Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FACE RECOGNITION BY FUSING BLUR-INVARIANT TEXTURE AND STRUCTURE FEATURES ACROSS NON-UNIFORM MOTION BLUR , ILLUMINATION , AND POSE

Face recognition under blur, illumination and pose is a difficult task in image processing. The existing method performs good under illumination and pose, but fail in case of blurring. So we propose a new method for blurred face recognition. First the structure and texture blur-invariant features are extracted and the complete description on blurred image is generated by fusing those features . LPQ is extracted in a densely sampled way and to enhance its performance a vector of locally aggregated descriptors (VLAD) is employed for texture blur-invariant feature. The histogram of oriented gradient (HOG) is used for structure blur-invariant feature. Then the improved HOG is extracted and then fused with the original HOG by canonical correlation analysis (CCA). For handling pose and illumination variations, we follow MOBILAP algorithm. The expected results demonstrate our improvements and performance in blurred face recognition. Keywords— Face Recognition; Illumination; Invariant Texture; Non-Uniform Motion; _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Some Mathematics 2 . 1 Why talk of fractal dimensionality ?

In 1981, Witten and Sander discovered that complex dendritic structures could be created by having ‘particles’ perform a random walk on a lattice and stick together on contact (fig. 1). This can be considered a rather surprising result, since without any preferred direction in the motion of particles one would naturally expect to end up with some sort of compact ‘blob’. In fact, structures grown according to this or a similar method turn out to be natural fractals, i.e. they exhibit a certain scaling behaviour within an appropriate range. The result is all the more remarkable, since Witten and Sander modelled it on natural phenomena – the random walk corresponding to Brownian motion and the sticky particles representing some adhesive molecules or sedimenting colloids. The prospect that the formation of structures which had up to then been believed to be dominated by complicated interactions could be reduced to such easy principles together with the connection to the then just emerging theory of fractal geometry sparked a remarkable interest and was the basis for many follow-up publications. Focussing on two particular growth models developed by P. Meakin using the results of Witten and Sander and M. Eden, we give a brief introduction to the basics of fractal growth and present the current status of a universal toolkit capable of simulating discrete growth processes in a very general way. It is applied to check some earlier heuristic results.
Incentive Provision for Mobile Crowd Sensing Systems

Recent advances in sensing, computing, and networking have paved the way for the emerging paradigm of Mobile Crowd Sensing (MCS). The openness of such systems and the richness of data MCS users are expected to contribute to them raise significant concerns for their security, privacypreservation and resilience. Prior works addressed different aspects of the problem. But in order to reap the benefits of this new sensing paradigm, we need a holistic solution. That is, a secure and accountable MCS system that preserves user privacy, and enables the provision of incentives to the participants. At the same time, we are after a MCS architecture that is resilient to abusive users and guarantees privacy protection even against multiple misbehaving and intelligent MCS entities (servers). In this work, we meet these challenges and propose a comprehensive security and privacy-preserving architecture. With a full blown implementation, on real mobile devices, and experimental evaluation we demonstrate our system’s efficiency, practicality, and scalability. Last but not least, we formally assess the achieved security and privacy properties. Overall, our system offers strong security and privacy-preservation guarantees, thus, facilitating the deployment of trustworthy MCS applications.
Designing an Experience Sampling Method for Smartphone Based Emotion Detection

Smartphones provide the capability to perform in-situ sampling of human behavior using Experience Sampling Method (ESM). Designing an ESM schedule involves probing the user repeatedly at suitable moments to collect self-reports. Timely probe generation to collect high fidelity user responses while keeping probing rate low is challenging. In mobile-based ESM, timeliness of the probe is also impacted by user's availability to respond to self-report request. Thus, a good ESM design must consider - probing frequency, timely self-report collection, and notifying at opportune moment to ensure high response quality. We propose a two-phase ESM design, where the first phase (a) balances between probing frequency and self-report timeliness, and (b) in parallel, constructs a predictive model to identify opportune probing moments. The second phase uses this model to further improve response quality by eliminating inopportune probes. We use typing-based emotion detection in smartphone as a case study to validate proposed ESM design. Our results demonstrate that it reduces probing rate by 64 percent, samples self-reports timely by reducing elapsed time between self-report collection, and event trigger by 9 percent while detecting inopportune moments with an average accuracy of 89 percent. These design choices improve the response quality, as manifested by 96 percent valid response collection and a maximum improvement of 24 percent in emotion classification accuracy.
Connection between Topic-Specific Teacher Knowledge and Student Performance in Lower Secondary School Mathematics.

