Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
WAVELET VISIBLE DIFFERENCE MEASUREMENT BASED ON HUMAN VISUAL SYSTEM CRITERIA FOR IMAGE QUALITY ASSESSMENT

A reliable quality measure is a much needed tool to determine the type and amount of image distortions. To improve the quality measurement include incorporation of simple models of the human visual system (HVS) and multi-dimensional tool design, it is essential to adapt perceptually based metrics which objectively enable assessment of the visual quality measurement. In response to this need, This paper proposes a new model of image quality measurement called the Modified Wavelet Visible Difference Predictor MWVDP based on various psychovisual models, yielding the objective factor called Probability Score (PS) that correlates well with visual error perception, and demonstrating very good performance. Thus, we avoid the traditional subjective criteria called Mean Opinion Score (MOS), which involves human observers, are inconvenient, time-consuming and influenced by environmental conditions. Widely blurriness or blockiness. Besides the PS score, the model MWVDP provides a map of the visible differences VDM (Visible Difference Map) between the original image and its degraded version. To quantify human judgments based on the mean opinion score (MOS), we measure the covariation between the subjective ratings and the degree of distortion obtained by the probability score PS.
Multi-Core Programming Increasing Performance through Software Multi-threading Shameem

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Intel Corporation may have patents or pending patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights that relate to the presented subject matter. The furnishing of documents and other materials and information does not provide any license, express or implied, by estoppel or otherwise, to any such patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights. Intel may make changes to specifications, product descriptions, and plans at any time, without notice. Fictitious names of companies, products, people, characters, and/or data mentioned herein are not intended to represent any real individual, company, product, or event. Intel products are not intended for use in medical, life saving, life sustaining, critical control or safety systems, or in nuclear facility applications. and VTune are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. † Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. n 1945, mathematician John von Neumann, with the aid of J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, wrote a memo proposing the creation of an Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer, more famously known as the EDVAC. In this paper, von Neumann suggested the stored-program model of computing. In the von Neumann architecture, a program is a sequence of instructions stored sequentially in the computer's memory. The program's instructions are executed one after the other in a linear, single-threaded fashion. As time went on, advancements in mainframe technology expanded upon the ideas presented by von Neumann. The 1960s saw the advent of time-sharing operating systems. Run on large mainframe computers, these operating systems first introduced the concept of concurrent program execution. Multiple users could access a single mainframe computer simultaneously and submit jobs for processing. From the program's …
A Full Duplex Multi-channel MAC Protocol for Multi-hop Cognitive Radio Networks

Cognitive radio (CR) offers a new mechanism for flexible usage of radio spectrum. This paper presents a full-duplex multi-channel MAC protocol designed for CR enabled multi-hop networks. Each node is equipped with at least two transceivers, one for transmitting and another for receiving. A node selects an unused frequency band as its home channel (HCh) and tunes its receiver to its HCh. When a node j has a packet to transmit to its neighbor i, node j tunes its transmitter to the HCh of node i and sends the packet(s) to node i using CSMA/CA scheme of IEEE 802.11 DCF mode. The protocol has two flavors: (a) With a common control channel which requires 3 transceivers and (b) without the control channel. Simulation studies show that the proposed protocol outperforms IEEE 802.11 DCF mode by a factor of 20
A pr 2 00 2 Will Jets Identify the Progenitors of Type Ia Supernovae ?

