Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Registration process of geometric scan data of an object

One of the main problems of laser scanned data processing is the problem of combining object's point clouds received from different angles into a single coordinate system. This process is called registration of geometric surfaces or relative aligning. The purpose of pairwise registration is to find a common contact surface and optimally align one of the scans relative to another. There are many algorithms for registration of two geometric surfaces that are the alternatives of the well-known Iterative Closest Point (ICP) algorithm. This article is concerned with the problems of using these algorithms and shows possible ways to solve them by evaluating the angular orientation matrix and the translation vector of the alignment transformation of the three-dimensional models. The article contains a description of a modified algorithm for the initial 3D models align approximation. The modified algorithm is intended to work with triangulated three-dimensional laser scans. Several insights of orientated gradients histogram building were provided for overlapping shapes. The resulted histograms were analyzed in order to evaluate the angular orientation, linear translation and rotation of the models.
Image Information Retrieval Using Wavelet and Curvelet Transform

The rapid growth of multimedia data applications via Internet becomes a big challenge over the world. This research is concentrated on the implementation of an accurate and fast algorithm that retrieves image information based on vector space model. The big challenge of information retrieval is a semantic gap, which is the difference between the human perception of a concept and how it can be represented using a machine- level language. This paper aims to design an information retrieval system based on hybrid algorithm through two stages; first one is training and the second one is testing. This algorithm based on extracted features using Wavelet and Curvelet decomposition and the statistic parameters such as mean, standard deviation and energy of signals. The system is tested over 1000 images which are divided into 10 categories, each category has 100 images. The tested results of system are compared between system based on Wavelet and system based on Histogram. Performance measures are implemented applying two metrics called precision and recall. The results of training phase show that the elapsed time of system based on hybrid Algorithm is greater than the elapsed time based on DWT or Histogram. The Average Retrieving Time (ART) for system based on hybrid algorithm is less than ART based on Wavelet and Histogram.
Profilin, a multi‐modal regulator of neuronal plasticity

Thirty years after its initial characterization and more than 1000 publications listed in PubMed describing its properties, the small (ca15 kDa) protein profilin continues to surprise us with new, recently discovered functions. Originally described as an actin‐binding protein, profilin has now been shown to interact with more than a dozen proteins in mammalian cells. Some of the more recently described and intriguing interactions are within neurons involving a neuronal profilin family member. Profilin is now regarded as a regulator of various cellular processes such as cytoskeletal dynamics, membrane trafficking and nuclear transport. Profilin is a necessary element in key steps of neuronal differentiation and synaptic plasticity, and embodies properties postulated for a synaptic tag. These findings identify profilin as an important factor linking cellular and behavioural plasticity in neural circuits. BioEssays 30:994–1002, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Correlated X-Ray Spectral and Timing Behavior of the Black Hole Candidate XTE J1550–564: A New Interpretation of Black Hole States

We present an analysis of data of the black hole candidate and X-ray transient XTE J1550-564, taken with the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer between 1998 November 22 and 1999 May 20. During this period the source went through several different states, which could be divided into soft and hard states based on the relative strength of the high-energy spectral component. These states showed up as distinct branches in the color-color and hardness-intensity diagrams, connecting to form a structure with a comblike topology, the branch corresponding to the soft state forming the spine and the branches corresponding to the various hard states forming the teeth of the comb. The power spectral properties of the source were strongly correlated with its position on the branches. The broadband noise became stronger and changed from power law-like to band-limited, as the spectrum became harder. Three types of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) were found: 1-18 Hz and 102-284 Hz QPOs on the hard branches, and 16-18 Hz QPOs on and near the soft branch. The 1-18 Hz QPOs on the hard branches could be divided into three subtypes. The frequencies of the high- and low-frequency QPOs on the hard branches were correlated with each other and were anticorrelated with spectral hardness. The changes in QPO frequency suggest that the inner disk radius only increases by a factor of 3-4 as the source changes from a soft to a hard state. Our results on XTE J1550-564 strongly favor a two-dimensional description of black hole behavior, where the regions near the spine of the comb in the color-color diagram can be identified with the high state, and the teeth with transitions from the high state, via the intermediate state (which includes the very high state) to the low state, and back. The two physical parameters underlying this two-dimensional behavior vary to a large extent independently and could for example be the accretion rate through the disk and the size of the Comptonizing region causing the hard tail. The difference between the various teeth is then associated with the mass accretion rate through the disk, suggesting that high state ↔ low state transitions can occur at any disk mass accretion rate and that these transitions are primarily caused by another, independent parameter. We discuss how this picture could tie in with the canonical, one-dimensional behavior of black hole candidates that has usually been observed.
High-Performance Control Strategies and Applications of a New Hybrid Cascaded Multilevel Inverter

