Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analyzing and Visualizing Web Opinion Development and Social Interactions With Density-Based Clustering

Due to the advancement of Web 2.0 technologies, a large volume of Web opinions is available on social media sites such as Web forums and Weblogs. These technologies provide a platform for Internet users around the world to communicate with each other and express their opinions. Analysis of developing Web opinions is potentially valuable for discovering ongoing topics of interests of the public like terrorist and crime detection, understanding how topics evolve together with the underlying social interaction between participants, and identifying important participants who have great influence in various topics of discussions. Nonetheless, the work of analyzing and clustering Web opinions is extremely challenging. Unlike regular documents, Web opinions are short and sparse text messages with noisy content. Typical document clustering techniques with the goal of clustering all documents applied to Web opinions produce unsatisfactory performance. In this paper, we investigated the density-based clustering algorithm and proposed the scalable distance-based clustering technique for Web opinion clustering. We conducted experiments and benchmarked with the density-based algorithm to show that the new algorithm obtains higher microaccuracy and macroaccuracy. This Web opinion clustering technique enables the identification of themes within discussions in Web social networks and their development, as well as the interactions of active participants. We also developed interactive visualization tools, which make use of the identified topic clusters to display social network development, the network topology similarity between topics, and the similarity values between participants.
Characteristics and classification of A-type supergiants in the Small Magellanic Cloud

We address the relationship between spectral type and physical properties for A-type supergiants in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). First, we construct a self-consistent classification scheme for A supergiants, employing the calcium K to Hepsilon line ratio as a temperature-sequence discriminant. Following the precepts of the 'MK process', the same morphological criteria are applied to Galactic and SMC spectra, with the understanding that there may not be a correspondence in physical properties between spectral counterparts in different environments. Then we discuss the temperature scale, concluding that A supergiants in the SMC are systematically cooler than their Galactic counterparts at the same spectral type, by up to similar to10 per cent. Considering the relative line strengths of Hgamma and the CH G band, we extend our study to F- and early G-type supergiants, for which similar effects are found. We note the implications for analyses of luminous extragalactic supergiants, for the flux-weighted gravity-luminosity relationship and for population synthesis studies in unresolved stellar systems.
On cooperation in multi-terminal computation and rate distortion

A receiver wants to compute a function of two correlated sources separately observed by two transmitters. One of the transmitters is allowed to cooperate with the other transmitter by sending it some data before both transmitters convey information to the receiver. Assuming noiseless communication, what is the minimum number of bits that needs to be communicated by each transmitter to the receiver for a given number of cooperation bits? In this paper, first a general inner bound to the above three dimensional rate region is provided and shown to be tight in a number of interesting settings: the function is partially invertible, full cooperation, one-round point-to-point communication, two-round point-to-point communication, and cascade. Second, the related Kaspi-Berger rate distortion problem is investigated where the receiver now wants to recover the sources within some distortion. By using ideas developed for establishing the above inner bound, a new rate distortion inner bound is proposed. This bound always includes the time sharing of Kaspi-Berger's inner bounds and inclusion is strict in certain cases.
Adaptive conversion of real-valued input into spike trains

This paper presents a biologically plausible method for converting real-valued input into spike trains for processing with spiking neural networks. The proposed method mimics the adaptive behaviour of retinal ganglion cells and allows input neurons to adapt their response to changes in the statistics of the input. Thus, rather than passively receiving values and forwarding them to the hidden and output layers, the input layer acts as a self-regulating filter which emphasises deviations from the average while allowing the input neurons to become effectively desensitised to the average itself. Another merit of the proposed method is that it requires only one input neuron per variable, rather than an entire population of neurons as in the case of the commonly used conversion method based on Gaussian receptive fields. In addition, since the statistics of the input emerge naturally over time, it becomes unnecessary to pre-process the data before feeding it to the network. This enables spiking neural networks to process raw, non-normalised streaming data. A proof-of-concept experiment is performed to demonstrate that the proposed method operates as expected.
Expression of calcium-binding proteins in pathways from the nucleus of the basal optic root to the cerebellum in pigeons