We use the fact that a Type Ia supernova has been serendipitously discovered near the jet of the active galaxy 3C 78 to examine the question of whether jets can enhance accretion onto white dwarfs. One interesting outcome of such a jet-induced accretion process is an enhanced rate of novae in the vicinity of jets. We present results of observations of the jet in M87 which appear to have indeed discovered 11 novae in close proximity to the jet. We show that a confirmation of the relation between jets and novae and Type Ia supernovae can finally identify the elusive progenitors of Type Ia supernovae.
RECOVERY OF FUSARIUM GRAMINEARUM , CAUSE OF WHEAT HEAD SCAB , AND DEOXYNIVALENOL FROM INOCULATED LEAVES AT ADULT PLANT STAGE IN THE GREENHOUSE

In Australia both Fusarium graminearum and F. pseudograminearum cause head blight and crown rot of wheat and this work compares the aetiology and diversity between the two species. A total of 199 isolates of F. pseudograminearum and 118 isolates of F. graminearum obtained from wheat grown in Queensland and northern New South Wales and were identified using published species-specific PCR assays. The phenotypic measures used include aggressiveness on wheat, corn, sorghum, canola, barley, rye, oat and triticale, mycotoxins produced in autoclaved-wheat culture, growth rate on potato dextrose agar, spore size and the number of macroconidia produced in culture. To measure aggressiveness, the middle spikelet of wheat, oat, barley, rye and triticale was inoculated at flowering with 10-μL suspension of 105 macroconidia/ mL. Number of spikelets infected was recorded at 14 days after inoculation. Corn, sorghum and canola were inoculated using sterile toothpicks colonised by the pathogen by growing in potato dextrose broth for 7 days and the length of stem rot was recorded after 14 days. Genotypic relationship between the two species was evaluated using Amplified fragment length polymorphism with five primer pair combinations. Both species produced the same mycotoxins Deoxynivalenol (DON), Zearalenone (ZEA) and nivalenol (NIV). NIV concentration in all samples tested was less than 250 ppb, while DON concentration ranged between 2.5 ppm and 0.71 ppm in F. pseudograminearum and 4.4 ppm and 2.4 ppm in F. graminearum. ZEA concentration was considerably higher in F. graminearum (3.0-11.9 ppm) than in F. pseudograminearum (0.9-2.2 ppm). The symptoms and severity of diseases produced on the heads of the cereal crops were similar. Both species caused canker and stem rot in canola, and stalk rot in corn and sorghum. A high level of genotypic diversity was observed within each species. All F. graminearum isolates produced homothallic perithecia in culture but only 8% of F. pseudograminearum isolates produced heterothallic perithecia in culture. Although there were variations in all the phenotypic and genotypic measures for each species, the level of variation in F. graminearum was higher than in F. pseudograminearum. 2003 National Fusarium Head Blight Forum Proceedings 121 Epidemiology and Disease Management RECOVERY OF FUSARIUM GRAMINEARUM, CAUSE OF WHEAT HEAD SCAB, AND DEOXYNIVALENOL FROM INOCULATED LEAVES AT ADULT PLANT STAGE IN THE GREENHOUSE Shaukat Ali* Plant Pathology Department, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58105 *Corresponding Author: PH: (701) 231-6467; E-mail: Shaukat.ali@ndsu.nodak. edu
Simultaneous Product Attribute Name and Value Extraction with Adaptively Learnt Templates

If we present the products as the attribute name and value pairs, it will improve the effectiveness of many applications. In this paper, we propose an adaptive template based method to simultaneously extract the product attribute name and value pair from Web pages. The titles of Web pages are used to assist the unsupervised template construction. And the template ranking strategy ensures the correct templates of every Web page are selected. Our approach contains four key steps: 1) construct domain attribute word bag by the titles of Web pages. 2) segment text nodes based on some default delimiters. 3) collect candidate attribute and value pairs 4) learn high-quality templates by a template ranking algorithm. The experimental corpus is collected from two domains: digital camera and mobile phone. Experiments show the precision of 94.68% and recall of 90.57% can be got by our method.
Effect of Human Resource Practices on Organizational Commitment in Pakistani Universities

