Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A MANOVA of LBP Features for Face Recognition

Face recognition is one of the most broadly researched subjects in pattern recognition. Feature extraction is a key step in face recognition. As an effective texture description operator, Local Binary Pattern (LBP) feature is firstly introduced by Ahonen et al into face recognition. Because of the advantages of simplicity and efficiency, LBP feature is widely applied and later on becomes one of the bench mark feature for face recognition. The basic idea of LBP feature is to calculate the binary relation between the central pixel and its local neighborhood. The images are described with a multi-regional histogram sequence of the LBP coded pixels. Since most of the LBP pattern of the images are uniform patterns, Ojala et al, 2002 proposed Uniform Local Binary Pattern (ULBP). Through discarding the direction information of the LBP feature, they proposed the Rotation Invariant Uniform Local Binary Pattern (RIU-LBP) feature. The Uniform LBP feature partly reduces the dimension and retains most of the image information. RIU-LBP greatly reduces the dimension of the feature, but its performance in face recognition decreases drastically. This chapter mainly discusses the major factors of the ULBP and RIU-LBP features and introduces an improved RIU-LBP feature based on the factor analysis. Many previous works also endeavored to modify the LBP features. Zhang and Shan et al, 2006 proposed Histogram Sequence of Local Gabor Binary Pattern (HSLGBP), whose basic idea was to perform LBP coding to the image in multi-resolution and multi-scale of the images, thereby enhancing the robustness to the variation of expression and illumination; Jin et al, 2004 handled the center pixel value as the last bin of the binary sequence, the formation of the new LBP operator could effectively describe the local shape of face and its texture information; Zhang and Liao et al, 2007a, 2007b proposed multi-block LBP algorithm (MB-LBP), the mean of pixels in the center block and the mean of pixels in the neighborhood block were compared; Zhao & Gao, 2008 proposed an algorithm for multi-directional binary mode (MBP) to perform LBP coding from four different directions; Yan et al, 2007 improved the robustness of the algorithm by fusing the mult-radius LBP feature; He et al, 2005 believed that every sub-block contained different information, and proposed an enhanced LBP feature. The original image was decomposed into four spectral images to calculate the Uniform LBP codes, and then the waterfall model was used to combine them as the final feature. In order to effectively extract the global and local features of face images, Wang Wei et al 2009 proposed LBP pyramid algorithm. Through multi-scale analysis, the algorithm
The Benefits Management and Balanced Scorecard Strategy Map: How They Match

We are living in a period of enormous technological transformations and the organizations face new opportunities that the systems and information technology IS/IT implementations provide with the hope that these investments will help to increase productivity and business prosperity, meanwhile, several studies performed in public and private sectors have proven that the investments done in IS/IT have not brought the expected benefits. Some authors argue that the result of the studies that related investments in IS/IT and the increasing performance of the organizations in the last thirty years were far from true. In this paper the authors propose a link between the Benefits Dependency Network, from a Benefits Management approach, and a Strategy Map, from Balanced Scorecard, to improve the management of business benefits and to ensure that actions taken along the investment life-cycle lead to foreseen benefits realization. The goal of this integration is to build a framework that combines useful features of both methods. The authors sustain that they can be complementary. As a Strategy Map is committed with strategic alignment, communication and monitoring of strategy execution at all levels of an organization, a Benefits Dependency Network is aimed at explaining how benefits are going to be obtained through organizational change. Using the results of a case-study research, the authors explain how a Strategy Map can cross with the Benefits Dependency Network. The integrated contribution is meant to increase the investments effectiveness, giving to stakeholders the confidence on a clearer delivery path for their expected benefits.
Dependent partitioning

A key problem in parallel programming is how data is partitioned: divided into subsets that can be operated on in parallel and, in distributed memory machines, spread across multiple address spaces. We present a dependent partitioning framework that allows an application to concisely describe relationships between partitions. Applications first establish independent partitions, which may contain arbitrary subsets of application data, permitting the expression of arbitrary application-specific data distributions. Dependent partitions are then derived from these using the dependent partitioning operations provided by the framework. By directly capturing inter-partition relationships, our framework can soundly and precisely reason about programs to perform important program analyses crucial to ensuring correctness and achieving good performance. As an example of the reasoning made possible, we present a static analysis that discharges most consistency checks on partitioned data during compilation. We describe an implementation of our framework within Regent, a language designed for the Legion programming model. The use of dependent partitioning constructs results in a 86-96% decrease in the lines of code required to describe the partitioning, eliminates many of the expensive dynamic checks required for soundness by the current Regent partitioning implementation, and speeds up the computation of partitions by 2.6-12.7X even on a single thread. Additionally, we show that a distributed implementation incorporated into the the Legion runtime system allows partitioning of data sets that are too large to fit on a single node and yields a further 29X speedup of partitioning operations on 64 nodes.
Mining Urban WiFi QoS Factors: A Data Driven Approach