Abstract Calcium-binding protein expression has proven useful in delineating neural pathways. For example, in birds, calbindin is strongly expressed in the tectofugal pathway, whereas parvalbumin (PV) is strongly expressed in the thalamofugal pathway. Whether neurons within other visual regions also differentially express calcium-binding proteins, however, has not been extensively studied. The nucleus of the basal optic root (nBOR) is a retinal-recipient nucleus that is critical for the generation of the optokinetic response. The nBOR projects to the cerebellum both directly and indirectly via the inferior olive (IO). The cerebellar and IO projections originate from different neurons within the nBOR, but whether they can also be differentiated based on calcium-binding protein expression is unknown. In this study, we combined retrograde neuronal tracing from the cerebellum and IO with fluorescent immunohistochemistry for PV and calretinin (CR) in the nBOR of pigeons. We found that about half (52.3%) of the cerebellar-projecting neurons were CR+ve, and about one-third (33.6%) were PV+ve. Most (90%) of these PV+ve cells were also labeled for CR. In contrast, very few of the IO-projecting neurons expressed CR or PV (≤2%). Thus, the direct nBOR–cerebellar and indirect nBOR–olivocerebellar pathways to the cerebellum can be distinguished based on the differential expression of CR and PV.
Pirâmides e cones de aprendizagem: da abstração à hierarquização de estratégias de aprendizagem

As pirmides e cones de aprendizagem so recursos costumeiramente utilizados no meio escolar para defender que as prticas pedaggicas que favorecem a participao mais ativa dos alunos so as mais eficientes. Na maioria das vezes, essas pirmides e cones so associadas aos estudos de William Glasser e Edgar Dale. Esses pesquisadores, contudo, no criaram uma hierarquia de estratgias mais eficientes, muito menos associaram tais estratgias a porcentagem de sucesso ou insucesso na aprendizagem. Em algum momento essa associao foi realizada e transformou-se, com o tempo, em argumento de autoridade. Tendo em vista essa realidade, o objetivo desse artigo discutir os usos desses slidos da aprendizagem, tidos, muitas vezes, como referncias para praticas pedaggicas de sucesso.
Discrimination in the Human Brain Neural Correlates of Disparity-Defined Shape

[PDF] [Full Text] [Abstract] , November 10, 2011; . Cereb. Cortex Sheng Li, Stephen D. Mayhew and Zoe Kourtzi Learning Shapes Spatiotemporal Brain Patterns for Flexible Categorical Decisions [PDF] [Full Text] [Abstract] , January 18, 2012; 32 (3): 775-786. J. Neurosci. Stephen D. Mayhew, Sheng Li and Zoe Kourtzi Learning Acts on Distinct Processes for Visual Form Perception in the Human Brain [PDF] [Full Text] [Abstract] , August 29, 2012; 32 (35): 12180-12191. J. Neurosci. Yee-Joon Kim and Preeti Verghese The Selectivity of Task-Dependent Attention Varies with Surrounding Context [PDF] [Full Text] [Abstract] , October , 2012; 22 (10): 2322-2335. Cereb. Cortex Sheng Li, Stephen D. Mayhew and Zoe Kourtzi Learning Shapes Spatiotemporal Brain Patterns for Flexible Categorical Decisions [PDF] [Full Text] [Abstract] , July 1, 2013; 110 (1): 190-203. J Neurophysiol Aidan P. Murphy, Hiroshi Ban and Andrew E. Welchman Integration of texture and disparity cues to surface slant in dorsal visual cortex
On a conjecture of the harmonic index and the minimum degree of graphs