3 Abstract: Pakistan is a developing country, which has a dire need of providing best possible educational facilities to the university students. In today's technologically advanced world highly educated and technical human resource is required to operate and manage developmental tools/infrastructure. Supply of such human resources to various sectors of a country is possible only through universities having high educational standard and faculty members with strong organizational commitment. The purpose of this research is to probe into the effects of HRM practices namely promotion, performance evaluation and compensation on organizational commitment of faculty members of Universities in Pakistan. 206 teachers of various Pakistani universities were selected randomly, irrespective of gender, race and designation and dispensed with a questionnaire. The results show that organizational commitment is strongly, positively influenced by compensation practices adopted by the universities. However performance evaluation and promotion practices were found to have no significant relationship with Organizational commitment.
A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Pilot Study of Simvastatin in Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

Background and Purpose— Studies suggest statins ameliorate aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH)-induced cerebral vasospasm and ischemic complications. We tested safety and feasibility of simvastatin 80 mg/d for vasospasm prevention in SAH patients. Methods— Thirty-nine statin-naïve Fisher grade 3 SAH subjects were double-blind randomized to receive simvastatin 80 mg/d (n=19) or placebo (n=20), stratified by Hunt and Hess grade. Primary end points were death and drug morbidity. Results— Mortality was 3/20 in the placebo and 0/19 in the simvastatin group. Study drug was withdrawn in 1 subject in each treatment group for reversible liver enzyme or creatine phosphokinase elevation. Angiographically-confirmed vasospasm occurred in 8/20 placebo and 5/19 simvastatin-treated subjects. Vasospasm-related ischemic infarcts developed in 5/20 placebo and 2/19 simvastatin-treated subjects. Conclusion— Simvastatin for the prevention of delayed cerebral ischemia is safe and feasible after SAH. A larger study is needed to test its efficacy.
Rapid detection of aneuploidy (trisomy 21) by allele quantification combined with melting curves analysis of single-nucleotide polymorphism loci.

BACKGROUND Molecular approaches for the detection of chromosomal abnormalities will allow the development of rapid, cost-effective screening strategies. We present here a molecular alternative for the detection of aneuploidies and, more specifically, trisomy 21. METHODS We used the quantitative value of melting curve analysis of heterozygous genetic loci to establish a relative allelic count. The two alleles of a given single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) were differentiated by thermodynamic stability with a fluorescently labeled hybridization probe and were quantified by relative areas of derivative melting curves detected after fluorescence resonance energy transfer. Heterozygous SNPs provided internal controls for the assay. RESULTS We selected six SNPs, heterozygous in at least 30% of a random population, to form a panel of informative loci in the majority of a random population. After normalization to a heterozygous control, samples segregated into three categories; nontrisomic samples had mean allele ratios of 0.96-1.09, whereas trisomic samples had mean ratios of 1.84-2.09 or 0.46-0.61, depending on which allele was duplicated. Within-run mean CVs of ratios were 6.5-27%, and between-assay mean CVs were 13-24%. CONCLUSIONS The use of melting curve analysis of multiple SNPs is an alternative to the use of small tandem repeats for the detection of trisomies. Because of the high density of SNPs, the approach may be specifically useful for very fine mapping of the regions of chromosome 21 that are critical for Down syndrome; it is also applicable to aneuploidies other than trisomy 21 and to specimens that are not amenable to cytogenetic analysis.
Deterministic Blind Identification of IIR Systems With Output-Switching Operations

In this paper, a deterministic blind identification approach is proposed for linear output-switching systems, which are modeled by multiple infinite impulse-response (IIR) dynamic functions. By adopting a new over-sampling strategy, the concerned single-input-single-output (SISO) output-switching system is equivalently transformed into a time-invariant multi- input-multi-output (MIMO) system. Further, by exploring the mutual relations among the multiple inputs, the time-invariant MIMO system model and subsequently the output-switching system model are identified uniquely up to a scalar constant using the proposed identification approach. Sufficient identifiability conditions are provided for output-switching systems and numerical simulations are carried out to validate the proposed approach.
Scalability Issues in Telecommunication Services

