Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Visual discrimination of optical material properties: a large-2 scale study 3

23 Complex visual processing involved in perceiving the object materials can be better elucidated 24 by taking a variety of research approaches. Sharing stimulus and response data is an effective 25 strategy to make the results of different studies directly comparable and can assist researchers with 26 different backgrounds to jump into the field. Here, we constructed a database containing a variety 27 of material images annotated with visual discrimination performance. We created various material 28 images by using physically-based computer graphics techniques and conducted psychophysical 29 experiments using them in both laboratory and crowdsourcing settings. The observer’s task was to 30 discriminate materials on six dimensions (gloss contrast, gloss sharpness, translucent vs. opaque, 31 metal vs. plastic, metal vs. glass, and glossy vs. painted) with several task difficulties. The 32 illumination consistency and object geometry were also varied. We used a non-verbal procedure 33 (an oddity task) so that our database could be used in diverse cross-cultural, cross-species, clinical, 34 and developmental studies. The results showed that discrimination performance was affected by 35 the illumination condition and object geometry, in agreement with previous studies on gloss 36 perception, although the pattern of effects was slightly different for some material dimensions. We 37 also found that the ability to discriminate the spatial consistency of specular highlights in 38 glossiness perception showed larger individual differences than in other tasks. The results obtained 39 through crowdsourcing were strongly correlated with those obtained in the laboratory, which 40 suggests that our database can be used even when the experimental conditions are not strictly 41 controlled. Several projects using our dataset are underway. 42 43 44 45
Can I Borrow Your ATM? Using Virtual Reality for (Simulated) In Situ Authentication Research In Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR)

in situ authentication research, discuss our findings in the light of prior works, and conclude with three key lessons to support researchers in deciding when to use VR for in situ authentication research. formance and behaviour when interacting with two different ATM replications and b) how embedding an authentication scheme into its actual usage context impacts the experiment’s usability results. Our results show that in situ authentications take longer than isolated ones with an increase in the authentication times by 24.71% in the real world (RW) and by 14.17% in VR. We also investigated a more vivid VR environment (see Fig. 3) to investigate the impact of external factors such as social density [47] on in situ authentication evaluations, which increased authentication times by 22.31% compared to an evaluation in a virtual lab environment. Our VR research approach contributed to some sense of authentication real- ism, even in a fully controlled user study. We found that (simulated) in situ VR evaluations elicited a higher sense of presence (M=3.77, SD=1.67) compared to a VR authentication evaluation in the lab (M=3.05, SD=1.80) and resulted in a decreased feeling of being part of a user study (M=3.15, SD=1.11) compared to a traditional lab study in the real world (M=3.70, SD=1.23). These results highlight the potential of using VR for authentication research that is closer to reality. Despite the effort put into simulating such an ATM scenario in the lab and recreating it in VR, there still remains a gap between research in the wild and what is possible to simulate. For example, our simulations were not able to elicit PIN entry shielding behaviour, which happens in reality as observed by De Luca et al. [21].
A Novel Automated Shoeprint Matching Technique for use as Forensic Evidence in Criminal Investigation

This work presents a technique in which a database of outsole pattern of shoeprint images has been automatically sorted against a query shoeprint image. Shoe marks found at the place of crime are used to provide valuable forensic evidence. This system presents a technique for rotation and intensity invariant automatic shoeprint matching so that the spatial positioning of the reference shoeprint image does not have to correspond with the spatial positioning of the shoeprint images of the database. Gabor transform has been used to extract multi resolution features of a shoeprint. Radon transform has been used to estimate the rotation of the shoeprint image and is compensated by rotating the features in opposite direction. Shoeprint database has been generated by inviting participants to tread on an inkpad and then stamp on a piece of paper. Template query images have been compared using Euclidean distance classifier which has been used to find a suitable match. The performance of the proposed algorithm has been evaluated in terms of percentage accuracy for four different matching methods. This technique performs better compared to results obtained using power spectral density features for full print images with the rotation, intensity and mixed attacks. General Terms Image processing, Forensic application.
MNE software for processing MEG and EEG data

(M/EEG) measure the weak electromagnetic signals 33 originating from neural currents in the brain. Using these signals to characterize and locate brain activity is a 34 challenging task, as evidenced by several decades of methodological contributions. MNE, whose name stems from 35 its capability to compute cortically-constrained minimum-norm current estimates from M/EEG data, is a software 36 package that provides comprehensive analysis tools and work ﬂ ows including preprocessing, source estimation, 37 time – frequency analysis, statistical analysis, and several methods to estimate functional connectivity between 38 distributedbrainregions.ThepresentpapergivesdetailedinformationabouttheMNEpackageanddescribestypical 39 use cases while also warning about potential caveats in analysis. The MNE package is a collaborative effort of 40 multiple institutes striving to implement and share best methods and to facilitate distribution of analysis pipelines 41 to advance reproducibility of research. Full documentation is available at http://martinos.org/mne. 42 © 2013 Published by Elsevier Inc. 4344
Speckle Noise Reduction in Ultrasound Images Using Context-based Adaptive Wavelet Thresholding

