Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Compression of 3D objects with multistage color-depth panoramic maps

Summary form only given. A new representation method, the multistage color-depth panoramic map (or panomap), is proposed for compressing 3D graphic objects. The idea of the proposed method is to transform a 3D graphic object, including both the shape and color information, into a single image. Existing image compression techniques can then be applied for compressing the panomap structure, which can achieve a highly efficient representation due to its regularity. In our experiments, compressing the color part of a CMP with a lossy method (JPEG) and the depth part with a lossless one (PNG) achieves good reconstruction quality with low bit rates.
Convergent Message-Passing Algorithms for Inference over General Graphs with Convex Free Energies

Inference problems in graphical models can be represented as a constrained optimization of a free energy function. It is known that when the Bethe free energy is used, the fixed-points of the belief propagation (BP) algorithm correspond to the local minima of the free energy. However BP fails to converge in many cases of interest. Moreover, the Bethe free energy is non-convex for graphical models with cycles thus introducing great difficulty in deriving efficient algorithms for finding local minima of the free energy for general graphs. In this paper we introduce two efficient BP-like algorithms, one sequential and the other parallel, that are guaranteed to converge to the global minimum, for any graph, over the class of energies known as "convex free energies". In addition, we propose an efficient heuristic for setting the parameters of the convex free energy based on the structure of the graph.
Femtocell systems with self organization capabilities

In this paper we present a self-organization technique to manage interference in femtocell networks. We model femtocells as a multiagent system implementing a form of Reinforcement Learning (RL) known as Q-Learning (QL) to solve the aggregated interference problem originated due to the macro-femtocell systems coexistence. We discuss this approach and propose a modification in order to solve some of the potential implementation limits of the QL algorithm. In order to achieve a more accurate environment representation and therefore a more appropriate femtocell system behavior, we combine Fuzzy logic with QL, in the form of Fuzzy Q-Learning (FQL), which allows agents to represent continuously the state and action spaces. Results are presented for the proposed QL and FQL algorithms as well as for two other FQL approaches with less complex perceptions of the surrounding environment and targets and a smart power control proposed by the 3GPP standardization body.
A 6-7GHz CMOS receiver frontend with a wide frequency tuning range

This paper presents a fully integrated RF receiver frontend for the 6-7-GHz range, intended for future satellite applications, implemented in a standard 0.18 /spl mu/m CMOS technology. It consists of a differential low noise amplifier, an active mixer, two passive mixers, and a quadrature voltage-controlled oscillator. The complete receiver is packaged in a standard 80-pin ceramic flat pack (CFP) and consumes 85 mW from a 1.8-V supply. Measurement results show that the receiver has an overall gain of 8 dB, a -5.5 dBm input-referred third-order intercept point (IIP3), and an image-rejection ratio (IRR) of 45 dB, without using any image rejection filters.
Evolutionary Advantages of Neuromodulated Plasticity in Dynamic, Reward-based Scenarios

Neuromodulation is considered a key factor for learning and memory in biological neural networks. Similarly, artificial neural networks could benefit from modulatory dynamics when facing certain types of learning problem. Here we test this hypothesis by introducing modulatory neurons to enhance or dampen neural plasticity at target neural nodes. Simulated evolution is employed to design neural control networks for T-maze learning problems, using both standard and modulatory neurons. The results show that experiments where modulatory neurons are enabled achieve better learning in comparison to those where modulatory neurons are disabled. We conclude that modulatory neurons evolve autonomously in the proposed learning tasks, allowing for increased learning and memory capabilities.
Recognition based text localization from natural scene images

With the rapid increase of multimedia data, textual content in an image has become a very important source of information for several applications like navigation, image search and retrieval, image understanding, captioning, machine translation and several others. Scene text localization is the first step towards such applications and most current methods focus on generating a small set of high precision detectors rather than obtaining large set of detections covering all text patches. In this work we propose a novel hybrid framework for text localization which uses character level recognition recursively in a feedback mechanism to refine text patches and reduce false positives. We use popular MSER algorithm at multiple scales as an initial region proposal algorithm and several filtering stages recursively to improve precision as well as maximize recall. We aim at achieving high recall rather than achieving higher precision since several robust word recognition systems are already available. The word recognition systems are mature enough to produce highly accurate results if provided with maximum amount of regions rather than providing small set of highly precise text patches and losing several other text regions. The main contribution of this paper is the use of character recognizer within a novel feedback mechanism to recursively search for text regions in the neighborhood of previously detected text patches. Using 3 publicly available benchmark datasets (ICDAR2011, MSRA TD-500 and OSTD), we demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed framework for text localization.
Predictive Correlation Screening: Application to Two-stage Predictor Design in High Dimension