The development of the network technology is allowing the introduction of complex interactive services. The implementation of complex services available to milli ons of users on very large networks introduces strong scalabilit y requirements, which are not addressed by today's technology. This paper describes some of the problems, and presents an overview of a possible solution, based on the use of mobile agents. A location service model and a partial implementation are presented, which scale to large number of clients and still allow a high rate of updates. The chosen application is a scalable audio on demand service. Audio servers are dynamically deployed in response to the degradation of quality of the audio received by the clients. In result, the service is able to adapt to overloaded servers and link congestion.
The lying behaviour of non-lactating, pregnant dairy cows wintered in a loose-housed barn on woodchip bedding material

Winter represents an important time for dairy herds in the southern South Island of New Zealand. In an attempt to address poor performance in forage crop-based wintering systems, farmers are increasingly using off-paddock methods of wintering, such as housing their cows in barns. The aims of this study were to monitor the lying behaviour of cows wintered in a loose-housed barn with woodchip bedding during three separate seven day periods to determine (i) if recommended lying times were being met, and (ii) if bedding moisture content could be used as a predictor of lying time. Twenty-one non-lactating dairy cows were selected, based on age, body condition score and stage of pregnancy, from a housed herd of 90 mixed-age cows. Lying and standing movements were recorded at thirty second intervals using an electronic movement data logger attached to the ankle of each cow. Monitoring in Period 1 commenced four days after the cows entered the barn for wintering in early June; Period 2 occurred in early July, just prior to the removal and replacement of bedding material, and Period 3 occurred in mid-July when cows were again on fresh bedding material. Average daily lying times were two hours longer during Periods 1 and 3, when barn material was fresh (10.7 and 10.5 h/day, respectively), than when soiled during Period 2 (8.4 h/day). The difference in lying behaviour was due to a difference in the number of lying bouts: cows had fewer lying bouts during Period 2 (6.1 per day) than Periods 1 & 3 (7.4 and 7.9 per day, respectively). The average moisture content of the bedding was 60.7, 68.4 and 64 . 3 % for Periods 1, 2 and 3, respectively. Bedding moisture content per se did not appear to be a good predictor of lying time, suggesting other factors such as bedding bedding surface management and the welfare of housed dairy cows.
Partitioning under timing and area constraints

Circuit partitioning is a very extensively studied problem. In this paper we formulate the problem as a nonlinear program (NLP). The NLP is solved for the objective of minimum cutset size under the constraints of timing. Our proposed methodology easily extends to multiple constraints that are very dominant in the design of large scale VLSI Systems. The NLP is solved using the commercial LP/NLP solver MINOS. We have done extensive testing using large scale RT level benchmarks and have shown that our methods can be used for exploring the design space for obtaining constraint satisfying system designs. We also provide extensions for solving system design problems where a choice between multiple technologies, packaging components, performance, cost, yield, and more can be the constraints for design related decisions.
The Complexity of Learning Principles and Parameters Grammars

We investigate models for learning the class of context-free and context-sensitive languages (CFLs and CSLs). We begin with a brief discussion of some early hardness results which show that unrestricted language learning is impossible, and unrestricted CFL learning is computationally infeasible; we then briefly survey the literature on algorithms for learning restricted subclasses of the CFLs. Finally, we introduce a new family of subclasses, the principled parametric context-free grammars (and a corresponding family of principled parametric context-sensitive grammars), which roughly model the "Principles and Parameters" framework in psycholinguistics. We present three hardness results: first, that the PPCFGs are not efficiently learnable given equivalence and membership oracles, second, that the PPCFGs are not efficiently learnable from positive presentations unless P = NP, and third, that the PPCSGs are not efficiently learnable from positive presentations unless integer factorization is in P.
Verification and Sensitivity Analysis of Minimum Spanning Trees in Linear Time

