Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
EMERGING TOPICS : SPECIAL ISSUE ON 3 D VIDEO REPRESENTATIONS & CODING : TRENDS AND CHALLENGES

Dear Fellow MMTC Members, I am very happy to announce the winners of the MMTC Paper and Service Award of 2014. MMTC best paper awards are open for nominations all year around. Any candidate paper needs to go through a rigorous three-stage process: nomination, review, and award selection. The nomination is open for any MMTC members, and self-nomination is allowed. The MMTC Review Board takes the lead of the review process, and selects award quality papers published in the bimonthly MMTC Review Letter. The MMTC Award Board takes lead of the award selection process, by voting on the eligible papers published in the MMTC Review letter since the last award selection. Detailed procedure can be found at The Award Board has decided not to give MMTC Best Conference Paper Award this year, mainly because of the very limited number of conference paper candidates in the pool this year. There is no nomination for MMTC Distinguished Service Award this year. This will be my last Chair's message, before the election of new MMTC officers in ICC 2014. I look forward to seeing many of you in Sydney, and the opportunities of continuing my contributions to MMTC in the many years ahead. During the last decade, computer graphics technology has been emerged rapidly resulting into productions of extremely high quality. Lately, due to the evolution of 3D display technologies, computer graphics are visualized in even more fascinating ways. In addition to graphics visualization, technology has shown a significant advance in natural scene capturing with High Definition (HD) cameras, HD stereo cameras and depth sensors. These technological breakthroughs introduced new types of visual media, like 3D Video (3DV) and Free Viewpoint Video (FVV) that expand user experience beyond traditional 2D video. The capabilities, as well as the design, of a 3DV/FVV system are determined by the choice of the appropriate 3D representation of the visual content. In general, there are three representation options: i) image-based, ii) image plus depth-based and iii) geometry-based (i.e., 3D reconstructions). The choice of the 3D representation specifies the capturing requirements (e.g., number and position of cameras necessary) and on the other hand it determines the coding schemes, the transmission & rendering algorithms and capabilities such as the navigation range, robustness to occlusions, interactivity, degree of immersion, etc. This special issue of E-Letter focuses on the recent progresses of 3D Video Representations and Coding focusing on rather new forms …
Doing bad through being selective in doing good: the role of within-unit variability in ethical leadership

ABSTRACT In this two study investigation we examined the role of ethical leadership variability defined as the differences in follower perceptions of ethical leadership with regard to the same leader. Building on a leader distance and social exchange framework, we developed a model in which a leader’s span of control positively predicted ethical leadership variability, which in turn negatively affected unit job satisfaction through decreasing unit trust in the leader. Additionally, leaders’ extraversion was postulated to buffer the negative indirect effect of span of control on unit job satisfaction. In Study 1, we drew a sample of 168 leaders and their 1490 immediate followers and found the expected positive indirect relationship between span of control on unit job satisfaction via ethical leadership variability. In Study 2, we analyzed a sample of 137 leaders and their 1468 followers. Results suggested that span of control was positively related to ethical leadership variability; this, in turn, was negatively related to unit job satisfaction through attenuating unit trust in the leader. As expected, extraversion reduced the negative indirect effect of span of control. Implications for ethical leadership theory, future research, and organizational practice are discussed.
Temporally coupled Principal Component Analysis: A Probabilistic autoregression method

Despite the apparent spatio-temporal decomposition given by (Probabilistic) Principal Component Analysis ((P)PCA), there is in fact no temporal coupling built into these models. Here we augment PPCA with a temporal model in the latent space by coupling the latent variables in time with an autoregressive model and show that the new model may be viewed as a generalisation of PPCA. We present an algorithm which utilises both expectation maximisation and a forward-backward algorithm to infer the values of the model parameters and demonstrate that it is able to make good estimates of the parameter values for synthetic data. We show that the additional temporal information is advantageous when imputing values for missing observations when compared with two non-temporal PPCA methods, both against synthetic data and real UK industrial production output data.
Environmental and age differences in the formation of romantic pairs and self-monitoring in adolescents

This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. For more information, please contact pdxscholar@pdx.edu. Recommended Citation Oelheim, Russell I. , "Environmental and age differences in the formation of romantic pairs and self-monitoring in adolescents" (1991). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 4430.
Analysis of Bone Marrow-derived Mesenchymal Stem Cell Kinetics after Short-term Stimulation with Tumor Necrosis Factor-α (TNF-α)

Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) have considerable potential for self-renewal and multi-differentiation. Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) is an inflammatory cytokine and is involved in tissue regeneration during wound healing. It was already reported that cultured human dental pulp cells acquire stem cell properties following short-term stimulation by TNF-α. However, it has not been clarified if BMSCs acquire stem cell properties after TNF-α treatment. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of short-term stimulation with TNF-α on BMSCs. Rat BMSCs were cultured up to 60% confluence and then incubated with 1–100 ng/ml of recombinant rat TNF-α (rTNF-α) for a further 2 days. After reaching subconfluence, cells were passaged once to remove rTNF-α completely before subsequent assays. Cells in the control group were passaged without stimulation. Expression levels of Nanog and Oct4 stem cell markers were significantly increased in the rTNF-α 10 ng/ml stimulation group. rTNF-α stimulation did not affect cell proliferation compared with the control group. However, rTNF-α stimulation led to a delay in cell differentiation. This study suggests that short-term TNF-α stimulation of BMSCs significantly increased their stem cell phenotype, but delayed their osteogenic cell differentiation.
Ionic mechanisms of variability in electrophysiological properties in Ischemia: A population-based study

Electrophysiological heterogeneities in ischemia provide a pro-arrhythmic substrate that can lead to ventricular arrhythmias. However, the mechanisms underlying intersubject variability in the pro-arrhythmic response of the human ventricles to acute ischaemia are unknown. In this initial study, we investigated the ionic basis of variability in cellular electrophysiological properties in normal and acutely ischemic human ventricular cardiomyocytes using a population-based simulation study. Additionally, we analysed the importance of hyperkalemia, IK(ATP) activation and acidosis-induced ICaL and INa inhibition in modulating these electrophysiological properties within the human cell population. Results show that in the occurrence of APD alternans, the conductance gCaL plays the most important role followed by the Na/K pump whereas under ischemic conditions, other mechanisms also become important such as Na/Ca exchanger and the IKr and IKs currents. On the maximum restitution slope, under ischemic conditions, gNa and gNaCa become important while gKr reduce its influence on it.
Behavior problems in children and adolescents with chronic physical illness: a meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE To examine the risk of emotional and behavioral problems among children with a chronic physical illness. METHODS Random-effects meta-analysis was computed to integrate the results of 569 studies that used the Child Behavior Checklist, Youth Self Report, and the Teacher Report Form. RESULTS Young people with a chronic physical illness have higher levels of internalizing (g = .47 standard mean difference), externalizing (g = .22) and total behavior problems (g = .42) than healthy peers. The largest differences were found in parental ratings and the weakest differences in adolescent self-ratings. Strongest elevations of internalizing problems were found for chronic fatigue syndrome and strongest elevations of externalizing problems were observed for epilepsy and migraine/tension-type headache. Effects also varied by country and, in part, by age, gender, year of publication, and study design. CONCLUSIONS The results call for regular screens for psychological distress and referrals for mental health services, when needed.
Supersymmetric Field Theory from Supermatrix Models

We show that the continuum limit of one-dimensional N=2 supersymmetric matrix models can be described by a two-dimensional interacting field theory of a massless boson and two chiral fermions. We interpret this field theory as a two-dimensional N=1 supersymmetric theory of two chiral superfields, in which one of the chiral superfields has a non-trivial vacuum expectation value.
Teenage Childbearing and Maternal Schooling Outcomes : Evidence from Matching ∗

This paper investigates to what extent the observed correlation between adolescent fertility and poor maternal educational attainment is causal. Semi-parametric kernel matching estimator is applied to estimate the effects of teenage childbearing on schooling outcomes. The matching method estimates the conditional moments without imposing any functional form restrictions and attends directly to the common support condition. Using data from the NLSY-79, kernel matching estimates suggest that half of the cross-sectional educational gaps remains after controlling for individual and family covariates. The difference between matching estimates and regressionbased estimates implies that part of the conditional difference in parametric models is due to the functional assumption. The robustness check following Altonji, Elder, and Taber (2005) reveals that a substantial amount of correlation is required within a parametric framework to make the negative effect of teen motherhood on educational attainment go away. Further evidence obtained by simulation-based nonparametric sensitivity analysis suggests that the matching estimates are quite robust with regard to a wide range of specifications of the simulated unobservables.
Hadron Spectroscopy and Wavefunctions in QCD and the AdS/CFT Correspondence

The AdS/CFT correspondence has led to important insights into the properties of quantum chromodynamics even though QCD is a broken conformal theory. We have recently shown how a holographic model based on a truncated AdS space can be used to obtain the hadronic spectrum of light qq, qqq and gg bound states. Specific hadrons are identified by the correspondence of string modes with the dimension of the interpolating operator of the hadron’s valence Fock state, including orbital angular momentum excitations. The predicted mass spectrum is linear M ∝ L at high orbital angular momentum, in contrast to the quadratic dependence M2 ∝ L found in the description of spinning strings. Since only one parameter, the QCD scale ΛQCD, is introduced, the agreement with the pattern of physical states is remarkable. In particular, the ratio of Δ to nucleon trajectories is determined by the ratio of zeros of Bessel functions. The light‐front quantization of gauge theories in light‐cone gauge provides a frame‐independent wav.
Reactivity of the Reward System in Artists During Acceptance and Rejection of Monetary Rewards

