Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Deformable Modeling Paradigm for 3 D Shape Recovery from Visual Inputs

In this paper, we propose a deformable modeling paradigm for 3D shape recovery from visual inputs such as volumetric data and 3D point clouds. The new model is capable of automatically evolving its shape to capture the geometric boundary of the data and simultaneously discover its underlying topological structure. The deformation behavior of the model is governed by partial differential equations (e.g. the weighted minimal surface flow) that are derived by the principle of variational analysis. Unlike the level-set approach, our model always has an explicit representation of geometry and topology. The regularity of the model and the stability of the numerical integration process are ensured by three mesh optimization techniques and the Laplacian tangential smoothing operator. By allowing local adaptive refinement of the mesh, the model can accurately represent fine details. The results of our extensive experiments on synthetic and real data demonstrate robustness, high reconstruction accuracy and visual quality.
Orbits supporting bars within bars

High-resolution observations of the inner regions of barred disc galaxies have revealed many asymmetrical, small-scale central features, some of which are best described as secondary bars. Because orbital time-scales in the galaxy centre are short, secondary bars are likely to be dynamically decoupled from the main kiloparsec-scale bars. Here we show that regular orbits exist in such doubly barred potentials, and that they can support the bars in their motion. We find orbits in which particles remain on loops: closed curves which return to their original positions after two bars have come back to the same relative orientation. Stars trapped around stable loops could form the building blocks for a long-lived, doubly barred galaxy. Using the loop representation, we can find which orbits support the bars in their motion, and the constraints on the sizes and shapes of self-consistent double bars. In particular, it appears that a long-lived secondary bar may exist only when an inner Lindblad resonance is present in the primary bar, and that it would not extend beyond this resonance.
User interface design by collaborative sketching

User interface design consists of a collaborative activity where various stakeholders can all sketch the future interactive system at different levels of fidelity on different devices and computing platforms. User interfaces sketches are also intended to support prototypes on multiple computing platforms and operating systems that all impose their own capabilities and constraints. In order to support the needs for user interface design by sketching, this paper describes Gambit, a multi-platform system that provides a light-weight approach for prototyping graphical user interfaces by sketching with HTML5. The paper reports on an experiment for the most preferred platform/devices for three primary sketching functions by designers and developers in a Gambit-supported session.
A pairwise clustering based biclustering method

Gene expression data is a kind of data matrix used to represent the expression level of different genes under specific conditions simultaneously. Genes which exhibit similar patterns are often functionally related. Microarray data Biclustering is very important for the research on gene regulatory mechanisms. The fact that the elements lying in one bicluster are greatly distributed among the original data matrix adds great difficulty to detect the biclusters. In this paper a novel bicluster detection method is proposed. It makes use of the existing traditional clustering algorithms such as K-means as an intermediate tool to do data clustering. Based on an interesting phenomenon which can be proved to be a characteristic of bicluster, the biclusters are detected one by one. Especially, in order to save the extra clustering processing, a dynamic clustering table's creation method is applied. At the end of the paper experiment results on the simulated data are presented.
Randomized trial of induction chemotherapy with cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil with or without docetaxel for larynx preservation.

BACKGROUND Chemotherapy with cisplatin (P) and 5-fluorouracil (F) followed by radiotherapy in patients who respond to chemotherapy is an alternative to total laryngectomy for patients with locally advanced larynx and hypopharynx cancer. Data suggest that docetaxel (T) may add to the efficacy of PF. The objective of this trial was to determine whether adding T to PF could increase the larynx preservation rate. METHODS Patients who had larynx and hypopharynx cancer that required total laryngectomy were randomly assigned to receive three cycles of TPF or PF. Patients who responded to chemotherapy received radiotherapy with or without additional chemotherapy. Patients who did not respond to chemotherapy underwent total laryngectomy followed by radiotherapy with or without additional chemotherapy. The primary endpoint was 3-year larynx preservation rate. Secondary endpoints included acute toxicities and overall response. All statistical tests were two-sided. RESULTS Baseline patient and tumor characteristics were well balanced between the TPF (n = 110) and PF (n = 103) groups. With a median follow-up of 36 months, the 3-year actuarial larynx preservation rate was 70.3% with TPF vs 57.5% with PF (difference = 12.8%; P = .03). Patients in the TPF group had more grade 2 alopecia, grade 4 neutropenia, and febrile neutropenia, whereas patients in the PF group had more grade 3 and 4 stomatitis, thrombocytopenia, and grade 4 creatinine elevation. The overall response was 80.0% in the TPF group vs 59.2% in the PF group (difference = 20.8%; P = .002). CONCLUSIONS In patients with advanced larynx and hypopharynx carcinomas, TPF induction chemotherapy was superior to the PF regimen in terms of overall response rate. These results suggest that larynx preservation could be achieved for a higher proportion of patients.
Physical layer security for relay assisted MIMO D2D communication