Komlos has devised a way to use a linear number of binary comparisons to test whether a given spanning tree of a graph with edge costs is a minimum spanning tree. The total computational work required by his method is much larger than linear, however. This paper describes a linear-time algorithm for verifying a minimum spanning tree. This algorithm combines the result of Komlos with a preprocessing and table look-up method for small subproblems and with a previously known almost-linear-time algorithm. Additionally, an optimal deterministic algorithm and a linear-time randomized algorithm for sensitivity analysis of minimum spanning trees are presented.
Walking Robots — A Survey and a Research Proposal

This survey article examines the present understanding and demonstrated ability in the field of robot locomotion by walking. It seeks to take a very pragmatic view of the problem of efficiently traversing uneven terrain in an uncontrolled environment. It critically evaluates the techniques and technologies presently being employed by walking robots and also introduces a new approach.
Theoretical Limitations on the Rate of Transmission of Information

A review of early work on the theory of the transmission of information is followed by a critical survey of this work and a refutation of the point that, in the absence of noise, there is a finite limit to the rate at which information may be transmitted over a finite frequency band. A simple theory is then developed which includes, in a first-order way, the effects of noise. This theory shows that information may be transmitted over a given circuit according to the relation H ≤ 2BT log (1 + C/ N), where H is the quantity of information, B the transmission link bandwidth, T the time of transmission, and C/N the carrier-to-noise ratio. Certain special cases are considered, and it is shown that there are two distinctly different types of modulation systems, one trading bandwidth linearly for signal-to-noise ratio, the other trading bandwidth logarithmically for signal-to-noise ratio. The theory developed is applied to show some of the inefficiencies of present communication systems. The advantages to be gained by the removal of internal message correlations and analysis of the actual information content of a message are pointed out. The discussion is applied to such communication systems as radar relays, telemeters, voice communication systems, servomechanisms, and computers.
Morphological and gradient based fingerprint image segmentation

For personal identification the use of fingerprint identification systems is mostly common. First step for an Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) is the segmentation of fingerprint from the acquired image. Extraction of region of interest (ROI) from the desired fingerprint impression is the main purpose of segmentation. In this paper, we present a new technique for fingerprint segmentation using morphological operations and modified gradient based technique. The distinct feature of our technique is that it gives high accuracy for fingerprint segmentation even for low quality fingerprint images. The proposed algorithm is applied on standard fingerprint databases, FVC2002 and FVC2004. Experimental results demonstrate the improved performance of the proposed scheme.
Dietary phosphorus intake and mortality in moderate chronic kidney disease: NHANES III.

BACKGROUND Dietary phosphorus intake is usually restricted in dialysis patients but the associations of dietary phosphorus intake with mortality in moderate chronic kidney disease (CKD) are unknown. Therefore, we examined these associations in National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III. METHODS Dietary phosphorus intake was estimated from 24-h dietary recalls administered by trained personnel. CKD was defined as estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) <60 mL/min/1.73 m(2). Time to mortality was examined by Cox regression models taking into account the complex survey design. RESULTS 1105 adults with CKD were studied. Phosphorus intake was 1033 ± 482 mg/day (mean ± SD), eGFR was 49.3 ± 9.5 mL/min/1.73 m(2) and serum phosphorus was 3.5 ± 0.5 mg/dL. Compared to those in the lowest tertile of phosphorus intake (mean 532 ± 161 mg/day), those in the highest third (1478 ± 378 mg/day) had similar serum phosphorus levels (3.6 ± 0.5 versus 3.5 ± 0.6 mg/dL, P = 0.113) and modestly higher eGFR (50.0 ± 8.1 versus 47.5 ± 12.0 mL/min/1.73 m(2), P = 0.014). After adjustment for demographics, comorbidity, eGFR, physical activity, energy intake and nutritional variables, phosphorus intake was not associated with mortality [hazard ratio (HR) 0.98 per 100 mg/dL increase, 0.93-1.03]. CONCLUSIONS High dietary phosphorus intake is not associated with increased mortality in moderate CKD, presumably because serum phosphorus levels are maintained in the normal range at this level of GFR. Interventional trials are needed to define optimal phosphorus intake in moderate CKD.