Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A novel verification approach for silicon retina stereo matching algorithms

This paper presents a novel verification approach for silicon retina based stereo matching algorithms. The silicon retina is a new type of bio-inspired sensor technology derived from the human vision system. The sensor only provides event-triggered information and avoids redundant data by delivering intensity changes in a scene. Due to the special characteristics and limitations of this sensor technology, existing verification approaches and performance metrics are not suitable. Thus, a tool for synthetic scene generation, ground truth generation and algorithm verification has been implemented.
Fundus autofluorescence applications in retinal imaging

Fundus autofluorescence (FAF) is a relatively new imaging technique that can be used to study retinal diseases. It provides information on retinal metabolism and health. Several different pathologies can be detected. Peculiar AF alterations can help the clinician to monitor disease progression and to better understand its pathogenesis. In the present article, we review FAF principles and clinical applications.
Power Factor Improvement with a Modified Phase-Controlled Converter

A modified phase-commutated converter with an improved power factor (PF) is presented and is analyzed for both rectifying and inverting modes. The optimal power factor firing control is formulated while taking into account commutation overlaps. Different modes of converter operation are identified and are analyzed in terms of reactive power requirements, power factor, and harmonic distortion on both ac and dc sides. The results are used to compare critically the new converter with a conventional six-pulse bridge.
A Novel Pilot Study Using Spatial Frequency Domain Imaging to Assess Oxygenation of Perforator Flaps During Reconstructive Breast Surgery

IntroductionAlthough various methods exist for monitoring flaps during reconstructive surgery, surgeons primarily rely on assessment of clinical judgment. Early detection of vascular complications improves rate of flap salvage. Spatial frequency domain imaging (SFDI) is a promising new technology that provides oxygenation images over a large field of view. The goal of this clinical pilot study is to use SFDI in perforator flap breast reconstruction. MethodsThree women undergoing unilateral breast reconstruction after mastectomy were enrolled for our study. The SFDI system was deployed in the operating room, and images acquired over the course of the operation. Time points included images of each hemiabdominal skin flap before elevation, the selected flap after perforator dissection, and after microsurgical transfer. ResultsSpatial frequency domain imaging was able to measure tissue oxyhemoglobin concentration (ctO2Hb), tissue deoxyhemoglobin concentration, and tissue oxygen saturation (stO2). Images were created for each metric to monitor flap status and the results quantified throughout the various time points of the procedure. For 2 of 3 patients, the chosen flap had a higher ctO2Hb and stO2. For 1 patient, the chosen flap had lower ctO2Hb and stO2. There were no perfusion deficits observed based on SFDI and clinical follow-up. ConclusionsThe results of our initial human pilot study suggest that SFDI has the potential to provide intraoperative oxygenation images in real-time during surgery. With the use of this technology, surgeons can obtain tissue oxygenation and hemoglobin concentration maps to assist in intraoperative planning; this can potentially prevent complications and improve clinical outcome.
Multi-lingual Opinion Analysis Applied to World News: A Case Study

In this paper, I present an analysis of one of the topics from the NTCIR-6 Opinion Analaysis Pilot Task, a multi-lingual workshop using data from Chinese, Japanese, and English documents, and develop a novel method for summarizing the results of opinion analysis of a topic in multiple languages. I present an analysis of words correlated to opinionated sentences specific to the analyzed topic as compared to general text, and an analysis of the types of opinions found and opinion holders across languages for the given topic. I also present plans for combining opinion analysis with summarization.
An efficient projection defocus algorithm based on multi-scale convolution kernel templates