This paper presents a secure beamforming design to prevent eavesdropping on multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) device-to-device (D2D) communication. The devices communicate via a trusted relay which performs physical layer network coding (PNC), and multiple eavesdroppers are trying to intercept the device information. The beamforming design is based on minimizing mean square error of the D2D communication while employing signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) threshold constraints to prevent possible eavesdropping. The channel state information of the device-to-eavesdropper and relay-to-eavesdropper channels is imperfect at the devices and relay. The channel estimation errors are assumed with Gaussian Markov uncertainty model. Consequently, robust optimization problems are formulated considering the multiple access and broadcasting stages of the D2D communication. These problems are non-convex, and two algorithms are proposed to solve them. In the numerical analysis, we discuss the convergence of the proposed algorithms, impact of the number of eavesdroppers on the performance, and the SINR distributions at eavesdroppers.
Design for autonomous self-organizing target detection system based on artificial swarms

Using multiple robots to form artificial swarms and using methods of self-organization to carry out collective cooperation to fulfill complex tasks are hotspots in researches of robotic control. Artificial swarms with the advantages of distribution, flexibility, robustness, autonomy and so on, will be the main approach to accomplish the complex tasks, such as distributed wireless network, distributed environment detecting. In this paper, the methods of artificial swarms were used to design an Autonomous Self-Organizing Target Detection System (ASOTDS). The theoretical model and the overall requirement were established. The motion strategy of the autonomous mobile platform was designed via virtual potential field. The simulation results showed that using methods of virtual potential field to build an ASOTDS can realize a close and multi-angled surveillance of a pre-designated spots. Keywords—artificial swarms; virtual potential field; target detection system; self-organization
Ensemble Learning Based Segmentation of Metastatic Liver Tumours in Contrast-Enhanced Computed Tomography

SUMMARY This paper presents an ensemble learning algorithm for liver tumour segmentation from a CT volume in the form of U-Boost and extends the loss functions to improve performance. Five segmentation algorithms trained by the ensemble learning algorithm with different loss functions are compared in terms of error rate and Jaccard Index between the extracted regions and true ones.
The Effectiveness of Recombinant Human Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone versus Thyroid Hormone Withdrawal Prior to Radioiodine Remnant Ablation in Thyroid Cancer: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

We evaluated the efficacy of recombinant human thyroid-stimulating hormone (rhTSH) versus thyroid hormone withdrawal (THW) prior to radioiodine remnant ablation (RRA) in thyroid cancer. A systematic search of MEDLINE, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, and SCOPUS was performed. Randomized controlled trials that compared ablation success between rhTSH and THW at 6 to 12 months following RRA were included in this study. Six trials with a total of 1,660 patients were included. When ablation success was defined as a thyroglobulin (Tg) cutoff of 1 ng/mL (risk ratio, 0.99; 95% confidence interval, 0.96-1.03) or a Tg cutoff of 1 ng/mL plus imaging modality (RR 0.97; 0.90-1.05), the results of rhTSH and THW were similar. There were no significant differences when ablation success was defined as a Tg cutoff of 2 ng/mL (RR 1.03; 0.95-1.11) or a Tg cutoff of 2 ng/mL plus imaging modality (RR 1.02; 0.95-1.09). When a negative 131I-whole body scan was used solely as the definition of ablation success, the effects of rhTSH and THW were not significantly different (RR 0.97; 0.93-1.02). Therefore, ablation success rates are comparable when RRA is prepared by either rhTSH or THW.
Sustainable Computing: Informatics and Systems Energy-aware Dynamic Reconfiguration Algorithms for Real-time Multitasking Systems

System optimization techniques based on dynamic reconfiguration are widely adopted for energy conservation. While dynamic voltage scaling (DVS) techniques have been extensively studied for processor energy conservation, dynamic cache reconfiguration (DCR) for reducing cache energy consumption in multitasking systems is still in its infancy. In this paper, we propose a general and flexible algorithm for energy optimization based on dynamic reconfiguration in multitasking systems. Our algorithm is flexibly parameterized and can be used to provide tradeoffs between running time and solution quality. Furthermore, it can easily incorporate variable reconfiguration overhead. Experimental results show that our technique can generate near-optimal solutions with significantly low running time and memory requirements.
Hardness of Permutation Pattern Matching