The harmonic index of a graph G is defined as the sum of the weights 2 d(u)+d(v) of all edges uv of G, where d(u) denotes the degree of the vertex u in G. Cheng and Wang [4] proposed a conjecture: For all connected graphs G with n ≥ 4 vertices and minimum degree δ(G) ≥ k, where 1 ≤ k ≤ b 2 c + 1, then H(G) ≥ H(K∗ k,n−k) with equality if and only if G K∗ k,n−k. K∗ k,n−k is a complete split graph which has only two degrees, i.e. degree k and degree n − 1, and the number of vertices of degree k is n − k, while the number of vertices of degree n − 1 is k. In this work, we prove that this conjecture is true when k ≤ 2 , and give a counterexample to show that the conjecture is not correct when k = b 2 c + 1, n is even, that is k = 2 + 1.
African American Fathers and Sons: Social, Historical, and Psychological Considerations

The author examines the father–son relationship from both ecological and psychodynamic perspectives. The sociohistorical and cultural forces influencing African American men and their families are explored with regard to the role of fathers. The author presents theory and research to challenge the view that African American fathers are absent or uninvolved and that such absence has pathological consequences for male development. Suggestions for counseling and psychotherapy with African American men and their families are provided.
Dynamic Id Based Remote User Authentication in Multi Server Environment Using Smart Cards: A Review

Authentication refers to the process of ensuring confidentiality of data. It basically involves verifying a user's identity for accessing a system or service. There are three ways of authentication-i)using something that a user knows eg password ii)using something that a user has eg smart card or identity card iii)using something that a user is or does for example face, finger print, voice etc. To overcome the risk of partial information leakage from static id based algorithms. Dynamic id based schemes have been proposed. In this paper, we analyzed four dynamic id based remote user password authentication schemes for multi server environment using smart card. All the schemes are vulnerable to the denial of service attack.
Vegetable Exudates as Food for Callithrix spp. (Callitrichidae): Exploratory Patterns

Marmosets of the genus Callithrix are specialized in the consumption of tree exudates to obtain essential nutritional resource by boring holes into bark with teeth. However, marmoset preferences for particular tree species, location, type, and other suitable factors that aid in exudate acquisition need further research. In the current study, the intensity of exudate use from Anadenanthera peregrina var. peregrina trees by hybrid marmosets Callithrix spp. groups was studied in five forest fragments in Viçosa, in the state of Minas, Brazil. Thirty-nine A. peregrina var. peregrina trees were examined and 8,765 active and non-active holes were analyzed. The trunk of A. peregrina var. peregrina had a lower number of holes than the canopy: 11% were found on the trunk and 89% were found on the canopy. The upper canopy was the preferred area by Callithrix spp. for obtaining exudates. The intensity of tree exploitation by marmosets showed a moderate-to-weak correlation with diameter at breast height (DBH) and total tree height. The overall results indicate that Anadenanthera peregrina var. peregrina provides food resources for hybrid marmosets (Callithrix spp.) and these animals prefer to explore this resource on the apical parts of the plant, where the thickness, location, and age of the branches are the main features involved in the acquisition of exudates.
City-view image retrieval leveraging check-in data

"What is this" and "where am I" are two of the most common questions that arise when people travel abroad. Recently, landmark image retrieval has shown great promise for the addressed problem, where most common approaches are either visual-based or location-based. However, for city-view image retrieval, there could be a number of buildings in a close proximity. Moreover, it is common that photos are taken indoors. The former may degrade the performance of location-based approaches, while the latter may degrade the performance of both the visual-based and location-based approaches. To remedy the deficiencies, this paper further considers the use of check-in data of photos and presents a simple approach that unifies visual features, geo-tags, and check-in data for city-view image retrieval. Furthermore, sparse coding is applied for a high-performance and memory-efficient retrieval implementation, where a graph-based dictionary learning approach is proposed. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed approaches.
The NHL domain of BRAT is an RNA-binding domain that directly contacts the hunchback mRNA for regulation

The Drosophila protein Brain tumor (Brat) forms a complex with Pumilio (Pum) and Nanos (Nos) to repress hunchback (hb) mRNA translation during embryogenesis. It is thought that Pum contacts the hb mRNA and recruits Nos and Brat. Meister and colleagues now report that Brat directly interacts with the hb mRNA, suggesting a so far unrecognized Brat function. The Brat-NHL domain is shown to be a novel RNA-binding domain. Furthermore, Brat belongs to the TRIM-NHL family, and structural modeling suggests that Brat is part of a conserved family of RNA-binding proteins.
A computationally efficient framework for stochastic prediction of flood propagation

