Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On object-based compression for a class of dynamic image-based representations

An object-based compression scheme for a class of dynamic image-based representations called "plenoptic videos" (PVs) is studied in this paper. PVs are simplified dynamic light fields in which the videos are taken at regularly spaced locations along a line segment instead of a 2-D plane. To improve the rendering quality in scenes with large depth variations and support the functionalities at the object level for rendering, an object-based compression scheme is employed for the coding of PVs. Besides texture and shape information, the compression of geometry information in the form of depth maps is also supported. The proposed compression scheme exploits both the temporal and spatial redundancy among video object streams in the PV to achieve higher compression efficiency. Experimental results show that considerable improvements in coding performance are obtained for both synthetic and real scenes. Moreover, object-based functionalities such as rendering individual image-based objects are also illustrated.
Case study of duration‐limited wave spectra observed at an open ocean tower

A sequence of double-peaked open-ocean wave spectra was observed simultaneously with eddy correlation estimates of momentum flux and atmospheric stability over a 15-hour interval at Argus Island tower (near Bermuda) on March 22 and 23, 1967. The wave spectra were associated with a generating sea and advecting swell in the fetch of the warm sector of an advancing cyclone. The equilibrium range constant for these wave spectra was estimated at (7.8 ± 1.6) × 10−3. The Miles-Phillips exponential growth parameter was in reasonably good agreement with other field investigations, and observations support predicted amplification factors given by Phillips (1966) over the range 20 ≤ C/U* ≤ 32 where C is wave phase speed and U* is the friction velocity. Two observations of both linear and exponential growth parameters associated with spectral frequencies of 0.13 and 0.14 Hz were available to compare predicted and observed wave growth, with good results after correction for residual wave background. Observed temporal overshoot-undershoot of a particular wave component is interpreted in terms of an energy balance between wind input, wave-wave interactions, and wave breaking as a wave component evolves to its equilibrium condition. An example of spectral growth associated with advecting lower-frequency swell illustrates wave-induced fluctuations associated with momentum transfer from the sea to the atmosphere. Peaks in the horizontal and vertical wind-velocity spectra and the cospectra and quadrature spectra associated with wave spectral peaks are clearly evident when ocean swell propagates through the observation area.
PREDICTIVE FUNCTIONAL CONTROL: MORE THAN ONE WAY TO PRESTABILISE

Abstract It is possible to prestabilise the predictions used within Predictive Functional Control in order to increase the likelihood of a stabilising control design. However, the minimal order approach to prestabilisation is not always a good basis for control design. This weakness is investigated and some non-minimal forms of prestabilisation are developed which are a much better basis for control.
Attraction of Urban Rail Transit According to TOD: A Case of Shanghai

The concept of transit-oriented development (TOD) has been widely recognized in recent years for its role in reducing car traffic, improving public transportation, and enhancing traffic sustainability. This paper conducts empirical research on a developed rail transit network, using Shanghai as a case study. In addition to traditional TOD features, other factors based on urban rail transit are introduced, including multi-level modeling (MLM), which is used to analyze the possible factors influencing rail patronage. To avoid the bias of research results led by the correlation between independent variables, factors are divided into two levels. The first level includes three groups of variables: the built environment, station characteristics, and socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. The second level includes a set of variables which are regional characteristics. Results show that the most significant impact on train patronage is station location in the business district area. Other factors that have a positive effect on promoting rail transit travel include the number of service facilities around the station, degree of employment around the station, economic level, intensity of residential development, if the station is a transfer station, the operating period of the station, and the size of the large transportation hub around the station.
Stereotypes, stigma, and mental illness: learning from fieldwork experiences.

OBJECTIVES A phenomenological study explored occupational therapy students' experiences in psychiatric fieldwork. Of particular interest were students' experiences with and perceptions of persons using psychiatric services. METHOD Data were gathered from 16 informants, via in-depth interviews and participant observation, on multiple occasions throughout the students' fieldwork affiliations in hospital and community psychiatric service settings. Triangulation of data gathering methods and member checking were used to strengthen the interpretive validity of the study. RESULTS Informants manifested stereotyped preconceptions and associated anxiety regarding persons labeled as mentally ill, though the strength of such beliefs and feelings was found to diminish as fieldwork progressed. Sensationalized popular images of mental illness (e.g., that it is linked with malevolence) and some aspects of academic and clinical education (e.g., a deficit focus) seemed to adversely affect students' perceptions. CONCLUSIONS Assisting students to acquire a sound appreciation of the humanness of persons with psychiatric disorders is an educational imperative. There is a need to critically appraise academic and fieldwork practices in psychiatric occupational therapy.
Electrophysiological and Psychophysical Measures of Auditory Temporal Processing