We introduce a new approach to variable selection, called Predictive Correlation Screening, for predictor design. Predictive Correlation Screening (PCS) implements false positive control on the selected variables, is well suited to small sample sizes, and is scalable to high dimensions. We establish asymptotic bounds for Familywise Error Rate (FWER), and resultant mean square error of a linear predictor on the selected variables. We apply Predictive Correlation Screening to the following two-stage predictor design problem. An experimenter wants to learn a multivariate predictor of gene expressions based on successive biological samples assayed on mRNA arrays. She assays the whole genome on a few samples and from these assays she selects a small number of variables using Predictive Correlation Screening. To reduce assay cost, she subsequently assays only the selected variables on the remaining samples, to learn the predictor coefficients. We show superiority of Predictive Correlation Screening relative to LASSO and correlation learning (sometimes popularly referred to in the literature as marginal regression or simple thresholding) in terms of performance and computational complexity.
A genomic region encompassing a newly identified exon provides enhancing activity sufficient for normal myo7aa expression in zebrafish sensory hair cells

MYO7A is an unconventional myosin involved in the structural organization of hair bundles at the apex of sensory hair cells (SHCs) where it serves mechanotransduction in the process of hearing and balance. Mutations of MYO7A are responsible for abnormal shaping of hair bundles, resulting in human deafness and murine deafness/circling behavior. Myo7aa, expressed in SHCs of the inner ear and lateral line of zebrafish, causes circling behavior and abnormal hair cell function when deficient in mariner mutant. This work identifies a new hair cell‐specific enhancer, highly conserved between species, located within Intron 2–3 of zebrafish myosin 7a (myo7aa) gene. This enhancer is contained within a 761‐bp DNA fragment that encompasses a newly identified Exon of myo7aa and whose activity does not depend on orientation. Compensation of mariner mutation by expression of mCherry‐Myo7aa fusion protein under the control of this 761‐bp DNA fragment results in recovery of balance, normal hair bundle shape and restored hair cell function. Two smaller adjacent fragments (344‐bp and 431‐bp), extracted from the 761‐bp fragment, both show hair cell‐specific enhancing activity, with apparently reduced intensity and coverage. These data should help understand the role of Myo7aa in sensory hair cell differentiation and function. They provide tools to decipher how myo7aa gene is expressed and regulated in SHCs by allowing the identification of potential transcription factors involved in this process. The discovered enhancer could represent a new target for the identification of deafness‐causing mutations affecting human MYO7A. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol 75: 961–983, 2015
Beyond just keeping hands on the wheel: Towards visual interpretation of driver hand motion patterns

Observing hand activity in the car provides a rich set of patterns relating to vehicle maneuvering, secondary tasks, driver distraction, and driver intent inference. This work strives to develop a vision-based framework for analyzing such patterns in real-time. First, hands are detected and tracked from a monocular camera. This provides position information of the left and right hands with no intrusion over long, naturalistic drives. Second, the motion trajectories are studied in settings of activity recognition, prediction, and higher-level semantic categorization.
Designing Ripple Carry Adder using A new Design of the CMOS Full -

This paper presents a method to Designing Ripple Carry Adder using CMOS Full-Adders for Energy-Efficient Arithmetic Applications. We present two high-speed and low-power full-adder cells de-signed with an alternative internal logic structure and pass-transistor logic styles that lead to have a reduced powerdelay product (PDP). We carried out a comparison against other full-adders reported as having a low PDP, in terms of speed, power consumption and area. All the full-adders were designed with a 0. 18μm CMOS technology, and were tested using a comprehensive test bench that allowed to measure the current taken from the full-adder inputs, besides the current provided from the power-supply. Post-layout simulations show that the proposed full-adders outperform its counterparts exhibiting an average PDP advantage of 80%, with only 40%
Effect of treatment and additional disease on pharmacokinetic of valproic acid in children with epilepsy.

BACKGROUND Most of bayesian pharmacokinetic studies and the influence of clinical variables have been carried out in adults. PURPOSE The aim was to estimate population-based pharmacokinetic of valproic acid (VPA) and to determine the effect of treatment and additional disease on its performance in children with epilepsy. MATERIAL AND METHODS For the study steady-state serum concentrations of VPA were determined from 108 epileptic patients (44 females and 64 males) who were receiving the anticonvulsant as main drug of treatment with age range since 1 to 16 years (median 4y, 6m) and weight since 5.2 to 50 kg (median 17.5 kg). All patients had their renal, hepatic and nutritional functions normal. One compartment model using interactive two-stage Bayesian approach was employed in the analysis. RESULTS; Population estimates of CL/F and V/F for VPA were 0.022 +/- 0.013 L/h and 0.217 +/- 0.134 L/kg, respectively. These estimates were significantly affected by weight, age, carbamazepine (CBZ) and gastroesophageal reflux (GER). The final regression models were: CL/F (L/h) = 0.0696 + 0.0031 (Age) + 0.0075 (Weight); and V/F (L) = 0.674 + 0.0308 (Age) + 0.0756 (Weight). Prediction of VPA serum concentration in other validation group revealed an important improvement in the predictive performance of VPA concentrations in comparison with the basic model that did not include any co-variables. CONCLUSIONS Based on a population model of children with epilepsy, the pharmacokinetic of VPA could be altered by weight, age and the administration of CBZ and additional GER to epilepsy.
Plasticity of Spatial Interactions in Early Vision

