Studies identified by a MEDLINE search were systematically reviewed and the measures of association between the two infections were either abstracted or recalculated from the reported data. Inferences drawn from these studies and the biological plausibility of an interaction are discussed. RESULTS The prevalence ratio (PR) of peripheral parasitaemia among HIV seropositive (HIVSP) individuals compared to HIV seronegative (HIVSN) individuals ranged from 0.72 to 0.94 in children and from 3.3 to 0.69 in adults. However, only one study showed a statistically significant difference between HIVSP and HIVSN groups (PR 3.3, 95% CI: 2.7-4.2). The rate ratio of non-severe malaria among HIVSP children compared to HIVSN children was 1.4 (95% CI: 0.99-2.0). Data from a trial of chemoprophylaxis during pregnancy suggested that placental malaria may predispose to perinatal transmission of HIV. Studies that have investigated the immune response to P. falciparum among HIVSP subjects have given variable results. CONCLUSION There is no convincing evidence for an interaction between malaria and HIV with the possible exception of an interaction between placental malaria and HIV infection. Several studies, however, had potentials for bias and/or an inadequate sample size. There is a need for carefully designed studies to resolve whether mortality from severe malaria, in particular cerebral malaria, is increased in HIVSP subjects, whether malaria infection of the placenta increases the risk of vertical transmission of HIV, and whether malaria infection increases the progression of HIV infection to AIDS.
GLASS: a graphical query language for semi-structured data

The increase in the use of XML (eXtensible Markup Language) makes the semistructured data more and more important on the Web. To exploit the full power of XML documents, a query language for semistructured data will be a promising and interesting application. However, the XQuery standard released by W3C is too difficult for common users to use. Some XML graphical query languages for semistructured data have been proposed but they are either too complex or too limited in use. We introduce a graphical query language for semistructured data, which we call GLASS. GLASS is developed on the base of ORA-SS data model, a semantically richer data model for semistructured data In GLASS, we combine the advantages of graphs and texts, which make the graphical language much clear and easy to use. The paper presents the notations and basic capabilities of GLASS via a series of examples with increasingly complexity. We also discuss some complex query examples such as order, group entity, negation and IF-THEN statement.
An Effective Nonparametric Clustering Algorithm Based on Statistical Features of Neighborhood

Many clustering algorithms require to input user-specific parameter or acquire some prior knowledge. It is not practical in some real-world applications. In this paper, an algorithm without predetermined parameters or prior knowledge, called DECLUST, is proposed to cluster spatial numeric data set. DECLUST calculates the statistical features of neighborhood for each point, and creates the candidate clusters based on the statistical features with criteria functions. The final clustering result is obtained by bottom-up agglomerative method. The time complexity of the DECLUST is O(NlogN)(N is size of the data). Three well known algorithms (DBSCAN,k-mean and EM) together with four datasets are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of DECLUST. It shows that the DECLUST outperforms these three algorithms on five measure metrics. In addition, he anti-noise ability of DECLUST is analyzed. The precision is about 93.71% when the noise point rate is around at 60%. Keywords-component; Nonparametric Clustering; Statistical Features; Delaunay Triangulation
An XML Routing Synopsis for Unstructured P2P Networks

Many emerging applications that use XML are distributed, usually over large peer-to-peer (P2P) networks on the Internet. The deployment of an XML query shipping system over P2P networks requires a specialized synopsis to capture XML data in routing tables. In this paper, we propose a novel graph-structured routing synopsis, called kd-synopsis, for deployment over unstructured super-peer based P2P networks. This synopsis is based on length-constrained FBsimulation relationship, which allows the balancing of the precision and size of the synopsis according to different space constraints on peers with heterogeneous capacity. We report comprehensive experiments to demonstrate the effectiveness of the kd-synopsis.
A nutrition strategy to reduce the burden of diet related disease: access to dietician services must complement population health approaches

Poor diet quality is implicated in almost every disease and health issue. And yet, in most advanced market economies diet quality is poor, with a minority meeting guidelines for healthy eating. Poor diet is thus responsible for substantial disease burden. Societies have at their disposal a range of strategies to influence diet behaviors. These can be classified into: (i) population level socio-educational approaches to enhance diet knowledge; (ii) pricing incentives (subsidies on healthy foods, punitive taxes on unhealthy foods); (iii) regulations to modify the food environment, and (iv) the provision of clinical dietetic services. There is little evidence that societies are active in implementing the available strategies. Advertising of “junk foods” is largely unchecked, contrasting with strict controls on advertising tobacco products, which also attract punitive taxes. Access to dieticians is restricted in most countries, even in the context of universal health care. In Australia in 2011 there were just 2,969 practicing dieticians/nutritionists or 1.3 clinicians per 10,000 persons, compared with 5.8 physiotherapists per 10,000 persons, 14.8 general practitioners (family physicians) per 10,000 persons or 75 nurses per 10,000 persons. It is time to implement comprehensive national nutrition strategies capable of effecting change. Such strategies need to be multi-component, incorporating both public health approaches and expanded publicly funded dietetic services. Access to individualized dietetic services is needed by those at risk, or with current chronic conditions, given the complexity of the diet message, the need for professional support for behavior change and to reflect individual circumstances. The adoption of a comprehensive nutrition strategy offers the promise of substantial improvement in diet quality, better health and wellbeing and lower health care costs.
Natural and anthropogenic factors shape metazoan parasite community structure in mummichog (Fundulus heteroclitus) from two estuaries in New Brunswick, Canada.

Previously published multidisciplinary studies in the Miramichi and Bouctouche rivers (New Brunswick, Canada) noted significant changes in fish health parameters, including elevated tissue levels of organic contaminants and a wide range of physiological disturbances, in mummichog Fundulus heteroclitus (L.) from a site on the Miramichi River that received bleached kraft pulpmill and municipal effluent. The present study reports differences in the abundance of individual parasite species, as well as parasite infracommunity and component community composition, in mummichog from both rivers. These differences were evaluated in relation to host (size, condition, immune function, tissue organochlorine contaminant levels) and environmental (faecal coliform counts, salinity, temperature) data derived from the previously published studies. Overall, 18 parasite species were identified, the most common of which were Ascocotyle sp. larv. , Ornithodiplostomum sp. larv. , Posthodiplostomum sp. larv. , and Proteocephalus filicollis (Rudolphi, 1802). There were broad differences in parasite community structure and composition between rivers and within rivers, the most prominent pattern being a pronounced difference between sites in the upper and lower estuary of each river that was likely driven by salinity. Mean infracommunity richness was also positively related to faecal coliforms (considered here as a surrogate measure of eutrophication via municipal sewage), and both were highest at the most polluted site. We noted no other significant relationships. Thus our data suggest that the parasite communities in these two estuaries were primarily structured by large upstream/downstream ecological gradients in salinity, and secondarily by eutrophication due to pollution by municipal and industrial effluents. Overall, our results highlight the value of coordinated multidisciplinary studies for understanding the factors that shape parasite abundance and community structure.