The focal problems of projection include out-of-focus projection images from the projector caused by incomplete mechanical focus and screen-door effects produced by projection pixilation. To eliminate these defects and enhance the imaging quality and clarity of projectors, a novel adaptive projection defocus algorithm is proposed based on multi-scale convolution kernel templates. This algorithm applies the improved Sobel-Tenengrad focus evaluation function to calculate the sharpness degree of intensity equalization and then constructs multi-scale defocus convolution kernels to remap and render the defocus projection image. The resulting projection defocus corrected images can eliminate out-of-focus effects and improve the sharpness of uncorrected images. Experiments show that the algorithm works quickly and robustly and that it not only effectively eliminates visual artifacts and can run on a self-designed smart projection system in real time but also significantly improves the resolution and clarity of the observer’s visual perception.
Unusual transport properties in carbon based nanoscaled materials: nanotubes and graphene

The massless Dirac particle moving at the speed of light has been a fascinating subject in relativistic quantum physics. Nanoscale graphitic materials, such as carbon nanotubes and graphene, now provide us with an opportunity to investigate such exotic effects in low‐energy condensed matter systems. The unique electronic band structure of graphene lattice provides a linear dispersion relation where the Fermi velocity replaces the role of the speed of light in the usual Dirac Fermion spectrum. Recent experimental studies reveal that such unconventional electronic structure in graphitic carbon leads to unique electronic transport phenomena in 1‐dimensional carbon nanotubes and 2‐dimensional graphene. Combined with semiconductor device fabrication techniques and the development of new methods of nanoscaled material synthesis/manipulation enables us to investigate mesoscopic transport phenomena in these materials. The exotic quantum transport behavior discovered in these materials, such as room temperature ballistic transport, unusual half‐integer quantum Hall effect, and a non‐zero Berrys phase in magneto‐oscillations will be discussed in the connection to Dirac Fermion description in graphitic systems. (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)
An LPV discrete-time controller for the rejection of harmonic time-varying disturbances in a lightweight flexible structure

In this work, control system design and implementation for active vibration control (AVC) of flexible structures with piezoelectric actuators is studied. The goal is to reduce the effect of harmonic disturbances with known time-varying frequencies acting on a system. As a test bed, a thin flexible aluminum cantilevered beam with two symmetrically bonded piezoelectric actuators is used. The harmonic excitation is generated by two DC motors each of them with an unbalanced mass. A discrete-time model is obtained through black-box system identification methods. The control algorithm design is based on a plant description with a disturbance model as a linear parameter varying (LPV) system in linear fractional transformation (LFT) form. This results in a gain-scheduled controller where the harmonic disturbance frequencies are the scheduling variables. The experimental real-time results show the effectiveness of the controller and its capability to suppress time-varying harmonic disturbances, whose frequencies are measured directly from the DC motors. The design method leads to a controller that stabilizes the closed-loop system even for arbitrarily fast changes in the disturbance frequencies. In the real-time experiment, the controller suppresses a disturbance consisting of two independent harmonics with frequencies that vary over a range of 15 Hz.
Evaluation of encoded MU-MISO-OFDM systems in TDD mode with non-ideal channel reciprocity

In multi-user orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MU-OFDM) systems operating in time division duplex (TDD) mode downlink pre-equalization can be applied relying on channel state information (CSI) from the uplink direction. Unfortunately, the prerequisite of channel reciprocity is usually not fulfilled due to non-reciprocal transceivers. Hence, this paper deals with a comparison of robust pre-equalization schemes and a calibration approach to enhance the necessary uplink-downlink link equivalence for MU-MISO-OFDM systems applying linear and non-linear pre-equalization techniques and strong forward error correction (FEC). Performance evaluations concerning coded bit error rate results show that robust pre-equalizers exclusively improve the performance in moderate non-reciprocity conditions. In contrast, only calibration helps in dealing with severe transceiver mismatch.
Brain-derived neurotrophic factor prevents axotomized retinal ganglion cell death through MAPK and PI3K signaling pathways.

