Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Animating a Chinese interactive virtual character

This paper creates a Chinese interactive virtual character based on multi-modal mapping and rules, which receives information from the input modules and generates audio and visual speech, face expressions and body animations. The audio and visual speech are synthesized from the input text by multi-modal mapping, while face expressions and body movements are rule-based driven by emotion states. All of the original animations are captured by a motion capture system and plotted into a character model, which is created by the 3D creation software. We use a skeletal open source animation engine to create the scene in which the virtual character can talk like human communicating with users. The whole expression of this virtual character is considered very natural and realistic.
Breast Cancer Detection Using Mammography

The presence of microcalcification clusters in mammograms contributes evidence for the detection of early stages of cancer. In this paper, a low-cost and high-speed neural network based breast cancer detection algorithm is presented. The microcalcifications are extracted with an adaptive neural network that is trained with cancer/malignant and normal/benign breast mammograms and a best accuracy rate of 99% for the classification of cancer/normal/benign is achieved.
Study on separation for the frequency bands of EEG signal and frequency band relative intensity analysis based upon EMD

The different background rhythms and their restraint in electroencephalgraph(EEG) signal can reflect the different physiological states of the patient. The concept of frequency band relative intensity ratio(FBRIR) is introduced to evaluate the state of EEG background rhythms of a patient, and empirical mode decomposition(EMD) is used to realize the separation of the frequency bands in EEG signal effectively. Furthermore, Gabor transform is applied for the computation of FBRIR. Then the FBRIR of every frequency band in EEG signal is displayed in a same window, which can show the distribution of every background rhythms in EEG signal intuitionisticly and provide more clincal information for doctors.
Design of Speech Control System IN Car Noise Environments

Presence of additive noise in speech signals deteriorates the performance of automatic speech recognition systems in cars. For a speech recognition system, we must know where speech and nonspeech segments are. In this paper a new Band Partitioning Spectral Entropy endpoint detection (BPSE) method is used to get the speech start and end point of speech precisely. After that Band Spectral Subtraction (BSS) methods provide in this paper can decrease additive noise obviously. Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) are extracted from segmented speech signals. The coefficients are recognized by Hidden Markov Model. The results show that the recognition accuracy can be improved from 39.3% to 95.5%.
Identification of large scale climate patterns affecting snow variability in the eastern United States

This study investigates dominant patterns of snow variability and their relationship to large‐scale climate circulations over the eastern half of the United States. Two snowfall variables—total seasonal snowfall (TSF) and number of snow days (NSD)—are examined. A principal components (PC) analysis is conducted on data from 124 snowfall stations. The leading mode of variability for both TSF and NSD is driven by the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). The secondary mode of variability for TSF is driven by the Pacific/North American pattern (PNA), while the secondary mode of variability for NSD is driven by a dipole pattern and is attributable to regional influences and noise. These patterns exhibit persistence, which provides prospects for seasonal predictions of snowfall variables. This research compliments and extends the work of Serreze et al(1998), who performed a PC analysis of geopotential heights during the winter season and correlated the spatial patterns of the leading modes of variability with seasonal snowfall values. Copyright © 2007 Royal Meteorological Society
A genetic algorithm based heuristic search on graphs with weighted multiple attributes

Graphs are efficient data structures used for representing connected real world entities and are very ubiquitously used in various applications. Graphs with multiple attributes describing each node and having non-negative weights assigned to these are called as Weighted Multiple Attributed Graphs (WMAGs). WMAGs are able to capture and represent the properties of real world data efficiently. Graphs such as co-authorship network, friendship network, communication network etc. belong to this category. Queries on these graphs are complex than traditional graph search. Querying WMAG helps in finding the inherent relations between users in social media, finding closely connected authors who are expertized in various research domains from a co-authorship network, etc. This work addresses the problem of graph search on weighted multiple attributed graphs by specifying attribute and structural constraints. In the proposed system, an R-Tree based index is used for efficient look ups of nodes which meets the attribute constraints. Finding nodes which spans minimum distance is considered as the structural constraint. The k-constraint query remodels the large data graph into a k partite graph. Problem of finding k-minimally separated nodes according to k-constraints from a WMAG is reduced to generalized minimum spanning tree (GMST) problem. GMST problem is NP-Hard and here a heuristic method based on genetic algorithm is proposed as the solution, which is efficient in terms of query processing and execution time.
Analysis of Gene Regulatory Networks in the Mammalian Circadian Rhythm