Sara Kathryn Mamo: Electrophysiological and Psychophysical Measures of Auditory Temporal Processing (Under the direction of John H. Grose) Older adults experience greater difficulty than younger adults understanding speech in noisy, complex backgrounds. This deficit remains even when the older adults have nearly normal hearing on standard audiometric testing. Independent of hearing loss, there is evidence of age-related declines in auditory temporal processing. These suprathreshold processing deficits have been implicated as contributing factors to reduced speech perception in noise. This project uses a combination of electrophysiology, psychophysics, and speech-in-noise measures to consider temporal processing in terms of sensory and perceptual coding of complex, periodic sounds. The use of combined methods is an important approach for parsing auditory and non-auditory factors underlying speech perception abilities in older adult listeners. The hypotheses are that (1) older adults exhibit reduced amplitudes for encoding sustained stimulus components on a speech-evoked auditory brainstem measure (sABR), (2) older adults have higher thresholds for the detection of a change in the periodicity of a complex tone, and (3) these measures show within-subject correlations such that individuals with robust sABR components demonstrate more sensitive perception of temporal periodicity cues. If the hypotheses are supported, these results will improve our understanding of auditory processing deficits underlying speech perception challenges for older adults. iv To test these hypotheses, two experiments were undertaken. In experiment 1, younger and older adults participated in a sABR measure, a harmonic mistuning task, and a masked speech perception task. These measures focused on temporal envelope encoding with the intention of relating the electrophysiological and psychophysical responses to an individual's ability to benefit from temporal modulations in background noise when listening to speech. In experiment 2, the younger and older adults were compared for their encoding of both temporal envelope and fine structure on a sABR measure. In addition, a model of neural temporal jitter was tested within a sABR paradigm with the goal of simulating in younger adults the response characteristics of the older adults. Specifically, the synthetic speech token used to elicit the sABR was submitted to a jitter algorithm that disrupted the periodicity cues of the stimulus. Taken together, results from these experiments support the notion of reduced neural synchrony for older adults with normal hearing. Future directions should focus on determining the temporal measures most predictive of speech perception abilities in noisy, complex backgrounds. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Are Latin-AmericanHouseholds Neutral to Increases In Government Spending?

Using a dynamic optimization model, the Ricardian Equivalence Proposition is empirically tested for Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. The system of equations obtained in the theoretical model is solved using Ordinary Least Squares, Generalized Method of Moments and Full Information Maximum Likelihood. Results indicate that null hypothesis concerning the Ricardian equivalence proposition cannot be rejected for Brazil, but is strongly rejected for Mexico. For Argentina and Chile the results are ambiguous. Therefore, when the fiscal authority seeks to stimulate economic activity by mean of tax reduction and increase in government spending, the outstanding effect might be only raising private savings.
Physiological response of Bermudagrass(Cynodon dactylon) to different drought stresses

A pot experiment was carried out determine the physiological response of Bermudagrass(Cynodon dactylon)to different drought stresses for selecting the appropriate time of irrigation by measuring the relative water content,content of free proline and superoxidase activity.The results of this study indicated that drought stress decreased leaf relative water content and increased the content of free proline.The re-irrigation in the 12 days after drought stress restored the relative leaf water content and free proline.The re-irrigation in the 8 days after drought stress restored the superoxidase activity.This study suggested that Bermudagrass cultivated in soilless medium could tolerate 12 days drought stress,but re-irrigation in 8 days after drought stress was the best time for Bermudagrass recovery growth.
Towards standardised clinical pathways for the chronically ill - a project report

This paper is a project report on the ongoing European project NEXES, running from 2008-2011. The project overall vision is improved quality of care for the chronically ill and elderly, through more active follow-up of the patient in his/hers own home and improved collaboration processes between primary and secondary care services. A series of randomized clinical trials, to be carried out at three different sites, in Barcelona; Spain, Athens; Greece and Trondheim; Norway are at the heart of the project, and deployment and evaluation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the trials is a core objective. The project will contribute to standardised clinical pathways for chronically ill and produce requirements and guidelines on ICT deployment in such processes. The project has adopted the Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) standard as a tool for development of the clinical pathways. This standard seems well suited in that it provides a common view for all care stakeholders, and aids in clarifying core issues regarding collaboration and information flow. Regarding the issue of ICT, the technology evaluation processes to be carried out in the project will constitute an important set requirements for future development of dedicated ICT solutions for chronic care processes.
GLOBAL SYSTEM FOR MOBILE COMMUNICATION (GSM)