PURPOSE Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) has a potential neuroprotective effect on axotomized retinal ganglion cells (RGCs); however, the mechanism, in regard to intracellular signaling, of BDNF-induced neuroprotection of RGCs is largely unknown. Intracellular signaling was investigated, by using axotomized RGCs and the relative contribution of the two major downstream signaling routes of TrkB determined--that is, mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and phosphatidylinositol 3 kinase (PI3K)-Akt routes, mediated by BDNF. METHODS Neuroprotective effects of BDNF were determined by quantifying the surviving RGCs after axotomy, by retrograde labeling. The MAPK and Akt levels were determined by Western blot analysis and activity assays. Quantification of the relative contribution of the two signaling pathways was performed by use of specific inhibitors for MAPK and PI3K (i.e., U0126 and LY294002, respectively). RESULTS Intravitreous administration of BDNF had the most profound neuroprotective effects on axotomized RGCs among the neurotrophins. Burst phosphorylation of MAPK and Akt was induced by BDNF within 1 hour and was sustained over 2 weeks in the whole retina. Immunohistochemistry revealed that phosphorylated MAPK was detected in the RGCs and retinal Müller cells, and Akt was in the RGCs. BDNF-induced phosphorylation of MAPK and Akt was suppressed by their specific inhibitors. Moreover, administration of U0126 and LY294002 decreased significantly, but only partially, the neuroprotective effect of BDNF on the axotomized RGCs. CONCLUSIONS BDNF-mediated signaling involves activation of both MAPK and Akt on the axotomized adult rat retina, and the collaboration of both MAPK and PI3K-Akt pathways seems to be necessary in neuroprotective signaling in axotomized RGCs.
Criterios para el diagnóstico de la práctica educativa a distancia en modalidad BLearning

espanolLa propuesta de investigacion se contextualiza en una institucion de Educacion Superior ubicada en la ciudad de Cali, en Colombia, con el proposito de evaluar la practica educativa en modalidad B-learning de un programa de educacion superior, en base a los principios de flexibilidad, interactividad, cooperacion y autogestion con el proposito de plantear recomendaciones y un plan de mejora que ayude a que los procesos de ensenanzaaprendizaje en la educacion a distancia. Se utilizo una metodologia cuantitativa para la recopilacion y analisis de datos obtenidos de los cuestionarios a alumnos. Los resultados de investigacion pretenden generar un diagnostico que contribuya a la mejora del modelo Blearning en los diferentes niveles educativos. EnglishThe research proposal is contextualized in an institution of higher education located in the city of Cali, in Colombia, in order to assess the educational practice in B-learning models of a higher education program, based on the principles of flexibility, interactivity, cooperation and self-management in distance education, in order to develop recommendations and an improvement plan to contribute in the teaching-learning processes of distance education. The research is conducted in the context of a case study and quantitative methodology for the collection and analysis of data. The result of this research aims to generate a diagnostic report that contributes to the improvement of the model below.
Phase-Shift Dynamics of Sea Urchin Overgrazing on Nutrified Reefs

Shifts from productive kelp beds to impoverished sea urchin barrens occur globally and represent a wholesale change to the ecology of sub-tidal temperate reefs. Although the theory of shifts between alternative stable states is well advanced, there are few field studies detailing the dynamics of these kinds of transitions. In this study, sea urchin herbivory (a ‘top-down’ driver of ecosystems) was manipulated over 12 months to estimate (1) the sea urchin density at which kelp beds collapse to sea urchin barrens, and (2) the minimum sea urchin density required to maintain urchin barrens on experimental reefs in the urbanised Port Phillip Bay, Australia. In parallel, the role of one of the ‘bottom-up’ drivers of ecosystem structure was examined by (3) manipulating local nutrient levels and thus attempting to alter primary production on the experimental reefs. It was found that densities of 8 or more urchins m-2 (≥ 427 g m-2 biomass) lead to complete overgrazing of kelp beds while kelp bed recovery occurred when densities were reduced to ≤ 4 urchins m-2 (≤ 213 g m-2 biomass). This experiment provided further insight into the dynamics of transition between urchin barrens and kelp beds by exploring possible tipping-points which in this system can be found between 4 and 8 urchins m-2 (213 and 427 g m-2 respectively). Local enhancement of nutrient loading did not change the urchin density required for overgrazing or kelp bed recovery, as algal growth was not affected by nutrient enhancement.
Recognition of Practical Emotion from Elicited Speech