Humans possess an invaluable ability of self-expression that extends into visual, literary, musical, and many other fields of creation. More than any other profession, artists are in close contact with this subdomain of creativity. Probably one of the most intriguing aspects of creativity is its negative correlation with the availability of monetary reward. The aim of this study was to investigate the reactivity of the dopaminergic reward system in artists and nonartist controls using the desire-reason-dilemma (DRD) paradigm, which allows separate evaluation of reactivity to the acceptance and rejection of rewards. Using fMRI, blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) responses were measured in key regions of the reward system, namely the ventral striatum (VS), the ventral tegmental area (VTA), and the anterior ventral prefrontal cortex (AVPFC). In contrast to controls, artists presented significantly weaker VS activation in reward acceptance. Additionally, they showed stronger suppression of the VS by the AVPFC in reward rejection. No other differences in demographic or behavioral data were evidenced. These results support the existence of characteristic neural traits in artists, who display reduced reactions to monetary reward acceptance and increased reactions to monetary reward rejection.
ANNIHILATION POLES FOR FORM FACTORS IN THE XXZ MODEL

The annihilation poles for the form factors in the XXZ model are studied using vertex operators introduced in Ref. 1. An annihilation pole is the property of form factors according to which the residue of the 2n-particle form factor in such a pole can be expressed through linear combination of the (2n−2)-particle form factors. To prove this property we use the bosonization of the vertex operators in the XXZ model which was invented in Ref. 2.
An Integrated Bimanual Computer Input Station : the Command Chair

A new computer input device, the Command Chair, has been developed to provide bimanual (or, two-handed) input while also addressing several additional ergonomic issues. In particular, the Command Chair integrates an office chair, keyboard input, bimanual pointer input, and forearm support into a single system. This allows a designer to consider the input system as a whole, rather than as a collection of individual devices. In turn, this allows for better control of body activities and postures, with the goal of providing user comfort over a full workday. This system uses the location of the keyboard to position the mouse, removing the need to switch between devices. Preliminary testing indicates that the Command Chair reduces wrist fatigue relative to a traditional input station, but also provides slower pointing speed partially attributable to higher system inertia. Author
What does ground tell us? Monocular visual odometry under planar motion constraint

Recently, visual odometry has gained more attention due to its application to autonomous vehicles and robots. In this paper, we propose visual odometry using a single camera. This configuration is economically more attractive than other popular configurations using stereo cameras. To estimate frame-to-frame motion more accurately, we thoroughly utilize prior knowledge on our operating space and motion. Our visual odometry assumes that its operating space is locally flat so that its movement undergoes planar motion. From this assumption, we can adopt the novel normalized 1-point algorithm to estimate relative pose between a pair of images. Moreover, under this assumption, we can resolve scale ambiguity, the most serious problem in monocular visual odometry. To estimate scale of motion, we introduce the other 1-point algorithm derived from planar homography of the ground plane. Two 1-point algorithms are the key to accelerate our visual odometry for its further application to real-time systems. Our experiments on synthetic data verified that the normalized 1-point algorithm was more accurate than other known method. Moreover, our experiments on real data presented effectiveness of our proposed visual odometry.
A Cognitively Bounded Rational Analysis Model of Dual-Task Performance Trade-Offs

The process of interleaving two tasks can be described as making trade-offs between performance on each of the tasks. This can be captured in performance operating characteristic curves. However, these curves do not describe what, given the specific task circumstances, the optimal strategy is. In this paper we describe the results of a dual-task study in which participants performed a tracking and typing task under various experimental conditions. An objective payoff function was used to describe how participants should trade-off performance between the tasks. Results show that participants' dual-task interleaving strategy was sensitive to changes in the difficulty of the tracking task, and resulted in differences in overall task performance. To explain the observed behavior, a cognitively bounded rational analysis model was developed to understand participants' strategy selection. This analysis evaluated a variety of dual-task interleaving strategies against the same payoff function that participants were exposed to. The model demonstrated that in three out of four conditions human performance was optimal; that is, participants adopted dual-task strategies that maximized the payoff that was achieved.
Sentence semantic orientation calculation algorithm based on structure analysis