WiFi networks play a significant role in providing today's wireless connectivity, therefore, understanding and improving WiFi network performance is important for today's mobile applications and services. Previous studies conducted to investigate WiFi network performance have generally been performed using specific types of WiFi networks in relatively small areas and have been limited by either the scale of the studied WiFi access points (APs) or by the number of users. This paper describes a country-wide measurement study on WiFi network performance with the goal of determining which factors affect the quality of service (QoS) of high-density WiFi networks. We use a crowdsourced approach to study both the latency and bandwidth experienced by users in different types of WiFi networks. Our findings indicate that (1) WiFi network performance is correlated not only with signal strength but also with factors such as time, (2) the latency and bandwidth experienced by users generally exhibit different patterns and are affected differently by the studied factors, and (3) users experience significantly different QoS from different nearby APs, which suggests that providing users with better information when choosing a WiFi connection can yield more satisfactory results. We also provide insights on how such findings can be utilized to improve AP deployments and optimize association strategies.
Elucidating space, climate, edaphic, and biodiversity effects on aboveground biomass in tropical forests

This study aims to disentangle the direct and indirect roles of space, climate, edaphic, and biodiversity effects on aboveground biomass in natural tropical forests, thereby evaluating the relative effects and contribution of abiotic and biotic factors on aboveground biomass. We hypothesized that the space effect drives the longitudinal, latitudinal, and elevational patterns in climatic and edaphic factors, thereby directly and indirectly determining the relationships between biodiversity and aboveground biomass in natural tropical forests.
Walking and leisure-time activity and risk of hip fracture in postmenopausal women.

CONTEXT Physical activity can reduce the risk of hip fractures in older women, although the required type and duration of activity have not been determined. Walking is the most common activity among older adults, and evidence suggests that it can increase femoral bone density and reduce fracture risk. OBJECTIVE To assess the relationship of walking, leisure-time activity, and risk of hip fracture among postmenopausal women. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Prospective analysis begun in 1986 with 12 years of follow-up in the Nurses' Health Study cohort of registered nurses within 11 US states. A total of 61,200 postmenopausal women (aged 40-77 years and 98% white) without diagnosis of cancer, heart disease, stroke, or osteoporosis at baseline. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Incident hip fracture resulting from low or moderate trauma, analyzed by intensity and duration of leisure-time activity and by time spent walking, sitting, and standing, measured at baseline and updated throughout follow-up. RESULTS From 1986 to 1998, 415 incident hip fracture cases were identified. After controlling for age, body mass index, use of postmenopausal hormones, smoking, and dietary intakes in proportional hazards models, risk of hip fracture was lowered by 6% (95% confidence interval [CI], 4%-9%; P<.001) for each increase of 3 metabolic equivalent (MET)-hours per week of activity (equivalent to 1 h/wk of walking at an average pace). Active women with at least 24 MET-h/wk had a 55% lower risk of hip fracture (relative risk [RR], 0.45; 95% CI, 0.32-0.63) compared with sedentary women with less than 3 MET-h/wk. Even women with a lower risk of hip fracture due to higher body weight experienced a further reduction in risk with higher levels of activity. Risk of hip fracture decreased linearly with increasing level of activity among women not taking postmenopausal hormones (P<.001), but not among women taking hormones (P =.24). Among women who did no other exercise, walking for at least 4 h/wk was associated with a 41% lower risk of hip fracture (RR, 0.59; 95% CI, 0.37-0.94) compared with less than 1 h/wk. More time spent standing was also independently associated with lower risks. CONCLUSION Moderate levels of activity, including walking, are associated with substantially lower risk of hip fracture in postmenopausal women.
I Ntr O Duc Ti O N 6 . 2 . 1 Upper and Lower-case 6 . 2 . 2 Integrated Software Development Environments

The overall aim of CASE technology is to improve the productivity and quality of the resulting systems by assisting the developer throughout the different stages of the development process; from the acquisition of the functional and non-functional system requirements to the design and implementation of the system considering all the relevant technical and operational features. CASE provides the software tools that support methodologies to employ in modelling all levels of an organisation. In this sense it is more appropriate to consider CASE in a wider context than just software production, that has normally been the case. Therefore, CASE may be described as software tools for enterprise support consisting of enterprise strategic planning, IS strategic planning, project planning, systems development, documentation and maintenance. This chapter is organised as follows. Section 6.1 presents the possible advantages from the CASE technology and the need for CASE as part of system development and especially Requirements Engineering. Section 6.2 provides a classification of CASE technology. Distinctions are made between stand-alone CASE tools and integrated environments. Section 6.3 presents a generic architecture for CASE. Despite the plethora of CASE tools and supported methodologies in use today, the typical CASE architecture is built around the concept of a
Datix: A System for Scalable Network Analytics