Permutation Pattern Matching (or PPM) is a decision problem whose input is a pair of permutations $\pi$ and $\tau$, represented as sequences of integers, and the task is to determine whether $\tau$ contains a subsequence order-isomorphic to $\pi$. Bose, Buss and Lubiw proved that PPM is NP-complete on general inputs. We show that PPM is NP-complete even when $\pi$ has no decreasing subsequence of length 3 and $\tau$ has no decreasing subsequence of length 4. This provides the first known example of PPM being hard when one or both of $\pi$ and $\sigma$ are restricted to a proper hereditary class of permutations. This hardness result is tight in the sense that PPM is known to be polynomial when both $\pi$ and $\tau$ avoid a decreasing subsequence of length 3, as well as when $\pi$ avoids a decreasing subsequence of length 2. The result is also tight in another sense: we will show that for any hereditary proper subclass C of the class of permutations avoiding a decreasing sequence of length 3, there is a polynomial algorithm solving PPM instances where $\pi$ is from C and $\tau$ is arbitrary. We also obtain analogous hardness and tractability results for the class of so-called skew-merged patterns. From these results, we deduce a complexity dichotomy for the PPM problem restricted to $\pi$ belonging to $Av(\rho)$, where $Av(\rho)$ denotes the class of permutations avoiding a permutation $\rho$. Specifically, we show that the problem is polynomial when $\rho$ is in the set {1, 12, 21, 132, 213, 231, 312}, and it is NP-complete for any other $\rho$.
Agile software assessment (Invited paper)

Informed decision making is a critical activity in software development, but it is poorly supported by common development environments, which focus mainly on low-level programming tasks. We posit the need for agile software assessment, which aims to support decision making by enabling rapid and effective construction of software models and custom analyses. Agile software assessment entails gathering and exploiting the broader context of software information related to the system at hand as well as the ecosystem of related projects, and beyond to include “big software data”. Finally, informed decision making entails continuous assessment by monitoring the evolving system and its architecture. We identify several key research challenges in supporting agile software assessment by focusing on customization, context and continuous assessment.
Metamaterial inspired patch antenna for WLAN application

This paper aims at describing the effect of a novel metamaterial inspired structure (Complementary Split Ring Resonator) on miniaturization of a Microstrip patch antenna. The CSRR possesses SNG property (-ε). A hexagonal microstrip patch antenna loaded with CSRR in the ground plane is studied under two different cases. The first case is loaded with an open ended CSRR and the second case is with a closed CSRR. A 20mm×20mm×1.6mm hexagonal patch antenna resonated at 8.3 GHz. Inclusion of the O-CSRR made the patch to resonate at 7.7GHz and the modified structure brought down the frequency to 5.6GHz, making it suitable for WLAN (IEEE 802.11a) application. The maximum dimension of the patch used in this work is 0. 186λ. Antenna miniaturization of 57% is inferred from the simulation results. Bandwidth, return loss and radiation efficiencies are also discussed in this paper.
Selfish genetic elements, genetic conflict, and evolutionary innovation

Genomes are vulnerable to selfish genetic elements (SGEs), which enhance their own transmission relative to the rest of an individual's genome but are neutral or harmful to the individual as a whole. As a result, genetic conflict occurs between SGEs and other genetic elements in the genome. There is growing evidence that SGEs, and the resulting genetic conflict, are an important motor for evolutionary change and innovation. In this review, the kinds of SGEs and their evolutionary consequences are described, including how these elements shape basic biological features, such as genome structure and gene regulation, evolution of new genes, origin of new species, and mechanisms of sex determination and development. The dynamics of SGEs are also considered, including possible “evolutionary functions” of SGEs.
The smell of death: evidence that putrescine elicits threat management mechanisms

The ability to detect and respond to chemosensory threat cues in the environment plays a vital role in survival across species. However, little is known about which chemical compounds can act as olfactory threat signals in humans. We hypothesized that brief exposure to putrescine, a chemical compound produced by the breakdown of fatty acids in the decaying tissue of dead bodies, can function as a chemosensory warning signal, activating threat management responses (e.g., heightened alertness, fight-or-flight responses). This hypothesis was tested by gaging people’s responses to conscious and non-conscious exposure to putrescine. In Experiment 1, putrescine increased vigilance, as measured by a reaction time task. In Experiments 2 and 3, brief exposure to putrescine (vs. ammonia and a scentless control condition) prompted participants to walk away faster from the exposure site. Experiment 3 also showed that putrescine elicited implicit cognitions related to escape and threat. Experiment 4 found that exposure to putrescine, presented here below the threshold of conscious awareness, increased hostility toward an out-group member. Together, the results are the first to indicate that humans can process putrescine as a warning signal that mobilizes protective responses to deal with relevant threats. The implications of these results are briefly discussed.
Location based surveillance for early detection of contagious outbreaks

In previous studies, non-distance-dependent surveillance strategies have improved the performance of contagious outbreaks detection. In this paper, we propose a new distance-dependent strategy that does not require ascertainment of global or local network structure, namely, simply monitoring the relative significance difference of randomly selected individuals in school and workplace. To evaluate whether such two group could indeed provide early detection, we studied a flu outbreak in contact network simulation experiments. Our experimental results show that this method could provide significant additional time to react to epidemics, especially when the infection rate is not large.
Journal of Graph Algorithms and Applications Phylogenetic Incongruence through the Lens of Monadic Second Order Logic