It is urgent to find an automatic method of an automatic orientation calculation on the large-scale text in Chinese. Rather than comment their orientation directly in comment texts, people may express their orientation on topic by describe its features using orientation words. The describe word on features indicated their orientation. The orientation of comments on object is called topic orientation. Although the word orientation, also called word polarity, is the foundation for the text orientation analysis, the sentence structure also should be considered in this process. In this paper, text topic orientation is calculated by not only word orientation, but also sentence structure, and an Emotion Submission algorithm is proposed to calculate the sentence topic orientation. This method is suitable for goods comments. The experiment results show that the proposed algorithm is reasonable.
A study on proposed IEEE 802.15 WBAN MAC protocols

Sensor networks are being researched and deployed in wide range of applications in healthcare. These networks when centered on the proximity of human body create an unique structure. The IEEE 802.15 Task Group 6 (TG6), Body Area Networks (BAN) or Wireless BAN (WBAN) is formed to address specific needs of this area. The task group is developing a communication standard optimized for low power devices and operation in, on or around the human body. The purpose is to serve a variety of applications including medical, and non-medical such as consumer electronics/personal entertainment and others. It is still in developing stage and implementation of the standard is not finalized yet. Various institutes/groups have proposed MAC protocols specifically to address the needs of WBAN. In this paper we present an analysis of these protocols. We compared and analyzed each protocol on fifteen diverse points starting from BAN requirements to energy efficiency.
An improved snake for automatic building extraction

Using snakes to extract buildings from satellite imagery such as IKONOS and Quickbird is an active activity in remote sensing society. Building extraction from satellite imagery has more than 20 years of history but the automated extractions are still undergoing developmental stages due to increasing image variation, required level of details and higher resolution imagery are acquired. This paper discusses the prototyping of an improved snake model. Snake is initialized in cornered-radial cast in comparison to the existing centered-radial. Moreover the coefficients for snake energy are obtained through genetic algorithm.
Effects of data cleansing on load prediction algorithms

The rollout of advanced metering infrastructure that is planned in many countries worldwide will lead to a massive inflow of data from moderately reliable sensory equipment. In principle, this will make intelligent and automated planning and operation possible at an increasingly finer scale in the electric grid. However, errors can creep into the meter data, either from faulty sensors or during transmission from the meters to the database. This work studies the role of data cleansing as a preprocessing step for short-term (24-hour) power load prediction. We focus on cleansing and prediction at several levels of granularity, from the transmission level via distribution substations down to single households. We believe that preprocessing filters such as cleansing should lead to more robustness and/or precision in the subsequent processing step. However, load cleansing frameworks tend to make the popular assumption of normally and independently distributed noise in the time series. We show that this is incorrect at the diurnal level, due to the characteristic pattern of power consumption, with two peak loads during daytime and a nighttime trough. Moreover, we present empirical evidence that a preprocessing step based on this assumption fails to contribute positively to the performance of the subsequent prediction step. To rectify this problem, we suggest to subtract the average power load consumption in a given period before cleansing. We present empirical evidence that this improves the robustness and efficiency of load cleansing as a preprocessing step. Data cleansing and load prediction is performed by a system that searches out parameters using an evolutionary approach.
A molecular gas bridge between the Taffy galaxies

The Taffy Galaxies system, UGC 12914/5, contains huge amounts of molecular gas in the bridge region between the receding spirals after a direct collision. $2{-}9 \times 10^9$ $M_\odot$ of molecular gas is present between the galaxies, more than the CO emission from the entire Milky Way! Such dense gas can only be torn off by collisions between dense clouds, in this case with relative velocities of about 800 ${\rm \, km \, s^{-1}}$, such that the remnant cloud acquires an intermediate velocity and is left in the bridge after separation of the colliding galaxies. We suggest that after ionization in the collision front, the gas cooled and recombined very quickly such that the density remained high and the gas left the colliding disks in molecular form.
The Slow X-Ray Expansion of the Northwestern Rim of the Supernova Remnant RX J0852.0–4622

The detection of the radioactive decay line of 44Ti provides unique evidence that the γ-ray source is a young (<1000 yr) supernova remnant because of the short 44Ti lifetime of ~90 yr. Only two Galactic remnants, Cassiopeia A and RX J0852.0–4622, have hitherto been reported as 44Ti line emitters, although the detection from the latter has been debated. Here we report on an expansion measurement of the northwestern rim of RX J0852.0–4622 obtained with X-ray observations separated by 6.5 yr. The expansion rate is derived to be 0.023% ± 0.006%, which is about 5 times lower than those of young historical remnants. Such a slow expansion suggests that RX J0852.0–4622 is not as young a remnant as has been expected. We estimate an age of 1700-4300 yr for this remnant, depending on its evolutionary stage. Assuming a high shock speed of ~3000 km s−1, which is suggested by the detection of nonthermal X-ray radiation, the distance of ~750 pc to this remnant is also derived.