The interpretive cross-case study focused on the examination of connections between teacher and student topic-specific knowledge of lower secondary mathematics. Two teachers were selected for the study using non-probability purposive sampling technique. Teachers completed the Teacher Content Knowledge Survey before teaching a topic on division of fractions. The survey consisted of multiple-choice items measuring teachers’ knowledge of facts and procedures, knowledge of concepts and connections, and knowledge of models and generalizations. Teachers were also interviewed on the topic of fraction division using questions addressing their content and pedagogical content knowledge. After teaching the topic on division of fractions, two groups of 6th grade students of the participating teachers were tested using similar items measuring students’ topic-specific knowledge at the level of procedures, concepts, and generalizations. The cross-case examination using meaning coding and linguistic analysis revealed topic-specific connections between teacher and student knowledge of fraction division. Results of the study suggest that student knowledge could be reflective of teacher knowledge in the context of topic-specific teaching and learning of mathematics at the lower secondary school.
Prevalence of Temporomandibular Disorder in children and adolescents with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis – a Norwegian cross sectional multicenter study

Background. Children and adolescents with JIA may suffer pain from temporomandibular disorder (TMD) and routines for the assessment of temporomandibular joint (TMJ) pain for the health and dental care are lacking. The aims were to examine the prevalence of TMD in children and adolescents with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) as compared to their healthy peers and to examine potential associations between JIA and TMD.Methods. This comparative cross-sectional study is part of a longitudinal multicenter study performed during 2015 - 2020, including 228 children and adolescents aged 4-16 years, with a diagnosis of JIA according to the ILAR criteria. This sub-study draws on a subset of data from the first study visit, including assessments of TMD as part of a broader oral health examination. Participants with JIA were matched with healthy controls according to gender, age, and center site. Calibrated examiners performed the clinical oral examinations according to a standardized protocol, including shortened versions of diagnostic criteria for TMD (DC/TMD) and the former EuroTMJoint Recommendations for Clinical TMJ Assessment in Patients Diagnosed with JIA. Symptoms were recorded and followed by a clinical examination assessing the masticatory muscles and TMJ`s.Results. In our cohort of 221 participants with JIA and corresponding controls, 88 participants with JIA (39.8%) and 25 (11.3%) controls revealed TMD based on symptoms and clinical signs. Painful TMD during the last 30 days was reported in 59 (26.7%) participants with JIA vs. 10 (5.0%) of the healthy controls (p<0.001). Vertical unassisted jaw movement was lower in JIA than in controls; mean 46.2 mm vs. 49.0 mm, respectively (p <0.001). Among participants with JIA, a higher proportion of those using synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic-drugs (sDMARDs) and biologic (bDMARDs) presented with painful masticatory muscle and TMJs at palpation.Conclusion. Symptoms or clinical signs of TMD were seen in approximately half of the JIA patients compared to about one fourth of their healthy peers. Painful palpation to masticatory muscles and decreased vertical unassisted jaw movement were more frequent in participants with JIA than among healthy controls and should be part of both medical and dental routine examinations in JIA.
Making the Euro Viable: The Euro Treasury Plan

The euro crisis remains unresolved and the euro currency union incomplete and extraordinarily vulnerable. The euro regime's essential flaw and ultimate source of vulnerability is the decoupling of central bank and treasury institutions in the euro currency union. We propose a Euro Treasury scheme to properly fix the regime and resolve the euro crisis. The Euro Treasury Plan would establish a rudimentary fiscal union that is not a transfer union. The core idea is to create a Euro Treasury as a vehicle to pool future eurozone public investment spending and have it funded by proper eurozone treasury securities. The Euro Treasury could fulfil a number of additional purposes while operating mainly on the basis of a strict rule. The plan would also provide a much-needed fiscal boost to recovery and foster a more benign intra-area rebalancing.
V N ) 0 0 1 VLBI surveys

Systematic surveys of astronomical objects often lead to discoveries, but always provide invaluable information for statistical studies of well-defined samples. They also promote follow-up investigations of individual objects or classes. Surveys using a yet unexplored observing wavelength, a novel technique or a new instrument are of special importance. Significantly improved observing parameters (e.g. sensitivity, angular resolution, monitoring capability) provide new insight into the morphological and physical properties of the objects studied. I give a brief overview of the important Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) imaging surveys conducted in the past. A list of surveys guides us through the developments up until the present days. I also attempt to show directions for the near future.
Thin layer drying of zucchini in
solar dryer located in Osmaniye region