1 Electronics and Communication engineering, Scsvmv University,diwchowdary@gmail.com 2 Electronics and Communication engineering, Scsvmv University,akhilchowdary.karanam@gmail.com 3 Electronics and Communication engineering, RMK EngineeringCollege,kotapativamsikrishna@gmail.com 4 Electronics and Communication engineering, RMK Engineering College,sairamponnam19@gmail.com 5 Electronics and Communication engineering, RMK Engineering College,namburinithinchowdary@gmail.com
The Barremian coral fauna of the Serre de Bleyton mountain range (Drôme, SE France)

The corals of the Serre de Bleyton mountain range are determined and described. The fauna consists of very small coral remains and fragments rarely exceeding one centimetre in size. It is clearly dominated by a few solitary and small phaceloid forms, while other growth forms are very rare. The fauna comprises 26 species in 16 genera of the suborders Amphiastraeina, Archeocaeniina, Caryophylliina, Faviina, Fungiina, Microsolenina, and Stylinina. With the exception of one Amphiastrea species, all corals have small to very small calices. The faunal composition is typical of Hauterivian to Early Albian coral faunas. Palaeobiogeographically they are related to BarremianAptian faunas of the Central Tethys and the western hemisphere.
Effects of rain, nitrogen, fire and grazing on bush encroachment in semi-arid savanna, South Africa

Increases in woody plant density (‘bush encroachment’) reduce livestock production and biodiversity. By convention, soil moisture, soil nutrients, fire and herbivory are regarded as the principal factors governing the tree-grass ratio of savannas. An experiment with a completely-crossed design was employed to investigate woody seedling ( Acacia mellifera ) recruitment near Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa, after fire and under conditions of maximum-recorded rainfall, nitrogen addition and grazing. The field experiment was repeated as a garden experiment to determine if the two experiments yield comparable results. Tree germination in the field was extremely low, probably due to below-average natural rainfall in plots that only received natural rain, and insufficient watering frequency in irrigated plots. As a result of low germination, none of the treatments (rain/nitrogen/fire/grazing) had a significant effect on tree recruitment in the field experiment. The duration of the experiment (2000/2001 growing season) was insufficient for the treatments to affect grass composition, although the high rainfall treatment and grazing exclusion significantly improved grass cover and height. The garden experiment showed that frequent watering, no nitrogen addition and grass clipping significantly enhanced tree germination and survival (termed ‘recruitment’). There were also significant interactions among rain, nitrogen and grazing in their effects on tree recruitment. The effects of rain on tree recruitment were more pronounced under nitrogen supplementation and vice versa. Similarly, high rain and high nitrogen enhanced the effect of grazing on tree recruitment. It is inferred that above-average rainfall years with frequent rainfall events are required for mass tree recruitment. Tree seedlings can further benefit from space and resources which are made available through grass defoliation. Conversely, nitrogen enrichment improves the competitive ability of the fast-growing grasses relatively more than that of the N2-fixing tree component, thereby suppressing tree recruitment. In contrast to conventional wisdom that grazing alone causes encroachment, it is suggested that there are complex interactions between the abovementioned factors and ‘triggering’ events such as unusually high rainfall. Contrary to many claims that equilibrium models are inappropriate for explaining savanna dynamics, it was shown that consumer-resource theory has explanatory power for bush-grass dynamics of the savanna studied. The state-space approach that was used facilitated the understanding of savanna dynamics and enabled predictions about the system’s response to perturbations. The applicability of consumer-resource theory to semi-arid nutrient-poor savannas confirmed the importance of resource competition in structuring natural systems.
Investigation of bottleneck features and multilingual deep neural networks for speaker verification

Recently, the integration of deep neural networks (DNNs) with i-vector systems is proved to be effective for speaker veriﬁcation. This method uses the DNN with senone outputs to produce frame alignments for sufﬁcient statistics extraction. However, two types of data mismatch may degrade the performance of the DNN-based speaker veriﬁcation systems. First, the DNN requires transcribed training data, while the data sets used for i-vector training and extraction are mostly untranscribed. Second, the language of the training data for DNN is limited by the pro-nunciation lexicon, making the model unsuitable for multilingual tasks. In this paper, we propose to use bottleneck features and multilingual DNNs to narrow the gap caused by the data mismatch. In our method, a DNN is ﬁrst trained with senone labels to extract bottleneck features. Then a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) is trained with the bottleneck features to produce frame alignments. Additionally, bottleneck features based on multilingual DNNs are explored for multilingual speaker ver-iﬁcation. Experiments on the NIST SRE 2008 female short2-short3 telephone task (multilingual) and the NIST SRE 2010 female core-extended telephone task (English) demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Slow Taxis in a Predator-Prey Model