Multilevel inverters have been receiving increasing attention in recent years. Use of multilevel inverters has become popular for motor drive applications. Various topologies and modulation strategies have been investigated in the literature. This paper is devoted to the investigation of a new hybrid multilevel inverter system typically suitable for high-performance high-power applications. In this new topology, the H-bridge inverter (main inverter) and the 3-level diode clamped inverter (conditioning inverter) are connected together to drive the motors, but only the main inverter needs DC voltage source. The conditioning inverter is supplied by the floating ultra capacitors to store the braking energy of motors, which will be reused. The efficiency of the system can be improved. Compared with the traditional H-bridge inverter, this new scheme can reduce the DC sources while maintaining the same voltage output. When the motor is at steady state, the conditioning inverter can provide reactive power to the motor, so that the power factor of the main inverter can be improved. At the same time, the floating capacitor's voltage can be kept balanced by proper control. This scheme has a wide range of practical applications, especially in the electric vehicle motor drive and marine propulsion system.
Towards improving the performance of language identification system for Indian languages

In this paper, we present the details of a phonotactic language identification (LID) system developed for five Indian languages, English (Indian), Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil and Kan-nada. Since there are no publicly available speech databases for English, Malayalam and Kannada, we developed the database for each of the target languages by downloading the audio files from YouTube videos and removing the non-speech signals manually. The system was tested using a test data set consisting of 40 utterances with duration of 30, 10, and 3 sees, in each of 5 target languages. The performance evaluation was done separately accordingly to the NIST benchmarking sessions, for 30s, 10s and 3s segments separately. For the baseline system, we got an overall EER of 10.41 %, 19.56 % and 31.45 % for 30, 10, and 3 sees segments when tested with a 3-gram language model. The use of 4-gram language model has helped enhance the performance of the LID system to 9.81 %, 19.38 % and 32.77% respectively for 30,10 and 3 sees test segments. Further, by using the n-gram smoothing, we were able to improve the EER of the LID system, 9.02 %, 18.70 % and 29.24 % for 3-gram language models and 8.88 %, 16.46 % and 32.03 % for 4-gram language models, respectively for 30,10, and 3 sec test segments. The study shows that the use of 4-gram language models can help enhance the performance of LID systems for Indian languages.
Ethical or Not: A Case of Personal and Agency Guidelines

- Robert E. Landsman, Ph.D. Science Research Education Specialist ANOVA Science Education Consulting 1521 Ipukula St., Honolulu, HI 96821 USA Email: anovaone@aol.com At one time or another, all scientific researchers who use human and non-human animals as subjects must face the dilemma of whether or not to conduct the study. Evaluation of ethical practices involving the use of animals in scientific research is typically viewed from the perspective of established guidelines generated by scientific governing organizations. However, in the end it is the researcher who must live with what he/she has done, be it good or bad. Thus, there is another set of ethical principles carried into each research situation– that of the investigator. This paper presents a decision-making model, which integrates the ethical guidelines of the researcher with those of the scientific governing organization, for determining whether or not to perform a study using human and non-human species. Considerable attention has been focused on the issue of ethics in research through guidelines that have been generated by governing agencies such as Sigma Xi (1992), American Psychological Association (APA, 1996; Sales and Folkman 2000); the United States Government (National Research Council 1996, National Institutes of Health 2000), Animal Behavior Society (1997), among others. Such guidelines serve to ensure the welfare of the subject used in experimentation by placing limits on what the investigator can or cannot do, as well as what the investigator
Short Meditation Trainings Enhance Non-REM Sleep Low-Frequency Oscillations