Abstract In medical imaging, image denoising has become a very essential exercise all through the diagnosis. Compromise between the preservation of useful diagnostic information and noise suppression must be respected in medical images. One of the ultimate goals of an imaging modality is to provide the clinician with the best possible information needed to make an accurate diagnosis. Ultrasound images suffer from an intrinsic artifact called speckle. Speckle degrades spatial and contrast resolution and obscures the underlying anatomy. Thus, it seems sensible to reduce speckle artifacts before performing image analysis, provided the image that might distinguish one tissue from another is preserved. The main goal of this thesis was the development of novel methods for suppression of speckle in medical ultrasound images in the wavelet domain. We have adopted weighted variance for estimating the threshold and multiscale product scheme for thresholding the coefficients. To employ the wavelet interscale dependencies, the adjacent wavelet subbands are multiplied. Multiplying the adjacent wavelet scales would sharpen the important structures while reducing noise. In the multiscale products, edges can be efficiently discriminated from noise. Then, an adaptive threshold was calculated and imposed on the products, instead of on the wavelet coefficients, to identify important features. Fundamentally speckle noise is a signal-dependent one, and so weighted variance of each background pixel was taken into account while calculating threshold. Experiments show that the proposed scheme better suppresses noise and preserves edges than other wavelet-denoising methods. Experiments with synthetic and real ultrasound imagery show that the proposed method improves the signal-to-noise ratio and preserves edge clarity.
La interrelación entre la riqueza de arvenses y la fertilización condiciona la proteína del grano del trigo

Trabajo presentado en el XVI Congreso de la Sociedad Espanola de Malherbologia (SEMh), celebrado en la Universidad Publica de Navarra (Pamplona- Iruna), entre los dias 25 y 27 de octubre de 2017. -- Coordinado por Mercedes Royuela Hernando y Ana Zabalza Aznarez.
1991 International Conference on Parallel Processing B-SYS: A 470-Processor Programmable Systolic Array y

This paper presents an architecture for programmable systolic arrays that provides simple and e(cid:14)cient systolic communication. The Brown Systolic Array is a linear implementation of this Systolic Shared Register architecture; a working 470-processor prototype system performs 108 MOPS. A 32-chip, 1504-processor implementation could provide 5 GOPS of systolic co-processing power on a single board
Quantifying phytoplankton productivity and photoinhibition in the Ross Sea Polynya with large eddy simulation of Langmuir circulation

Southern Ocean phytoplankton assemblages acclimated to low-light environments that result from deep mixing are often sensitive to ultraviolet and high photosynthetically available radiation. In such assemblages, exposures to inhibitory irradiance near the surface result in loss of photosynthetic capacity that is not rapidly recovered and can depress photosynthesis even after transport below depths penetrated by inhibitory irradiance. We used a coupled biophysical modeling approach to quantify the reduction in primary productivity due to photoinhibition based upon experiments and observations made during the spring bloom in Ross Sea Polynya (RSP). Large eddy simulation (LES) was used to generate depth trajectories representative of observed Langmuir circulation that were passed through an underwater light field to yield time series of spectral irradiance representative of what phytoplankton would have experienced in situ. These were used to drive an assemblage-specific photosynthesis-irradiance model with inhibition determined from a biological weighting function and repair rate estimated from shipboard experiments on the local assemblage. We estimate the daily depth-integrated productivity was 230 mmol C m−2. This estimate includes a 6-7% reduction in daily depth-integrated productivity over potential productivity (i.e., effects of photoinhibition excluded). When trajectory depths were fixed (no vertical transport), the reduction in productivity was nearly double. Relative to LES estimates, there was slightly less depth-integrated photoinhibition with random walk trajectories and nearly twice as much with circular rotations. This suggests it's important to account for turbulence when simulating the effects of vertical mixing on photoinhibition due to the kinetics of photodamage and repair.
Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems (PerMI ‘12) Workshop