Here, δ p and δ N are positive diffusion coefficients, P e > 0 is the average predator density viewed as a parameter, N e = 1 – P e , p is the predator density fluctuation, P = P e + p ≥ 0 , and N ≥ 0 is the prey density. The polynomial nonlinearity in (2) is taken from the classical Lotka–Volterra model: it describes local reproduction and mortality in the prey, while, for the predator, the contribution of these processes on the time scales under consideration is assumed to be negligible.
A novel method for localizing abnormal behavior in crowded scene

Abstract. Computer vision algorithms have played a vital role in video surveillance systems to detect surveillance events for public safety and security. Even so, a common demerit among these systems is their unfitness to handle divers crowded scenes. In this paper, we have developed algorithms which accommodate some of the challenges encountered in videos of crowded environments to a certain degree. Unlike many approaches that use optical flow, that estimates motion vectors only from two successive frames, we made our descriptor over long-range motion trajectories which is named short trajectorys in the paper. This paper presents a novel video descriptor, referred to as Histogram of Short trajectorys, for detecting abnormal conditions in crowded scenes. Specifically, we extract 2-d histogram from magnitude and orientation matrixes which describe the motion patterns expected in each cubid. We classify frames as normal and abnormal by using machine learning methods.
Viscoelastic low-Reynolds-number flows in mixing-separating cells

In this work we investigate the flow of Newtonian and viscoelastic fluids in a mixing-separating geometry consisting of two opposed channel flows interacting through a gap in the common separating wall. This type of flow was experimentally investigated by Cochrane et al. [1] using Newtonian and viscoelastic fluids at low Reynolds number flows (Re < 40). In the present numerical study we assess the effects of Deborah and Reynolds numbers and gap size on the two-dimensional flow dynamics. The normalized gap size was varied between 0 and 5, Re varied between 0 and 50 and De varied between 0 and the maximum attainable value. For Newtonian fluids the creeping flow is anti-symmetric, due to the anti-symmetry of the fully-developed inlet conditions and the symmetry of the flow geometry. Increasing the gap size increased the reversed flow rate ratio (Rr), here defined as the ratio between the reversed and total flow rates. In this investigation we also investigate in detail the creeping flow of viscoelastic fluids obeying the upper-convected Maxwell model for which two distinct flow patterns are found. For normalized gap sizes below a critical value the reversed flow is slightly enhanced by viscoelasticity, followed by a decrease in Rr towards zero as De further increases. For a supercritical gap size viscoelasticity is responsible for a continuous increase in Rr. This flow type transition can be exploited to promote mixing, and this application will also be addressed in this work.
The peripheralisation of office development in the Dublin metropolitan area- the interrelationship between planning and development interests

The fourth office development boom in Dublin (1995-2000/2001) has had far-reaching consequences for the pattern of office development in the metropolitan area. The hallmark of this boom has been the rapid proliferation of offices at peripheral locations and, to a lesser extent, at secondary areas within the city centre. This paper investigates the relative influence of the urban planning context and private property development interests in shaping this new geography of office development and highlights the problematic consequences of this development pattern for the provision of public transport.
Detection of Deafness-Causing Mutations in the Greek Mitochondrial Genome

Mitochondrion harbors its own DNA, known as mtDNA, encoding certain essential components of the mitochondrial respiratory chain and protein synthesis apparatus. mtDNA mutations have an impact on cellular ATP production and many of them are undoubtedly a factor that contributes to sensorineural deafness, including both syndromic and non-syndromic forms. Hot spot regions for deafness mutations are the MTRNR1 gene, encoding the 12S rRNA, the MTTS1 gene, encoding the tRNA for Ser(UCN), and the MTTL1 gene, encoding the tRNA for Leu(UUR). We investigated the impact of mtDNA mutations in the Greek hearing impaired population, by testing a cohort of 513 patients suffering from childhood onset prelingual or postlingual, bilateral, sensorineural, syndromic or non-syndromic hearing loss of any degree for six mitochondrial variants previously associated with deafness. Screening involved the MTRNR1 961delT/insC and A1555G mutations, the MTTL1 A3243G mutation, and the MTTS1 A7445G, 7472insC and T7510C mutations. Although two patients were tested positive for the A1555G mutation, we failed to identify any subject carrying the 961delT/insC, A3243G, A7445G, 7472insC, or T7510C mutations. Our findings strongly support our previously raised conclusion that mtDNA mutations are not a major risk factor for sensorineural deafness in the Greek population.