Study Objectives We have recently shown higher parietal-occipital EEG gamma activity during sleep in long-term meditators compared to meditation-naive individuals. This gamma increase was specific for NREM sleep, was present throughout the entire night and correlated with meditation expertise, thus suggesting underlying long-lasting neuroplastic changes induced through prolonged training. The aim of this study was to explore the neuroplastic changes acutely induced by 2 intensive days of different meditation practices in the same group of practitioners. We also repeated baseline recordings in a meditation-naive cohort to account for time effects on sleep EEG activity. Design High-density EEG recordings of human brain activity were acquired over the course of whole sleep nights following intervention. Setting Sound-attenuated sleep research room. Patients or Participants Twenty-four long-term meditators and twenty-four meditation-naïve controls. Interventions Two 8-h sessions of either a mindfulness-based meditation or a form of meditation designed to cultivate compassion and loving kindness, hereafter referred to as compassion meditation. Measurements and Results We found an increase in EEG low-frequency oscillatory activities (1–12 Hz, centered around 7–8 Hz) over prefrontal and left parietal electrodes across whole night NREM cycles. This power increase peaked early in the night and extended during the third cycle to high-frequencies up to the gamma range (25–40 Hz). There was no difference in sleep EEG activity between meditation styles in long-term meditators nor in the meditation naïve group across different time points. Furthermore, the prefrontal-parietal changes were dependent on meditation life experience. Conclusions This low-frequency prefrontal-parietal activation likely reflects acute, meditation-related plastic changes occurring during wakefulness, and may underlie a top-down regulation from frontal and anterior parietal areas to the posterior parietal and occipital regions showing chronic, long-lasting plastic changes in long-term meditators.
A Probabilistic Framework for Vague Queries and Imprecise Information in Databases

A probabilistic learning model for vague queries and missing or imprecise information in databases is described. Instead of retrieving only a set of answers, our approach yields a ranking of objects from the database in response to a query. By using relevance judgements from the user about the objects retrieved, the ranking for the actual query as well as the overall retrieval quality of the system can be further improved. For specifying different kinds of conditions in vague queries, the notion of vague predicates is introduced. Based on the underlying probabilistic model, also imprecise or missing attribute values can be treated easily. In addition, the corresponding formulas can be applied in combination with standard predicates (from two-valued logic), thus extending standard database systems for coping with missing or imprecise data.
Staufen1s role as a splicing factor and a disease modifier in Myotonic Dystrophy Type I

ABSTRACT In a recent issue of PLOS Genetics, we reported that the double-stranded RNA-binding protein, Staufen1, functions as a disease modifier in the neuromuscular disorder Myotonic Dystrophy Type I (DM1). In this work, we demonstrated that Staufen1 regulates the alternative splicing of exon 11 of the human Insulin Receptor, a highly studied missplicing event in DM1, through Alu elements located in an intronic region. Furthermore, we found that Staufen1 overexpression regulates numerous alternative splicing events, potentially resulting in both positive and negative effects in DM1. Here, we discuss our major findings and speculate on the details of the mechanisms by which Staufen1 could regulate alternative splicing, in both normal and DM1 conditions. Finally, we highlight the importance of disease modifiers, such as Staufen1, in the DM1 pathology in order to understand the complex disease phenotype and for future development of new therapeutic strategies.
An Efficient Video Mosaic Panorama Algorithm

Digital image mosaic is an active area of research. Generally, the significances of this synthetic panorama can be explained as follows: Firstly, increasing the angle of the optics system view. Secondly, the panorama can be used for image examining, editing, analysis and understanding. Thirdly, the virtual reality system can use the panorama to appear the virtual 3-D environment. So the research of such an efficient video mosaic panorama algorithm is necessary and possible. The algorithm employs the feature-based motion estimator to estimate the video motion model parameters. Thus, we can use the result to compose the panorama. After that, for the purpose of removing the foreground objects, we use the panorama estimation process. The test results showed that the proposed algorithm is efficient.
Efficient Segmental Inference for Spatiotemporal Modeling of Fine-grained Actions

Joint segmentation and classification of fine-grained actions is important for applications in human-robot interaction, video surveillance, and human skill evaluation. In the first part of this paper we develop a spatiotemporal model that takes inspiration from early work in robot task modeling by learning how the state of the world changes over time. The spatial component models objects, locations, and object relationships and the temporal component models how actions transition throughout a sequence. In the second part of the paper we introduce an efficient algorithm for segmental inference that jointly segments and predicts all actions within a video. Our algorithm is tens to thousands of times faster than the current method on two fine-grained action recognition datasets. We highlight the effectiveness of our approach on the 50 Salads and JIGSAWS datasets and observe our model produces many fewer false-positives than competing methods and achieves state of the art performance.
Quantitative OCT-based corneal topography in keratoconus with intracorneal ring segments