Within the field of phylogenetics there is growing interest in measures for summarising the dissimilarity, or incongruence, of two or more phylo-genetic trees. Many of these measures are NP-hard to compute and this has stimulated a considerable volume of research into fixed parameter tractable algorithms. In this article we use Monadic Second Order logic (MSOL) to give alternative, compact proofs of fixed parameter tractabil-ity for several well-known incongruence measures. In doing so we wish to demonstrate the considerable potential of MSOL-machinery still largely unknown outside the algorithmic graph theory community-within phylo-genetics, introducing a number of " phylogenetics MSOL primitives'' which will hopefully be of use to other researchers. A crucial component of this work is the observation that many incongruence measures, when bounded, imply the existence of an agreement forest of bounded size, which in turn implies that an auxiliary graph structure, the display graph, has bounded treewidth. It is this bound on treewidth that makes the machinery of MSOL available for proving fixed parameter tractability. Due to the fact that all our formulations are of constant length, and are articulated in the restricted variant of MSOL known as MSO1, we actually obtain the stronger result that all these incongruence measures are fixed parameter tractable purely in the treewidth (in fact, if an appropriate decomposition is given: the cliquewidth) of the display graph. To highlight the potential importance of this, we re-analyse a well-known dataset and show that the treewidth of the display graph grows more slowly than the main incon-gruence measures analysed in this article 1 .
Error Concealment Using Intra‐Mode Information Included in H.264/AVC‐Coded Bitstream

The H.264/AVC standard has adopted new coding tools such as intra‐prediction, variable block size, motion estimation with quarter‐pixel‐accuracy, loop filter, and so on. The adoption of these tools enables an H.264/AVC‐coded bitstream to have more information than was possible with previous standards. In this paper, we propose an effective spatial error concealment method with low complexity in H.264/AVC intra‐frame. From information included in an H.264/AVC‐coded bitstream, we use prediction modes of intra‐blocks to recover a damaged block. This is because the prediction direction in each prediction mode is highly correlated to the edge direction. We first estimate the edge direction of a damaged block using the prediction modes of the intra‐blocks adjacent to a damaged block and classify the area inside the damaged block into edge and flat areas. Our method then recovers pixel values in the edge area using edge‐directed interpolation, and recovers pixel values in the flat area using weighted interpolation. Simulation results show that the proposed method yields better video quality than conventional approaches.
Heart Localization from Magnetic Resonance Images Sequence

Problem statement: Heart localization is an important step in cardiac Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI) analysis. This study aims to locate the moving heart region from MRI sequence of images. Approach: The idea is to use the motion detection techniques to isolate the heart region from the background image and then apply morphological operations to construct a moving heart region mask. The mask is then applied to the MRI image to separate the Region Of Interest (ROI) that includes the heart. The K-means clustering algorithm is applied to the ROI to segment the heart walls. Results: Experimental results have shown that the performance of the proposed technique is superior to other MRI heart segmentation techniques in both complexity and accuracy. Conclusion: The proposed technique can be used as a pre segmentation step in any other future heart segmentation techniques to increase their accuracy through the localization of the moving heart region. The presented technique is fully automated technique and superior compared to other segmentation techniques.
Activity‐dependent gene regulation in conditionally‐immortalized muscle precursor cell lines

Skeletal muscle contractile activity has been implicated in many aspects of muscle cell differentiation and maturation. Much of the research in this area has depended upon costly and labor‐intensive cultures of isolated primary muscle cells because widely available immortalized muscle cell lines often do not display a high level of either spontaneous or stimulated contractile activity. We sought to develop conditionally‐immortalized skeletal muscle cell lines that would provide a source of myofibers that exhibit robust spontaneous contractile activity similar to primary muscle cultures. Using a tetracycline‐regulated retroviral vector expressing a temperature‐sensitive T‐antigen to infect primary myoblasts, we isolated individual clonal muscle precursor cell lines that have characteristics of activated satellite cells during growth and rapidly differentiate into mature myotubes with spontaneous contractile activity after culture in non‐transformation‐permissive conditions. Comparison of these cell lines (known as rat myoblast‐like tetracycline (RMT) cell lines) to primary cell cultures revealed that they share a wide variety of morphological, physiological, and biochemical characteristics. Most importantly, the time‐course and extent of activity‐dependent gene regulation observed in primary cell culture for all genes tested, including subunits of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR), muscle specific kinase (MuSK), and myogenin, is reproduced in RMT lines. These immortalized cell lines are a useful alternative to primary cultures for studying muscle differentiation and molecular and physiological aspects of electrical activity in muscle fibers. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.