In this study, the dehydration behavior of zucchini using solar assisted drying system was examined according to 22 thin layer drying models available in literature. The correlation coefficient (R2), chi-square (χ2) and root mean square error (RMSE) values were calculated to check the suitability of models by non-linear regression analysis. It was found that Cubic and Modified Midilli-1 models were the most suitable equations and their R2 values were calculated as 0.99963. χ2 and RMSE values of related mathematical expressions were 1.89343×10‒5, 1.91692×10‒5 and 0.01685×10‒3, 0.01721×10‒3 respectively. In addition, heat transfer, mass transfer and diffusion coefficients, which were important parameters in design of drying systems were also determined as 5.18124 W/m2°C, 1.57129×10‒7 m/s and 2.335718×10‒9 m2/s respectively.
Are Tenure Track Professors Better Teachers?

Abstract This study makes use of detailed student-level data from eight cohorts of first-year students at Northwestern University to investigate the relative effects of tenure track/tenured versus contingent faculty on student learning. We focus on classes taken during a student’s first term at Northwestern and employ an identification strategy in which we control for both student-level fixed effects and next-class-taken fixed effects to measure the degree to which contingent faculty contribute more or less to lasting student learning than do other faculty. We find consistent evidence that students learn relatively more from contingent faculty in their firstterm courses. This result is driven by the fact that the bottom quarter of tenure track/tenured faculty (as indicted by our measure of teaching effectiveness) has lower “value added” than their contingent counterparts. Differences between contingent and tenure track/tenured faculty are present across a wide variety of subject areas and are particularly pronounced for Northwestern’s averages and less-qualified students.
Motivational Integration and Cognitive Control Interactions in Healthy Aging : Examining the Effects of Primary and Secondary Incentives

Motivational incentives play an influential role in value-based decision-making and cognitive control. A compelling hypothesis in the literature suggests that the motivational value of diverse incentives are integrated in the brain into a common currency value signal that influences decision-making and behavior. To investigate whether motivational integration processes change during healthy aging, we tested older (N = 44) and younger (N = 54) adults in an innovative incentive integration task paradigm that establishes dissociable and additive effects of liquid (e.g., juice, neutral, saltwater) and monetary incentives on cognitive task performance. The results reveal that motivational incentives improve cognitive task performance in both older and younger adults, providing novel evidence demonstrating that age-related cognitive control deficits can be ameliorated with sufficient incentive motivation. Additional analyses revealed clear age-related differences in motivational integration. Younger adult task performance was modulated by both monetary and liquid incentives, whereas monetary reward effects were more gradual in older adults and more strongly impacted by trial-by-trial performance feedback. A surprising discovery was that older adults shifted attention from liquid valence toward monetary reward throughout task performance, but younger adults shifted attention frommonetary reward toward integrating both monetary reward and liquid valence by the end of the task, suggesting differential strategic utilization of incentives. These data suggest that older adults may have impairments in incentive integration and employ different motivational strategies to improve cognitive task performance. The findings suggest potential candidate neural mechanisms that may serve as the locus of age-related change, providing targets for future cognitive neuroscience investigations.
On some deformations of Fukaya categories

A certain deformation of a mirror pair in Strominger–Yau–Zaslow mirror setting is discussed. We propose that the mirror dual of a deformation of a complex manifold by a certain (real) deformation quantization is a symplectic manifold with a foliation structure. In order to support our claim that these deformations of mirror pairs are mirror dual to each other, we construct categories associated to these deformations of complex and symplectic manifolds and discuss homological mirror symmetry between them.
Selection of 3D Printers for Educational Institutions using ANP- Similarity based Approach