This paper presents a computationally efficient method to forecast floods stochastically. The main purpose of the method is to encapsulate prior knowledge as off-line calculations leading to earliest possible warnings. The computational efficiency is improved through exploiting the stereotypical features of hydrology and its dependence on topography by combining the parallel water-flow processes into parallel calculation through a probability transition matrix. Efficiency is improved further with the use of properties of Markov matrices in the general equation of the model. Extensive simulations on real rainfall data over parts of Queensland, Australia, during January 2012, revealed that this method was capable of improving the calculation efficiency by over 18 times with respect to gradient based calculations.
Nonnegative Tensor Decomposition and It's Applications in Image Processing

Nonnegative tensor decomposition is an effective data processing technique that has proven to be useful for a wide variety of applications. In this paper we get some results that a three order tensor can be represented by the matrix product. By the representation of matrix product, we give an iterative algorithm for nonnegative tensor decomposition which has good performance. We also applied our algorithm to image processing, and the reconstruct image is in good quality.
Economic Efficiency and Frontier Techniques

Most of the literature related to the measurement of economic efficiency has based its analysis either on parametric or on non-parametric frontier methods. The choice of estimation method has been an issue of debate, with some researchers preferring the parametric and others the non-parametric approach. The aim of this paper is to provide a critical and detailed review of both core frontier methods. In our opinion, no approach is strictly preferable to any other. Moreover, a careful consideration of their main advantages and disadvantages, of the data set utilized, and of the intrinsic characteristics of the framework under analysis will help us in the correct implementation of these techniques. Recent developments in frontier techniques and economic efficiency measurement such as Bayesian techniques, bootstrapping, duality theory and the analysis of sampling asymptotic properties are also considered in this paper. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2004.
Variations on a Theme

A symmetric version of the Neyman-Pearson test is developed for discriminating between sets of hypotheses and is extended to encompass a new formulation of the problem of parameter estimation based on finite data sets. Such problems can arise in distributed sensing and localization problems in sensor networks, where sensor data must be compressed to account for communication constraints. In this setting it is natural to focus on methods that balance coarse resolution of the estimates for achieving higher reliability.
Shape- and Trait-Congruency: Using Appearance-Based Cues As a Basis for Product Recommendations

This research demonstrates that a consumer’s physical appearance—and, more specifically, his or her body size—predictably influences the product(s) that the consumer is recommended. Four studies conducted in both field and lab settings show that agents more frequently recommend round (vs. angular) shaped products to heavier targets, notably for products and categories in which body size is irrelevant (e.g., lamps and perfume). We attribute this to a combination of shape-congruency and trait-congruency, whereby individuals choose products for others based on shared dimensions of the person and product.
Discriminant Waveletfaces and Nearest Feature Classifiers for Face Recognition

Feature extraction, discriminant analysis, and classification rules are three crucial issues for face recognition. We present hybrid approaches to handle three issues together. For feature extraction, we apply the multiresolution wavelet transform to extract the waveletface. We also perform the linear discriminant analysis on waveletfaces to reinforce discriminant power. During classification, the nearest feature plane (NFP) and nearest feature space (NFS) classifiers are explored for robust decisions in presence of wide facial variations. Their relationships to conventional nearest neighbor and nearest feature line classifiers are demonstrated. In the experiments, the discriminant waveletface incorporated with the NFS classifier achieves the best face recognition performance.
Susceptibility to air pollution in elderly males and females