Circadian rhythm is fundamental in regulating a wide range of cellular, metabolic, physiological, and behavioral activities in mammals. Although a small number of key circadian genes have been identified through extensive molecular and genetic studies in the past, the existence of other key circadian genes and how they drive the genomewide circadian oscillation of gene expression in different tissues still remains unknown. Here we try to address these questions by integrating all available circadian microarray data in mammals. We identified 41 common circadian genes that showed circadian oscillation in a wide range of mouse tissues with a remarkable consistency of circadian phases across tissues. Comparisons across mouse, rat, rhesus macaque, and human showed that the circadian phases of known key circadian genes were delayed for 4–5 hours in rat compared to mouse and 8–12 hours in macaque and human compared to mouse. A systematic gene regulatory network for the mouse circadian rhythm was constructed after incorporating promoter analysis and transcription factor knockout or mutant microarray data. We observed the significant association of cis-regulatory elements: EBOX, DBOX, RRE, and HSE with the different phases of circadian oscillating genes. The analysis of the network structure revealed the paths through which light, food, and heat can entrain the circadian clock and identified that NR3C1 and FKBP/HSP90 complexes are central to the control of circadian genes through diverse environmental signals. Our study improves our understanding of the structure, design principle, and evolution of gene regulatory networks involved in the mammalian circadian rhythm.
Evolution of Author's Topic in Authorship Network

There may be several reasons why people publish together. Above all, the fact that the authors share common professional interests is the main reason. In our research we work with the DBLP dataset which contains the basic bibliographic information of publications from the computer science field. These data are freely available and contain highly relevant information about publication activity from the period of nearly fifty years, even though they are not complete. One of the goals of our research is to analyze and visualize the evolution of authors and co-authorship from the point of view of research topics. We present the results of our research in this paper. One of the results is also visualization in our online FORCOA.NET system.
Position Paper : Model-Based Testing

Model-based testing helps to ensure a repeatable and scientific basis for product testing, gives good coverage of all the behaviors of the product and allows tests to be linked directly to requirements. Intensive research on model-based testing in the last 5-10 years has demonstrated the feasibility of this approach, shown that it can be cost-effective, and has developed a variety of test generation strategies and model coverage criteria. Some commercial tools have started to emerge, from the USA (T-Vec, Reactive Systems, I-logix), and also from Europe (Conformiq, Leirios Technologies, Telelogic), as well as a wide variety of academic and research tools [BFS05].
Contribution of biomass and biofuel emissions to trace gas distributions in Asia during the TRACE‐P experiment

[1] A comprehensive emission inventory with enhanced spatial and temporal resolution is used to help quantify the contribution from three source categories (fossil, biofuel, and biomass burning) during the NASA TRACE-P experiment. Daily biomass burning emissions are developed to support this analysis. Emissions of 27 species and their ratios, by sector, region, and source category are presented. The emission distributions and chemical composition are further analyzed using various statistical techniques. Using cluster analysis, the 27 chemical species are combined into 8 groups that have similar regional distribution, and 52 regions are assembled into 11 regional groups that have similar chemical composition. These groups are used in Chemical Mass Balance analysis to characterize air masses and to quantify the contribution of the three source categories to the observed species distributions. Five DC8 flights with 16 flight segments associated with outflow events are analyzed. In general, Asian outflow is a complex mixture of biofuel, biomass, and fossil sources. Flights in the post frontal regions at high latitudes and low altitudes have a high contribution of fossil fuel emissions. Flights in the warm sector of cold fronts are dominated by biomass burning contributions (about 70%). Biofuel contributions are high (about 70%) when air masses come from central China. The receptor model results are shown to be consistent with other 3-D chemical model sensitivity studies and analysis using ratios of indicator species (e.g., dK+/dSO42−, CH3CN/SOy, SOy/CO, and C2Cl4/CO).
High Genetic Diversity of Anaplasma marginale Detected from Philippine Cattle