To meet the real world challenges for speech emotion recognition, four emotions for practical use were studied for evaluation of work ability. Elicited speech corpus was collected in a psychology experiment to provide trustable emotion data, acoustic features related to arousal and valence dimensions were selected specially for the practical emotions and a re-compositive GMM method was used for the classification. Twenty best acoustic features were achieved and a satisfactory recognition rate was observed. The results suggest that the classification of four practical emotions is successful and the elicited speech corpus is suitable for building a practical emotion recognition system for the real world challenges.
Probabilistic relevance feedback approach for content-based image retrieval based on gaussian mixture models

A new relevance feedback (RF) approach for content-based image retrieval is presented. This approach uses Gaussian mixture (GM) models of the image features and a query that is updated in a probabilistic manner. This update reflects the preferences of the user and is based on the models of both the positive and negative feedback images. The retrieval is based on a recently proposed distance measure between probability density functions, which can be computed in closed form for GM models. The proposed approach takes advantage of the form of this distance measure and updates it very efficiently based on the models of the user-specified relevant and irrelevant images. It is also shown that this RF framework is fairly general and can be applied in case other image models or distance measures are used instead of those proposed in this work. Finally, comparative numerical experiments are provided, which that demonstrate the merits of the proposed RF methodology and the use of the distance measure, and also the advantages of using GMs for image modelling.
PAPR reduction in OFDM systems using differentially encoded subcarriers

A peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) reduction technique that exploits the principle of differential encoding of subcarriers is proposed and investigated. The absolute maximum sample of the time-domain OFDM symbol is chosen as the reference to carry out the differential encoding process at the transmitter. A real multiplier (? ) is applied to this reference to achieve appropriate PAPR level. Information about the proposed reference, however, is required to be communicated to the receiver, which performs the reverse effect to obtain back the original sequence of samples. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is evaluated through extensive computer simulations and complementary cumulative distribution function (CCDF) are obtained as a function of number of subcarriers and modulations. Numerical results confirm that significant reduction in PAPR can be achieved. For example, the proposed technique reduces the 0.1 percent PAPR to 1.5 dB for a 1024 subcarrier OFDM system, resulting in 10.3 dB reduction. Moreover, error performances of the OFDM system before and after applying the proposed technique are investigated using Monte Carlo simulations. Numerical results show that the average bit error rate performance of the proposed system does not degrade relative to the un-encoded system. An investigation of the complexity of the proposed technique with other techniques show that it is quite low complex.
Dogs (Canis familiaris), but Not Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), Understand Imperative Pointing

Chimpanzees routinely follow the gaze of humans to outside targets. However, in most studies using object choice they fail to use communicative gestures (e.g. pointing) to find hidden food. Chimpanzees' failure to do this may be due to several difficulties with this paradigm. They may, for example, misinterpret the gesture as referring to the opaque cup instead of the hidden food. Or perhaps they do not understand informative communicative intentions. In contrast, dogs seem to be skilful in using human communicative cues in the context of finding food, but as of yet there is not much data showing whether they also use pointing in the context of finding non-food objects. Here we directly compare chimpanzees' (N = 20) and dogs' (N = 32) skills in using a communicative gesture directed at a visible object out of reach of the human but within reach of the subject. Pairs of objects were placed in view of and behind the subjects. The task was to retrieve the object the experimenter wanted. To indicate which one she desired, the experimenter pointed imperatively to it and directly rewarded the subject for handing over the correct one. While dogs performed well on this task, chimpanzees failed to identify the referent. Implications for great apes' and dogs' understanding of human communicative intentions are discussed.
Recent Advances: Transglutaminase in Ocular Health and Pathological Processes