It is important to know which individuals in the general population have increased susceptibility to air pollution. The aim of this study was to identify susceptible subgroups by studying airways hyperresponsiveness (AHR), high total immunoglobulin (Ig)E and sex. Diary data on lower and upper respiratory symptoms (LRS and URS, respectively), cough, and morning and evening peak expiratory flow (PEF) were collected in 327 elderly patients (50–70 yrs) for a period of 3 months. Acute effects of particulate matter with a diameter <10 µm, black smoke, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide on symptoms and PEF were estimated using logistic regression. In total, 48 (14.7%) subjects had AHR+/IgE+, 112 (34.3%) had AHR−/IgE+, 42 (12.8%) had AHR+/IgE− and 125 (38.2%) had AHR−/IgE−. In the AHR+/IgE+ group, each 10 µg·m−3 increase in air pollution was associated with a significant increase in prevalence of URS (odds ratio ranging 1.03–1.19), cough (1.03–1.08) and fall in morning PEF (1.04–1.26). In the AHR+/IgE+ group, males responded predominantly with symptoms and females with a fall in morning PEF. In conclusion, elderly individuals with both airway hyperresponsiveness and high total immunoglobulin E are especially susceptible to air pollution. Identifying susceptible subgroups might enlarge insight into the actual mechanisms by which air pollution evokes specific modes of response.
Non‐linear single‐armed spiral density waves in nearly Keplerian discs

Single-armed, stationary density waves can exist even in disks with only weak self-gravity, provided that the rotation curve is dominated by a central mass. Such waves could play a signiﬁcant role in the transport of angular momentum. By variational methods, we derive nonlinear versions of the dispersion relation, angular momentum ﬂux, and propagation velocity in the tight-winding limit. The pitch angle increases with amplitude until the tight-winding approximation breaks down. By other methods, we ﬁnd a series of nonlinear logarithmic spirals which is exact in the limit of small disk mass and which extends to large pitch angle. These waves may be supported by low-mass protoplanetary disks, and perhaps by compact molecular disks in galactic nuclei.
Curvature based human face recognition using depth weighted Hausdorff distance

In this paper, we propose a novel implementation of a person verification system based on depth-weighted Hausdorff distance (DWHD) using the surface curvatures of the human face. This new method incorporates the depth information and curvatures of local facial features. The weighting function used in this paper is based on depth values, which have differential properties of a face according to the people, so that the distance of this extracted edge maps are emphasized. Experimental results based on the combination of the maximum, minimum, and Gaussian curvature according to threshold values show that DWHD achieves recognition rate of 92.8%, 97.6% and 92.8% of the cases for 5 ranked candidates, respectively, and the proposed method of combined recognition rate for each curvature shows the best.
The Kármán gait: novel body kinematics of rainbow trout swimming in a vortex street

SUMMARY Most fishes commonly experience unsteady flows and hydrodynamic perturbations during their lifetime. In this study, we provide evidence that rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss voluntarily alter their body kinematics when interacting with vortices present in the environment that are not self-generated. To demonstrate this, we measured axial swimming kinematics in response to changes in known hydrodynamic wake characteristics. We compared trout swimming in the Kármán street behind different diameter cylinders (2.5 and 5 cm) at two flow speeds (2.5 and 4.5 L s-1, where L is total body length) to trout swimming in the free stream and in the cylinder bow wake. Trout swimming behind cylinders adopt a distinctive, previously undescribed pattern of movement in order to hold station, which we term the Kármán gait. During this gait, body amplitudes and curvatures are much larger than those of trout swimming at an equivalent flow velocity in the absence of a cylinder. Tail-beat frequency is not only lower than might be expected for a trout swimming in the reduced flow behind a cylinder, but also matches the vortex shedding frequency of the cylinder. Therefore, in addition to choosing to be in the slower flow velocity offered behind a cylinder (drafting), trout are also altering their body kinematics to synchronize with the shed vortices (tuning), using a mechanism that may not involve propulsive locomotion. This behavior is most distinctive when cylinder diameter is large relative to fish length. While tuning, trout have a longer body wavelength than the prescribed wake wavelength, indicating that only certain regions of the body may need to be oriented in a consistent manner to the oncoming vortices. Our results suggest that fish can capture energy from vortices generated by the environment to maintain station in downstream flow. Interestingly, trout swimming in front of a cylinder display lower tail-beat amplitudes and body wave speeds than trout subjected to any of the other treatments, implying that the bow wake may be the most energetically favorable region for a fish to hold station near a cylinder.