This paper describes a model to replicate the dynamics of a walking robot inside USARSim. USARSim is an existing 3D simulator based on the Unreal Engine, which provides facilities for good quality rendering, physics simulation, networking, a highly versatile scripting language and a powerful visual editor. To model the dynamics of a walking robot the balance of the robot in relation with the contact points of the body with the environment has to be calculated. To guarantee a fast frame rate several approximations in this calculation have to be tried, and the performance (both in dynamics and computational effort) is evaluated in a number of experiments. This extension is made and validated for the humanoid robot Nao. On this basis many other applications become possible. A validated simulation allows us to develop and to experiment with typical robotic tasks before they are tested on a real robot.
Electronic Health Record System : A Perspective to Improve the Value of Services Rendered to Patients in Healthcare Organization in Rwanda , Case of CHUB and Hopital De Nemba

--In Rwanda, many healthcare organizations are still using a paper based patients’ data record system although it still present weaknesses to share health patients’ information across different services when necessary. In developed countries, the EHR has been put in place to revolutionize the paper based record system but still the EHR has some challenges related to privacy, security, or interoperability. The purpose of this research was to assess the existing patients’ data record system in healthcare sector in Rwanda, see what an EHR can improve to the system in place and assess the acceptance of EHR as system which is interoperable, very secure and interoperable and see whether stakeholders are ready to adopt the system. The case based methodology was used and TAM theoretical framework to design the questionnaire for the survey. A judgmental sample across two cases, CHUB and Hopital de Nemba, has been selected and SPSS has been used for descriptive statistics. After a qualitative analysis, the findings showed that the paper based record is useful, gives complete information about the patient, protects the privacy of patients but it is still less secure and less interoperable. The respondents shown that they are ready to use the proposed EHR System and want it secure, capable of enforcing the privacy but still they are not all ready for the interoperability. A conclusion has been formulated; recommendations and further research have been proposed. Keywords---EHR system, healthcare service, TAM, privacy, interoperability.
University of Groningen Synchronization of Pulse-Coupled Oscillators and Clocks under Minimal Connectivity Assumptions

Populations of flashing fireflies, claps of applauding audience, cells of cardiac and circadian pacemakers reach synchrony via event-triggered interactions, referred to as pulse couplings. Synchronization via pulse coupling is widely used in wireless sensor networks, providing clock synchronization with parsimonious packet exchanges. In spite of serious attention paid to networks of pulse coupled oscillators, there is a lack of mathematical results, addressing networks with general communication topologies and general phase-response curves of the oscillators. The most general results of this type (Wang et al., 2012, 2015) establish synchronization of oscillators with a delay-advance phase-response curve over strongly connected networks. In this paper we extend this result by relaxing the connectivity condition to the existence of a root node (or a directed spanning tree) in the graph. This condition is also necessary for synchronization.
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM J(cid:220)LICH GmbH

Automatic performance tools must of course be tested as to whether they perform their task correctly. Because performance tools are meta-programs, tool testing is more complex than ordinary program testing, and comprises at least three aspects. First, it must be ensured that the tools do neither alter the semantics nor distort the run-time behavior of the application under investigation. Next, it must be veri(cid:2)ed that the tools collect the correct performance data as required by their speci(cid:2)cation. Finally, it must be checked that the tools indeed perform their intended tasks: For badly performing applications, relevant performance problems must be detected and reported, and, on the other hand, tools should not diagnose performance problems for well-tuned programs without such problems. In short, performance tools should be semantics-preserving , complete and correct . Focusing on the correctness aspect, testing can be done by using synthetic test functions with controllable performance properties, and/or real world applications with known performance behavior. A systematic test suite can be built from such functions and other components, possibly with the help of tools to assist the user in putting the pieces together into executable test programs.
Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth Reservoir Stimulation’s Effect on Depletion-Induced Seismicity

Depletion-induced seismicity can pose a problem in some fluid-producing subsurface reservoirs, in some cases requiring production rate control in order to limit the seismicity. This study investigates the use of reservoir stimulation to reduce the depletion-induced seismicity rate. Depletion-induced stress and pore pressure changes are evaluated in a shale cap rock, sandstone reservoir, and shale underburden system, which contains a horizontal well, all modeled in plane strain conditions. The seismicity rate is then predicted based on an existing seismicity model and is found to be dependent on the direction the well is drilled in with respect to the principal stresses. The case where the reservoir has first been stimulated is compared to the case where stimulation has not been performed (using the same production rates) for normal, reverse, and strike-slip faulting stress regimes. Seismicity is reduced in the case of reservoir stimulation for both reverse and strike-slip faulting stress regimes. The seismicity rate is only slightly reduced for the normal faulting stress regime. Stimulation also increases the distance that changes in pore pressure dominate over poroelastic stress changes in the reservoir. Further, it is found that the optimal orientation of a horizontal well, in terms of induced seismicity, is parallel to the minimum principal stress in normal faulting stress regimes and parallel to the maximum principal stress in reverse faulting stress regimes. The orientation of a horizontal well determines where the seismicity is located in a strike-slip faulting stress regime. Plain Language Summary When fluid is removed from underground reservoir rocks during, for example, oil and gas production, it is observed that the stress changes caused in the reservoir by this fluid removal can cause earthquakes. This has been seen in places like Southwestern France, where large amounts of gas production have caused numerous instances of earthquakes large enough to be felt by the nearby public. In order to offer a potential partial solution to this problem, we investigated what it is specifically that causes these stresses. In essence, it is easier to remove fluid from certain kinds of rocks, and, the easier it is to remove fluid from a rock, the smaller the stress changes will be in the surrounding rock and the less likely it will be for earthquakes to occur. Therefore, we investigate whether implementing the use of hydraulic fracturing to more easily produce fluids from reservoir rocks would cause less stress changes and thereby less earthquakes. Our models show this to be the case; we suggest that producing fluid out of a fractured reservoir rock may actually result in fewer earthquakes than producing fluid out of an unfracked reservoir rock.
Energy‐efficient CPU frequency control for the Linux system