Custom high-resolution high-speed anterior segment spectral domain Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) was used to characterize three-dimensionally (3-D) corneal topography in keratoconus before and after implantation of intracorneal ring segments (ICRS). Previously described acquisition protocols were followed to minimize the impact of the motions of the eye. The collected set of images was corrected from distortions: fan (scanning) and optical (refraction). Custom algorithms were developed for automatic detection and classification of volumes in the anterior segment of the eye, in particular for the detection and classification of the implanted ICRS. Surfaces were automatically detected for quantitative analysis of the corneal elevation maps (fitted by biconicoids and Zernike polynomials) and pachymetry. Automatic tools were developed for the estimation of the 3-D positioning of the ICRS. The pupil center reference was estimated from the segmented iris volume. The developed algorithms are illustrated in a keratoconic eye (grade III) pre- and 30 days post-operatively after implantation of two triangular-section, 0.3-mm thick Ferrara ring segments. Quantitative corneal topographies reveal that the ICRS produced a flattening of the anterior surface, a steepening of the posterior surface, meridional differences in the changes in curvature and asphericity, and increased symmetry of the anterior topography. Optical distortion correction through the ICRS (of a different refractive index from the cornea) allowed accurate pachymetric estimates, which showed increased thickness in the ectatic area as well as in peripheral corneal areas. Automatic tools allowed estimation of the depth of the implanted ICRS ring, as well as its rotation with respect to the pupil plane. Anterior segment sOCT provided with fan and optical distortion correction and analysis tools is an excellent instrument for evaluating and monitoring keratoconic eyes and for the quantification of the changes produced by ICRS treatment.
Reducing the Number of Initial Database States for Integration Testing

This research focuses on integration testing of enterprise systems, more concretely on how to automatically generate the initial test data to be entered into the relational database to support each test case. Existing approaches generate initial database entries for each test case one-by-one, but there are two problems with this approach. The first problem is that switching initial database states for each test case is too time consuming when we use the generated initial database states for testing. The second problem is that the total number of DB records tends to be large because many initial database states are generated. As a result, the total size of test data becomes large, which increases the cost of managing the test data and the time needed to switch initial database states for each test case. To solve these problems, we propose a framework for generating initial database states that are shared by multiple test cases. We list up the three key challenges (test case grouping, DB record arrangements, and initial database state constraint generation), and then introduce simple and reasonable solutions for each challenge. Using industrial-level enterprise systems, we confirm that our proposal reduces the number of initial database states by 49%, and the total number of DB records by 47%.
Cosmological implications of a relic neutrino asymmetry

We consider some consequences of the presence of a cosmological lepton asymmetry in the form of neutrinos. Relic neutrino degeneracy enhances the contribution of massive neutrinos to the present energy density of the Universe, and modifies the power spectrum of radiation and matter. Comparing with current observations of cosmic microwave background anisotropies and large scale structure, we derive some constraints on the neutrino degeneracy and on the spectral index in the case of a flat Universe with a cosmological constant.
Absence of the Mid-sized Neurofilament Subunit Decreases Axonal Calibers, Levels of Light Neurofilament (NF-L), and Neurofilament Content

Neurofilaments (NFs) are prominent components of large myelinated axons and probably the most abundant of neuronal intermediate filament proteins. Here we show that mice with a null mutation in the mid-sized NF (NF-M) subunit have dramatically decreased levels of light NF (NF-L) and increased levels of heavy NF (NF-H). The calibers of both large and small diameter axons in the central and peripheral nervous systems are diminished. Axons of mutant animals contain fewer neurofilaments and increased numbers of microtubules. Yet the mice lack any overt behavioral phenotype or gross structural defects in the nervous system. These studies suggest that the NF-M subunit is a major regulator of the level of NF-L and that its presence is required to achieve maximal axonal diameter in all size classes of myelinated axons.
Multi-analyte profile analysis of plasma immune proteins: altered expression of peripheral immune factors is associated with neuropsychiatric symptom severity in adults with and without chronic hepatitis C virus infection

The purpose of this study was to characterize hepatitis C virus (HCV)‐associated differences in the expression of 47 inflammatory factors and to evaluate the potential role of peripheral immune activation in HCV‐associated neuropsychiatric symptoms—depression, anxiety, fatigue, and pain. An additional objective was to evaluate the role of immune factor dysregulation in the expression of specific neuropsychiatric symptoms to identify biomarkers that may be relevant to the treatment of these neuropsychiatric symptoms in adults with or without HCV.