When a person is asked to perform a visual (or any other sensory) discrimination task it is often the case that he or she improves with practice, even on very sim­ ple tasks. This improvement occurs without any reinforcement and does not seem to involve conscious effort, but rather it see ms to be controlled by some inherent subconscious process. During the last decade perceptual learning was shown to be involved in a variety of visual tasks: Stereoscopic vision,25•31 gratings detection,5•8 hyper-acuity,23•30 phase discrimination,8 motion detection,2 texture discrimination (Karni and Sagi, this volume), 1•13•14 search,38 and pattern discrimination. 24 Some of these studies showed specificity of learning for location in the visual field2·8·14•24•25,30 (what was learned at one retinal location could not be used when stimulus was pre­ sented at another location), for orientation, 1•2•8•14•20•30•31 spatial frequency, 8 and direction of motion. 2 Though in most of these experiments learning was found to transfer across eyes (what was learned with one eye only could be used with the other eye), some studies showed only partial transfer2 or absence of transfer,14 thus supporting a low-level anatomical site for the learning to take place. In some cases learning was found to persist for a few weeks,2•8 or even for years15 without
Main memory evaluation of recursive queries on multicore machines

Supporting iteration and/or recursion for advanced big data analytics requires reexamination of classical algorithms on modern computing environments. Several recent studies have focused on the implementation of transitive closure in multi-node clusters. Algorithms that deliver optimal performance on multi-node clusters are hardly optimal on multicore machines. We present an experimental study on finding efficient main memory recursive query evaluation algorithms on modern multi-core machines. We review SEMINAIVE, SMART and a pair of single-source closure (SSC) algorithms. We also propose a new hybrid SSC algorithm, named SSC12, which combines two previously known SSC algorithms. We implement these algorithms on a multicore shared memory machine, and compare their memory utilization, speed and scalability on synthetic and real-life datasets. Our experiments show that, on multicore machines, the surprisingly simple SSC12 is the only transitive-closure algorithm that is consistently fast and memory-efficient on all test graphs.
Towards individualized outdoor navigation assistance for people with Alzheimer ’ s disease

This dissertation proposal outlines a new interdisciplinary approach to developing an individualized navigation assistance system for people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. The described system aims at an automatic assessment of the user’s spatial cognitive deficits imn real-tie, while adjusting the complexity and presentation of route instructions to account for the user’s residual skills and preferences. This approach provides people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease with an improved level of autonomy, while explicitly reducing the risk of creating an over-dependency on the technology. The thesis tries to make use of recent findings on the neurological background of the cognitive impairments associated with the disease and to appropriately account for individual differences in wayfinding and orientation strategies of affected individuals. It will provide a modular framework for the empirical evaluation of different means of assistance it offers.
Delayed IGF-1 Administration Rescues Oligodendrocyte Progenitors from Glutamate-Induced Cell Death and Hypoxic-Ischemic Brain Damage

We previously demonstrated that IGF-1 blocks glutamate-mediated death of late oligodendrocyte progenitors (OPs) by preventing Bax translocation, mitochondrial cytochrome c release and cleavage of caspases 9 and 3. Here, we demonstrate that IGF-1 prevents caspase 3 activation in late OPs when administered up to 16 h following exposure to glutamate. Moreover, late addition of IGF-1 to OPs previously exposed to toxic levels of glutamate promotes oligodendrocyte maturation as measured by myelin basic protein expression. We also demonstrate that intraventricularly administered IGF-1 retains OPs in the perinatal white matter after hypoxia-ischemia when given after insult. These results suggest that delayed administration of IGF-1 will rescue OPs in the immature white matter and promote myelination following hypoxia-ischemia.
ARC5, a cytosolic dynamin-like protein from plants, is part of the chloroplast division machinery