Efficiency of energy usage in computing systems improves, however, still not at the rate matching the climbing demand for computing capacity. To address this urging problem, computing elements of the latest generation, that is, CPUs/graphics processing units, memory units, and network interface cards, have been designed to operate in multiple modes with differentiated energy consumption levels. Mode switching and high‐frequency performance monitoring functions have also been exposed by co‐designed abstract programming interfaces. The challenge of energy‐efficient computing is to develop hardware control mechanisms taking advantage of the new capabilities. This paper aims at giving an insight into the structure of optimal energy‐aware CPU frequency scaling rules. It gives a characterization of solutions to the optimal control problem of energy‐efficient real‐time packet inspection performed by a Linux server. A class of CPU frequency switching rules, exploiting dynamic voltage and frequency scaling mechanisms, is constructed based on experimentally identified model of server operations. The control rules are demonstrated to outperform the default CPU frequency scaling governor for the Linux kernel, both in terms of achievable power savings and service quality. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Generic Application-Level Protocol Analyzer and its Language

Application-level protocol analyzers are important components in tools such as intrusion detection systems, firewalls, and network monitors. Currently, protocol analyzers are written in an ad-hoc fashion using low-level languages such as C, incurring a high development cost and security risks inherent in low-level language programming. Motivated by the large number of application-level protocols and new ones constantly emerging, we have architected and prototyped a Generic Application-level Protocol Analyzer (GAPA), consisting of a protocol specification language (GAPAL) and an analysis engine that operates on network streams and traces. GAPA allows rapid creation of protocol analyzers, greatly reducing the development time needed. It uses a syntax similar to that found in existing specification documents and supports both binary and text-based protocols. The GAPA design goals include expressiveness, ease of use, safety, and low overhead; it is intended to operate well in an adversarial environment. Our evaluation demonstrates that our GAPA language is expressive and easy to use for practical protocols, and our GAPA system is scalable and allows online analysis of protocol traffic. We have already found GAPA to be useful in intrusion detection, firewall, and networking monitoring contexts, and we envision additional applications, such as automatic vulnerability signa-
On the evaluation of music genre recognition systems

We argue that an evaluation of system behavior at the level of the music is required to usefully address the fundamental problems of music genre recognition (MGR), and indeed other tasks of music information retrieval, such as autotagging. A recent review of works in MGR since 1995 shows that most (82 %) measure the capacity of a system to recognize genre by its classification accuracy. After reviewing evaluation in MGR, we show that neither classification accuracy, nor recall and pre- cision, nor confusion tables, necessarily reflect the capacity of a system to recognize genre in musical signals. Hence, such figures of merit cannot be used to reliably rank, promote or discount the genre recognition performance of MGR systems if genre recognition (rather than identification by irrelevant confounding factors) is the objective. This motivates the development of a richer experimental toolbox for eval- uating any system designed to intelligently extract information from music signals.
Fine Contaminated Sediment Erosion/Deposition in the Buffalo River, New York

This paper documents part of a project which sought to characterize sediment transport in the Buffalo River as a contribution toward planning for dredging or in-place containment of the contaminated bed sediments. It extends earlier analysis in the following directions: i) more detailed consideration of the characteristics and behavior of the fine sediments of the river bed; ii) incorporation of fine sediment scour into HEC-6 program; and iii) longer-term transport simulation aimed at evaluating the viability of the bury-in-place option for managing contaminated sediments.
Rendering of Subjective Speckle Formed by Rough Statistical Surfaces

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 Rendering of Subjective Speckle Formed by Rough Statistical Surfaces