The ever-increasing Internet traffic poses challenges to network operators and administrators that have to analyze large network datasets in a timely manner to make decisions regarding network routing, dimensioning, accountability and security. Network datasets collected at large networks such as Internet Service Providers (ISPs) or Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) can be in the order of Terabytes per hour. Unfortunately, most of the current network analysis approaches are ad-hoc and centralized, and thus not scalable. In this paper, we present Datix, a fully decentralized, open-source analytics system for network traffic data that relies on smart partitioning storage schemes to support fast join algorithms and efficient execution of filtering queries. We outline the architecture and design of Datix and we present the evaluation of Datix using real traces from an operational IXP. Datix is a system that deals with an important problem in the intersection of data management and network monitoring while utilizing state-of-the-art distributed processing engines. In brief, Datix manages to efficiently answer queries within minutes compared to more than 24 hours processing when executing existing Python based code in single node setups. Datix also achieves nearly 70% speedup compared to baseline query implementations of popular big data analytics engines such as Hive and Shark.
Structural brain networks correlating with poststroke cognition

Abstract Cognitive deficits are a common and debilitating consequence of stroke, yet our understanding of the structural neurobiological biomarkers predicting recovery of cognition after stroke remains limited. In this longitudinal observational study, we set out to investigate the effect of both focal lesions and structural connectivity on poststroke cognition. Sixty‐two patients with stroke underwent advanced brain imaging and cognitive assessment, utilizing the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and the Mini‐Mental State Examination (MMSE), at 3‐month and 12‐month poststroke. We first evaluated the relationship between lesions and cognition at 3 months using voxel‐based lesion‐symptom mapping. Next, a novel correlational tractography approach, using multi‐shell diffusion‐weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data collected at both time points, was used to evaluate the relationship between the white matter connectome and cognition cross‐sectionally at 3 months, and longitudinally (12 minus 3 months). Lesion‐symptom mapping did not yield significant findings. In turn, correlational tractography analyses revealed positive associations between both MoCA and MMSE scores and bilateral cingulum and the corpus callosum, both cross‐sectionally at the 3‐month stage, and longitudinally. These results demonstrate that rather than focal neural structures, a consistent structural connectome underpins the performance of two frequently used cognitive screening tools, the MoCA and the MMSE, in people after stroke. This finding should encourage clinicians and researchers to not only suspect cognitive decline when lesions affect these tracts, but also to refine their investigation of novel approaches to differentially diagnosing pathology associated with cognitive decline, regardless of the aetiology.
The relationship between cleft palate repair technique and audiological outcomes: A retrospective cohort study

Abstract Objective Otitis media with effusion is common in children with cleft palates. This study aimed to investigate the link between palatal closure techniques and audiological outcomes. Methods In this retrospective‐prospective cohort study, we examined the relationship between palate repair techniques and hearing outcomes in children with cleft palates. From 2017 to 2022, 190 ears of 95 cleft patients were studied at the Cleft Lip and Palate Department of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. Variables assessed included the surgical technique, cleft severity, auditory brainstem response (ABR) threshold, and tympanometry configuration. Results The mean ABR improved from a prepalatoplasty value of 39.51(11.62) decibels (dB) to a postpalatoplasty mean of 26.61(11.60) dB (Cohen's d: 1.12 [95% CI; 0.90–1.34]). Initially, 87.9% of the studied ears exhibited abnormal tympanometry, but this significantly decreased to 47% postsurgery (risk ratio: 4.43 [95% CI; 1.20–16.43]). When compared with Sommerlad intravelar veloplasty, the Nadjmi modified Furlow palatoplasty was associated with a notably lower mean ABR (β: −6.58 [95% CI: −10.43 to −2.73], p‐value = .001) and a reduced frequency of abnormal tympanometry (odds ratio [OR]: −1.10; 95% CI: −1.85 to −0.36, p‐value = .004). Factors like prepalatoplasty ABR, cleft palate severity, gender, and syndromic did not confound these findings. Conclusions Although the Nadjmi modified Furlow palatoplasty showed better results, our findings indicate a significant improvement in ABR and tympanometry outcomes for both techniques. Future randomized controlled trials are suggested to confirm the influence of palatal closure techniques on audiological outcomes. Level of Evidence 3b.
Prostaglandins , Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids

The extent to which higher intakes of linoleic acid (LA) affect risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) is examined by reviewing a wide variety of study types, mostly in humans. In experimental studies, LA has been shown to lower serum levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), especially when substituted for saturated fatty acids. Such an effect would be expected to reduce risk for CHD. In observational studies in which the dietary intake or serum content of LA were either cross-sectionally or prospectively related risk for CHD, higher LA intakes or serum levels have usually been associated with reduced risk. The pooled results from 5 randomized trials where LA was substituted for saturated fatty acids revealed a significant decrease in risk for CHD events with an LA intake 2–3 times current levels. Thus, current recommendations to consume 5–10% of energy from LA are evidence-based, and should not be reduced. & 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
is the routine use of bevacizumab in the treatment of women with advanced or recurrent cancer of the cervix sustainable?