Transglutaminase (TG) is a diverse class of crosslinking enzymes involved in the regulation of cytokine production, endocytosis, cell adhesion, migration, apoptosis and autophagy. It has been implicated in inflammatory diseases, neurodegenerative processes and cancer. The eye is a specialized organ which subserves the important function of vision and has distinctive physiological and anatomical properties that differ from other body tissues. Understanding of the roles of various TGs in the eye therefore require studies specific to cells and tissues of ocular origin. We review the advances in TG research in ocular diseases, including pterygium, glaucoma, cataract and proliferative vitreoretinopathy. TG1 is a molecule important for keratinisation in many cicatrizing diseases of the ocular surface, including keratoconjunctivitis sicca. TG2, with multiple functions, has been shown to be important in inflammation and cell adhesion in various ocular diseases. The results of TG research in each region of the eye are critically assessed and the implications of these studies in the treatment of ocular diseases are discussed. By modifying wound healing process and influencing the amount of inflammation in animal models of human ocular diseases, TG-related strategies are now a possibility for selected clinical scenarios. For example, the use of retinoic acid for severe dry eye has undergone clinical trials. However, in many other areas, more research in selection of specific targets, time of intervention, specific method of delivery of interventional molecules, and safety of therapy in humans may be necessary. One promising area in the future is the use of a TG strategy to modify conjunctival wound healing to increase success rates after glaucoma surgery.
Potential Application Of New Diagnostic Methods For Controlling Bovine Tuberculosis In Brazil

Bovine tuberculosis, a chronic infection in cattle caused by Mycobacterium bovis, remains an economic and public health problem for several countries. Due to its economic impact on international trade, contagious nature, and implications for human health, global programs to eradicate the disease were implemented worldwide. Those programs are based on slaughtering PPD-reactive animals. Despite the National Programs in Brazil, complete eradication has not been achieved, and the disease remains, albeit at a lower prevalence. The central purpose of this review is to address diagnostic tests for tuberculosis. Considering the course of the infection in cattle, at least two tests, ideally complementary to one another, may be necessary for an adequate diagnosis: the first based on the cellular response, and the second capable of identifying anergic animals by detection of specific anti-M.bovis antibodies.
Sales Presentation Anxiety, Cortisol Levels, Self-Reports, and Gene-Gene Interactions

We study sales presentation anxiety (SPA) using multilevel analysis of a quasi-natural field experiment: the final exam of an executive training course where sales professionals (n = 128) compete in teams to present an account plan to a critical audience who then ask questions and evaluate their performance. The best team is announced the winner of the competition. Compared to pre-presentation levels, overall cortisol (C) levels first increased after the question period and subsequently decreased 20 and 50 minutes after, indicating a relatively fast recovery rate. Negative significant correlations were found between self-reported experience of stress and C levels in periods 3 and 4 which might indicate affect labeling, a coping technique that focuses on the underlying physiological response. Using two candidate genes, DRD2 and DRD4 , we investigated associations between C levels in the four periods. Carriers of DRD2 Taq A1 + and DRD4 7R + alleles had lower C levels compared to non-carriers, both right after the question period and 20 minutes later which might indicate flexibility in using coping strategies involving distraction from the task. The gained insights reveal that SPA entails multilevel processes that affect one another reciprocally.
An Efficient and Secure Biometric Remote User Authentication Scheme Using Smart Cards

Remote user authentication schemes are widely investigated recently. This paper points out some existent problems in smartcard based schemes. As a comprehensive solution, a novel authentication scheme using two-variant hashing technique and fingerprint-biometric is presented. Security analysis shows that the proposed scheme provides secure, robust, and trustworthy remote authentication over insecure network. Moreover, computational costs and efficiency of this scheme are encouraging for practical implementation in the resource-constraint environment.