: 3D Printing is a promising technology that has been implemented in many spheres of industry, particularly in the area of new product development due to its unique characteristics of fabricating functional prototypes timely and efficiently along with minimised cost. With the diminishing cost of the various commercial 3D printers available in the market and their increasing need, 3D printers are now being increasingly adopted in the various educational institutions for rendering hands-on experience to the students. It is therefore necessary to examine to what extent the technological capabilities of open source 3D printing could serve as a means of learning and communication. The learning theory of constructionism is used as a theoretical framework in creating an experimental, educational scenario focused on 3D design and printing. Because of the capability, service quality, and cost of the printers vary widely, how to select a suitable 3D printer is very critical to the institutions willing to engage in new product developments and other research work. However, selection of an optimal 3D printer is a tedious work due to involvement of various criteria or objectives in the decision making process and it is often necessary to compromise among possibly conflicting factors. Thus, the multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) becomes a useful approach to solve this kind of problem. This study focuses on a hybrid multiple-criteria decision making (HMCDM) tool for selecting an appropriate 3D printer based on the Deng’s Similarity based approach.
Tissue-specific differentiation of colonic macrophages requires TGF beta receptor-mediated signaling

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.
Background Estimation Using Image Processing Technique

Image Inpainting is the art of reconstruct missing areas. It is used to fix any damage in the images by removing the damage and filling this region based on estimating background. Background estimation is used to interpolate an estimate color of the background based on surrounding pixels’ color as an image processing technique. The purpose of this paper is to implement an existing digital image inpainting algorithm. This code is proposed to be used as a plugin in image processing framework in order to be easily accessed and used to fill a missing region with smooth background color in reasonable way.
ForceRay: Extending Thumb Reach via Force Input Stabilizes Device Grip for Mobile Touch Input

Smartphones are used predominantly one-handed, using the thumb for input. Many smartphones, however, have grown beyond 5". Users cannot tap everywhere on these screens without destabilizing their grip. ForceRay (FR) lets users aim at an out-of-reach target by applying a force touch at a comfortable thumb location, casting a virtual ray towards the target. Varying pressure moves a cursor along the ray. When reaching the target, quickly lifting the thumb selects it. In a first study, FR was 195 ms slower and had a 3% higher selection error than the best existing technique, BezelCursor (BC), but FR caused significantly less device movement than all other techniques, letting users maintain a steady grip and removing their concerns about device drops. A second study showed that an hour of training speeds up both BC and FR, and that both are equally fast for targets at the screen border.
Child Maintenance and Social Security Interactions: the Poverty Reduction Effects in Model Lone Parent Families across Four Countries

Abstract In most developed countries, children in lone parent families face a high risk of poverty. A partial solution commonly sought in English-speaking nations is to increase the amounts of private child maintenance paid by the other parent. However, where lone parent families are in receipt of social assistance benefits, some countries hold back a portion of the child maintenance to reduce public expenditures. This partial ‘pass-through’ treats child maintenance as a substitute for cash benefits which conceivably neutralises its poverty reduction potential. Such neutralising effects are not well understood and can be obscured further when more subtle interactions between child maintenance systems and social security systems operate. This research makes a unique contribution to knowledge by exposing the hidden interaction effects operating in similar child maintenance systems across four countries: the United Kingdom, United States (Wisconsin), Australia and New Zealand. We found that when child maintenance is counted as income in calculating benefit entitlements, it can reduce the value of cash benefits. Using model lone parent families with ten different employment and income scenarios, we show how the poverty reduction potential of child maintenance is affected by whether it is treated as a substitute for, or a complement to, cash benefits.
POLYGONAL HOMOGRAPHIC ORBITS OF THE CURVED n-BODY PROBLEM

In the 2-dimensional n-body problem, n ≥ 3, in spaces of constant curvature, κ = 0, we study polygonal homographic solutions. We first provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of these orbits and then consider the case of regular polygons. We further use this criterion to show that, for any n ≥ 3, the regular n-gon is a polygonal homographic orbit if and only if all masses are equal. Then we prove the existence of relative equilibria of nonequal masses on the sphere of curvature κ > 0 for n = 3 in the case of scalene triangles. Such triangular relative equilibria occur only along fixed geodesics and are generated from fixed points of the sphere. Finally, through a classification of the isosceles case, we prove that not any choice of three masses can form a triangular relative equilibrium.
The effect of saturation on resin flow in injection pultrusion: a preliminary numerical study

In this study, a 2-D Darcy’s law based numerical model is developed in order to investigate the effect of saturation on the propagation of the resin in the die chamber of a pultrusion line. The numerical model is established using the finite volume method and alternating direction implicit scheme. The implemented saturation and relative permeability curves are adopted from relationships presented in the literature. The results of the numerical model highlights the importance of accurately determining the saturation curve when included in a numerical solver that is used to predict the resin flow in injection pultrusion. Further research is planned within this field in order to identify realistic saturation curves for fiber reinforcements used in resin injection pultrusion.