ABSTRACT A total of 658 cattle in 6 provinces in the Philippines were screened for Anaplasma marginale infection by using a diagnostic heat-shock operon (groEL) gene-PCR assay. The screening-positive samples were further tested using the major surface antigen protein 1a (Msp1a) gene-PCR assay. Screening PCR results showed 130 cattle (19.8%) were positive for the A. marginale infection. Subsequent amplification using the Msp1a gene only showed 93 samples (14.1%) to be positive. In addition, 37 tandem-repeat structures, including 20 novel structures, and 41 distinct genotypes were identified. Interestingly, multiple infections of 4 different genotypes were also observed in A. marginale-infected cattle. The present study demonstrated the prevalence and characterization of diverse genotypes of A. marginale in the Philippine cattle.
Automatic detection of sleep spindles using Teager energy and spectral edge frequency

Sleep spindles are the hallmark of N2 stage of sleep. They are transient waveforms observed on sleep electroencephalogram and their identification is required for sleep staging. Due to the large number of sleep spindles appearing on an overnight sleep EEG, automating the detection of sleep spindles would be desirable, not only to save specialist time but also for fully automated sleep staging systems. A simple algorithm for automatic sleep spindle detection is presented in this paper using only one channel of EEG input. This algorithm uses Teager energy and spectral edge frequency to mark sleep spindles and results in a sensitivity of 80% and specificity of about 98%. It is also shown that more than 91% of spindles detected by the algorithm were in N2 and N3 stages combined.
DNA barcodes from four loci provide poor resolution of taxonomic groups in the genus Crataegus

The leaves and fruits of some of the approximately 230 species of hawthorn (Crataegus) yield natural health products with significant therapeutic effects on symptoms of cardiovascular disease. DNA barcoding could be a valuable tool for authenticating these products, but only a small fraction of the 93 taxa that we examined were distinguished, even though all major clades and eight out of ten taxonomic sections of the genus were included. DNA barcoding as currently practised thus has limited utility in Crataegus. Hybridization, lineage sorting due to incomplete concerted evolution in ITS2, and limited variation in plastid loci are implicated.
Active Surveillance Using Dynamic Background Subtraction

A prototype active surveillance system is presented. The system has two cameras, one of which is rigidly xed & has a wide angle lenses while the other is mounted on a pan-tilt head & has a zoomed lenses. The images from the wide angle camera are analyzed using dynamic background subtraction together with normalized cross correlation in order to identify moving people within the scene. An approximate mapping is determined (o -line) between the pan-tilt angles and the position of the zoomed image within the wide-angle view. This mapping is improved (for each frame) through 1-D image based correlation and hence moving people are located in the zoomed view. The system has been tested on a di cult real-world scene and image sequences from both cameras are presented. The potential of the system as an `intelligent' security device and the power of the dynamic background subtration & correlation mechanism are clearly demonstrated.
Interaction with Large Screen Display using Fingertip & Virtual Touch Screen

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) involves the study, planning, design and uses of the interaction between people (users) and computers. We present a nonintrusive system based on computer vision for human-computer interaction controlled by finger pointing gestures. A new approach for Interaction with Large Screen Display using Fingertip & Virtual Touch Screen by taking into account the location of the user and the interaction area available. We can estimate an interaction surface of virtual touch screen between the display and the user which is scalable and flexible. The distance between the operator and the virtual touch screen can be changed and the operator can be varied. Users can use their pointing finger to interact with the display as if it was brought forward and presented directly in front of them, while preserving viewing angle. Users are allowed to walk around in a room and manipulate information displayed on its walls by using their own finger as a pointing devices. Once captured and tracked in real-time using stereo vision camera, finger pointing gestures are remapped onto the current point of interest, thus reproducing in an advanced interaction scenario the “drag and click” behavior of traditional mice. It's a simple signal processing on images obtained from a regular laptop web-camera.
Determinantes da origem de cooperativas de crédito no Brasil

Market failures such as informational imperfections and problems with enforcement may lead alternative financial arrangements, such as credit unions, to have superior results compared to the traditional banking system. This advantage depends on local characteristics such as trust and shared information, or social capital, in the municipality. Thisdissertation conducts an empirical evaluation due to the idea expressed above. It tests if the social capital, measured by valid votes in elections for city council, homogeneity of income, religion and race, impacts the amount of credit unions in Brazilian municipalities from 2000 to 2008. The results confirm the thesis exposed above indicating that social capital is positively related to the number of credit unions in Brazil. However, the results depend on which variables are used to measure the social capital existing. It is possible that some variables used related to homogeneity and immigration are not good measures of social capital. Moreover, there is also evidence that this positive association is not only the result of a positive relationship with credit in general.
The Laws of Identity