Background: New chemotherapy combinations are being tested for the treatment of women with advanced, persistent or recurrent cervical cancer. We sought to evaluate the cost effectiveness of some newer combination therapies in cervical cancer. Patients and methods: A cost effectiveness decision model was used to analyze Gynecologic Oncology Group 240. All regimens were modeled for seven cycles. The regimens studied are as follows: regimen 1, cisplatin/paclitaxel (CP); regimen 2, CP with bevacizumab (CP + B); regimen 3, paclitaxel/topotecan (PT); and regimen 4, PT with bevacizumab (PT + B). Overall survival, cost, and complications were studied. Sensitivity analyses were performed. Results: Mean chemotherapy costs over mean total costs for seven cycles of each follows: CP $571/$32,966; CP + B $61,671/$96,842; PT $9,211/$71,620; and PT + B $70,312/$109,211. Incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) for CP + B was $133,559/quality adjusted life year (QALY). ICER for PT + B was $124,576/QALY. To achieve an incremental ICER for CP + B:CP of , $50,000/QALY gained, the mean overall survival has to increase from 1.1 years with CP to 3.5 years with CP + B. An ICER , $50,000/QALY for the other regimens would take a survival of . 10 years for PT and 4.1 years for PT + B. Treating 1,000 women with cervical cancer with CP + B would cost almost double the cost of treating . 18,000 women with ovarian cancer annually (carboplatin/paclitaxel). Conclusion: CP is the most cost effective regimen. A 12-month increase in overall survival will not even make the newer combinations cost effective. Currently, the use of bevacizumab is not sustainable at today’s costs.
Frequency control of an isolated hydro power plant using artificial intelligence

Frequency variation is a critical issue in power systems. With the recent developments in power sector, complexity and non-linearity of power system is increased to higher degree. Conventional controllers are designed considering linear power system models, therefore performance of these controllers may be not suffice the requirement of state of art. New strategies and controllers for controlling and monitoring of hydro power generation are developed and came into continuation with the conventional controllers like neural networks, fuzzy, and hybrids which performs better. In this paper, a new strategy is implemented for the control of hydro-turbine (Francis type) for the synchronous generator to attain the frequency in the prescribed limits at faster rate whenever there is change in load. An intelligent controller is used instead of conventional controller. In running condition, proposed controller results in maximum frequency deviation of 0.3% above the reference frequency and reach in stable state at faster rate when there is an unexpected load variation.
Ischemic preconditioning : the starting point

Time is muscle in patients undergoing acute myocardial infarction (AMI): the less time the coronary artery is occluded, the smaller the infarct size (IS) and the better the outcome for the patient [9, 17]. Although myocardial reperfusion is essential to salvage viable myocardium, it comes at a price in terms of myocardial reperfusion injury which paradoxically also damages the vulnerable post-ischemic myocardium. Studies in animal models of AMI suggest that reperfusion injury may account for a significant contribution to the final myocardial IS [45]. Therefore, targeting myocardial injury using therapies aimed to protect the heart against ischemia/reperfusion injury (IRI), known as cardioprotective therapies [33], remains one of the top ten unmet clinical needs in cardiology [7].
A Survey on Fiber Nonlinearity Compensation for 400 Gb/s and Beyond Optical Communication Systems

Optical communication systems represent the backbone of modern communication networks. Since their deployment, different fiber technologies have been used to deal with optical fiber impairments such as dispersion-shifted fibers and dispersion-compensation fibers. In recent years, thanks to the introduction of coherent detection based systems, fiber impairments can be mitigated using digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms. Coherent systems are used in the current 100 Gb/s wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) standard technology. They allow the increase of spectral efficiency by using multilevel modulation formats, and are combined with DSP techniques to combat linear fiber distortions. In addition to linear impairments, the next generation 400 Gb/s and 1 Tb/s WDM systems are also more affected by the fiber nonlinearity due to the Kerr effect. At high input powers, fiber nonlinear effects become more important and their compensation is required to improve the transmission performance. Several approaches have been proposed to deal with the fiber nonlinearity. In this paper, after a brief description of the Kerr-induced nonlinear effects, a survey on fiber nonlinearity compensation (NLC) techniques is provided. We focus on the well-known NLC techniques and discuss their performance, as well as their implementation and complexity. An extension of the inter-subcarrier nonlinear interference canceler approach is also proposed. A performance evaluation of the well-known NLC techniques and the proposed approach is provided in the context of Nyquist and super-Nyquist superchannel systems.