Chloroplast division in plant cells is orchestrated by a complex macromolecular machine with components positioned on both the inner and outer envelope surfaces. The only plastid division proteins identified to date are of endosymbiotic origin and are localized inside the organelle. Employing positional cloning methods in Arabidopsis in conjunction with a novel strategy for pinpointing the mutant locus, we have identified a gene encoding a new chloroplast division protein, ARC5. Mutants of ARC5 exhibit defects in chloroplast constriction, have enlarged, dumbbell-shaped chloroplasts, and are rescued by a wild-type copy of ARC5. The ARC5 gene product shares similarity with the dynamin family of GTPases, which mediate endocytosis, mitochondrial division, and other organellar fission and fusion events in eukaryotes. Phylogenetic analysis showed that ARC5 is related to a group of dynamin-like proteins unique to plants. A GFP–ARC5 fusion protein localizes to a ring at the chloroplast division site. Chloroplast import and protease protection assays indicate that the ARC5 ring is positioned on the outer surface of the chloroplast. Thus, ARC5 is the first cytosolic component of the chloroplast division complex to be identified. ARC5 has no obvious counterparts in prokaryotes, suggesting that it evolved from a dynamin-related protein present in the eukaryotic ancestor of plants. These results indicate that the chloroplast division apparatus is of mixed evolutionary origin and that it shares structural and mechanistic similarities with both the cell division machinery of bacteria and the dynamin-mediated organellar fission machineries of eukaryotes.
Identification and Characterization of Circular RNAs As a New Class of Putative Biomarkers in Human Blood

Covalently closed circular RNA molecules (circRNAs) have recently emerged as a class of RNA isoforms with widespread and tissue specific expression across animals, oftentimes independent of the corresponding linear mRNAs. circRNAs are remarkably stable and sometimes highly expressed molecules. Here, we sequenced RNA in human peripheral whole blood to determine the potential of circRNAs as biomarkers in an easily accessible body fluid. We report the reproducible detection of thousands of circRNAs. Importantly, we observed that hundreds of circRNAs are much higher expressed than corresponding linear mRNAs. Thus, circRNA expression in human blood reveals and quantifies the activity of hundreds of coding genes not accessible by classical mRNA specific assays. Our findings suggest that circRNAs could be used as biomarker molecules in standard clinical blood samples.
Shifting and stopping: fronto-striatal substrates, neurochemical modulation and clinical implications

The neuropsychological basis of attentional set-shifting, task-set switching and stop-signal inhibition is reviewed through comparative studies of humans and experimental animals. Using human functional neuroimaging, plus neuropsychological investigation of patients with frontal damage quantified by structural magnetic resonance imaging, and through parallels with effects of specific lesions of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and striatum in rats and marmosets, it is possible to define both distinct and overlapping loci for tasks such as extra-dimensional shifting and reversal learning, stop-signal reaction time and task-set switching. Notably, most of the paradigms implicate a locus in the right PFC, specifically the right inferior frontal gyrus, possibly associated with processes of response inhibition. The neurochemical modulation of fronto-striatal circuitry in parallel with effects on task performance has been investigated using specific neuropharmacological agents in animals and by human psychopharmacological investigations, sometimes in conjunction with functional imaging. Evidence is provided for double dissociations of effects of manipulations of prefrontal cortical catecholamine and indoleamine (5-HT) systems that have considerable implications in the treatment of disorders such as Parkinson's disease, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and depression, as well as in theoretical notions of how ‘fronto-executive’ functions are subject to state-dependent influences, probably related to stress, arousal and motivation.
Prognostic Value of the Six-Second Spirometry in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Cohort Study

Background The six-second spirometry has been proposed as an alternative to diagnose airflow limitation, although its prognostic value in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) remains unknown. The purpose of this study was to determine the prognostic value of the postbronchodilator forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1)/forced expiratory volume in 6 seconds (FEV6) ratio and FEV6 in COPD patients. Methods and Findings The study population consisted of 2,614 consecutive stable patients with COPD. The patients were monitored for an average period of 4.3 years regarding mortality, hospitalizations by COPD exacerbations, diagnosis of lung cancer, and annual lung function decline. The overall rate of death was 10.7 (95%CI: 8.7–12.7) per 1000 person-years. In addition to male gender, age and comorbidity, FEV6 (hazard ratio [HR]: 0.981, 95%CI: 0.968–0.003) and FEV1/FEV6 quartiles (lowest quartile (<74% pred.): HR 3.558, 95%CI: 1.752–7.224; and second quartile (74–84% pred.): HR 2.599, 95%CI: 1.215–5.561; versus best quartile (>0.89% pred.)) were independently associated with mortality, whereas FEV1 was not retained in the model. 809 patients (30.9%) had at least one hospital admission due to COPD exacerbation. In addition to sex, age, smoking and comorbidity, FEV1 and FEV1/FEV6 quartiles were independent risk factors of hospitalization. FEV6 was the only spirometric parameter independently related with lung function annual decline, while the FEV6 and FEV1/FEV6 quartiles were independent risk factors for lung cancer. Conclusions In a general COPD outpatient population, airflow obstruction assessed by the FEV1/FEV6 is an independent risk factor for both death and hospitalization.