This paper is about how we can prevent the loss of trust and go forward to give Internet users a deep sense of safety, privacy, and certainty about whom they are relating to in cyberspace. Nothing could be more essential if Web-based services and applications are to continue to move beyond "cyber publication" and encompass all kinds of interaction and services. Our approach has been to develop a formal understanding of the dynamics causing digital identity systems to succeed or fail in various contexts, expressed as the Laws of Identity. Taken together, these laws define a unifying identity metasystem that can offer the Internet the identity layer it so obviously requires.
In Search of Pedagogical Agents' Modality and Dialogue Effects in Open Learning Environments

The aims of the present studies were to test the generalizability of the modality and dialogue effect to open learning environments, previously found by Moreno and Mayer (e.g., Moreno, Mayer & Lester, 2001) with an agent providing metacognitive support. As an extension, the agent’s continuous presence effect on learning was also tested. Three studies were conducted. In all studies participants interacted with an open learning environment on an ecological problem. No confirmation was found for the modality or dialogue effect, nor did the agent’s presence have any effect on students’ performance.
The competitive exclusion principle.

because of a belief that it is best to use that wording which is least likely to hide the fact that we still do not comprehend the exact limits of the principle. For the present, I think the 6'threat of clarity" (3) is a serious one that is best miniInized by using a formulation that is admittedly unclear; thus can we keep in the forefront of our minds the unfinished work before us. The wording given has, I think, another point of superiority in that it seems brutal and dogmatic. By emphasizing the very aspects that might result in our denial of them were they less plain we can keep the principle explicitly present in our minds untit we see if its implications are, or are noty as unpleasant as our subconscious might suppose. The meaning of these somewhat cryptic remarks should be come clear further on iIl the discussion. What does the exclusion principle mean? Itoughly this: that (i) if two noninterbreeding populations "do the same thing"-that is, occupy precisely the same ecological niche in Elton's sense (4)-and (ii) if they are "sympatric"that is, if they occupy the same geographic territory-and (iii) if population A multiplies even the least bit faster than population B, then ultimately A will completely displace B, which will become extinct. This is the 44weak form' of the principle. A1ways in practice a stronger form is used, based on the removal of the hypothetical character of condition (iii). We do this because we adhere to what may be caIled the axiom of inequality, which states that no two things or processes
Entrepreneurial action and the rules of the game: An editorial to introduce the Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy

Purpose – The purpose of this editorial is to introduce the Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy (JEPP). Design/methodology/approach – The paper outlines the primary objectives of JEPP. Findings – JEPP was created to encourage and disseminate quality research about the vital relationships among institutions, entrepreneurship and economic outcomes. JEPP? 's aim is to improve the quality of scholarly and public discourse about entrepreneurship and development policies. In general, JEPP seeks high-quality articles that say something interesting about public policy, entrepreneurship and economic development. Originality/value – The editorial describes the thinking behind JEPP, and the journal's objectives. JEPP welcomes all scholars and individuals with professional or personal interests in acquiring and sharing knowledge about institutions, entrepreneurship, and economic outcomes.
Progress in understanding mood disorders: optogenetic dissection of neural circuits

Major depression is characterized by a cluster of symptoms that includes hopelessness, low mood, feelings of worthlessness and inability to experience pleasure. The lifetime prevalence of major depression approaches 20%, yet current treatments are often inadequate both because of associated side effects and because they are ineffective for many people. In basic research, animal models are often used to study depression. Typically, experimental animals are exposed to acute or chronic stress to generate a variety of depression‐like symptoms. Despite its clinical importance, very little is known about the cellular and neural circuits that mediate these symptoms. Recent advances in circuit‐targeted approaches have provided new opportunities to study the neuropathology of mood disorders such as depression and anxiety. We review recent progress and highlight some studies that have begun tracing a functional neuronal circuit diagram that may prove essential in establishing novel treatment strategies in mood disorders. First, we shed light on the complexity of mesocorticolimbic dopamine (DA) responses to stress by discussing two recent studies reporting that optogenetic activation of midbrain DA neurons can induce or reverse depression‐related behaviors. Second, we describe the role of the lateral habenula circuitry in the pathophysiology of depression. Finally, we discuss how the prefrontal cortex controls limbic and neuromodulatory circuits in mood disorders.