Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Seamless image stitching algorithm using radiometric lens calibration for high resolution optical microscopy

Image mosaicing method is an image-based rendering and visualization method which is a common procedure in the generation of panoramic (composite) images and applications, such as creating virtual reality, super resolution, object insertion and object removal, etc. Specifically, the image stitching approach becomes common in super resolution digital imaging microscopy, where it is required to achieve both high magnification and a large field of view. This work presents the algorithm for the stitching of different overlapped high resolution views of the whole scene obtained from high magnification optical microscopes into a large radiometric balanced image through maximization of a cross-correlation function. To seamlessly blend and reduce the possibility of intensity and color mismatching of multiple source images in mosaicing, a radiometric calibration of the microscope optical system is employed. The algorithm was tested with grayscale and color images, and showed convincing and robust results in image stitching and blending.
Evaluation of Commercial Diagnostic Assays for the Specific Detection of Avian Influenza A (H7N9) Virus RNA Using a Quality-Control Panel and Clinical Specimens in China

A novel avian influenza A H7N9-subtype virus emerged in China in 2013 and threatened global public health. Commercial kits that specifically detect avian influenza A (H7N9) virus RNA are urgently required to prepare for the emergence and potential pandemic of this novel influenza virus. The safety and effectiveness of three commercial molecular diagnostic assays were evaluated using a quality-control panel and clinical specimens collected from over 90 patients with confirmed avian influenza A (H7N9) virus infections. The analytical performance evaluation showed that diverse influenza H7N9 viruses can be detected with high within- and between-lot reproducibility and without cross-reactivity to other influenza viruses (H1N1 pdm09, seasonal H1N1, H3N2, H5N1 and influenza B). The detection limit of all the commercial assays was 2.83 Log10 copies/μl [0.7 Log10TCID50/mL of avian influenza A (H7N9) virus strain A/Zhejiang/DTID-ZJU01/2013], which is comparable to the method recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). In addition, using a WHO-Chinese National Influenza Center (CNIC) method as a reference for clinical evaluation, positive agreement of more than 98% was determined for all of the commercial kits, while negative agreement of more than 99% was observed. In conclusion, our findings provide comprehensive evidence for the high performance of three commercial diagnostic assays and suggest the application of these assays as rapid and effective diagnostic tools for avian influenza A (H7N9) virus in the routine clinical practice of medical laboratories.
A Virtuous Circle: TRENDS IN POLITICAL COMMUNICATIONS

List of tables List of figures Preface Part I. The News Media and Civic Malaise: 1. The news media and democracy 2. Evaluating media performance 3. Understanding political communications Part II. Trends in Political Communication: 4. The decline of newspapers? 5. The rise (and fall? ) of the television age 6. The emerging internet era 7. The evolution of campaign communications 8. The rise of the post-modern campaign? Part III. The Impact on Democracy: 9. Negative news, negative public? 10. Knows little? Information and choice 11. Cares less? Cynical media, cynical public? 12. Stays home? Political mobilization 13. American exceptionalism? 14. A virtuous circle? Technical appendix Notes Select bibliography Author index Subject index.
General Chemistry Topic Coverage (GCTC) comparison between community colleges and universities in the United States.

This study is based on survey responses of 224 general chemistry instructors at United States (U.S.) community colleges and universities representing 46 states. The mean values of General Chemistry Topic Coverage (GCTC) score, developed by this researcher specifically for this dissertation study as a measure of course content, were statistically analyzed. The aim of this study is to answer five research questions: (a) Is there a difference in mean GCTC scores between U.S. community colleges and four-year colleges and universities? (b) If there is a difference in mean GCTC score between the two study groups, what are the observed differences in subtopics covered between community colleges and four-year colleges and universities? (c) Considering both community colleges and universities, is there a difference in mean GCTC score between the different designated U.S. regions? (d) Considering both community college and university professors, is there a difference in GCTC score for professors with a master's degree compared to those with a doctorate? , and (e) Is there a correlation between GCTC score and the percentage of students that major in science? Results indicate that there is a statistically significant difference in course content between community colleges and universities, there is a statistically significant difference between different U.S. regions, there is no statistically significant difference between professors with an earned master's versus those with an earned doctorate degree, and there is no statistically significant correlation between general chemistry course content and the percentage of a professor's students majoring in science. Details of the observed differences between community college and university course content are discussed, and recommendations for future research are presented.
Analysis of bursty crosstalk in DSL

We propose a simple model for the bursty operation of digital subscriber line (DSL) modems. Based on this model, we derive a power spectrum density (PSD) for the bursty crosstalk. This analysis suggests that both the duty cycle and the bursty activity rate must be optimized when bursty crosstalk is used to increase the performance of crosstalk-limited systems.
Modern Labour Economics

1. Labour Force Participation 2. The Labour Supply Curve 3. Investment in Human Capital 4. Changing Jobs: The Economics of Job Search 5. The Demand for Labour 6. Extensions of Labour Demand: Mismatches in the Labour Market 7. Trade Unions 8. Bargaining and Conflict 9. The Structure of Labour Markets 10. Wage Incentives 11. Labour Market Policy
Preparation and properties of nanostructured magnetic hollow microspheres: experiment and simulation

This article presents the experimental realization of magnetic hollow microspheres. Starting from core–shell microspheres with an organic core and a shell composed of nanoparticles, we remove the core using a plasma etching technique. An estimate of the magneto-elastic effects arising from the interplay of magnetic dipolar interactions and cohesive energy, which can be expected in such structures, is given with the help of computer simulations using the hybrid Monte Carlo method.
Reducing Model Ordering using Routh Approximation Method

The Higher order systems are frequently too arduous to be used in real time applications. Model order reduction was developed in the areas of systems and control theory, which studied properties of dynamical systems in application for reducing their complexity, while preserving their input-output behavior as much as possible. Routh approximation method (RAM) is one of the most elegant methods of model reduction which preserves the stability of original system in reduced system.
The brooms in fantasia: Neural correlates of anthropomorphizing objects

People show medial prefrontal cortex and superior temporal sulcus (STS) activation when making dispositional attributions to other people (Harris, Todorov, & Fiske, 2005) under conditions predicted by Kelley's (1972) ANOVA model. Here, participants make dispositional attributions to entire categories of objects under similar conditions; they also show greater activity in STS (implicated in perceiving trajectory) and bilateral amygdala (implicated in vigilance). Initial STS activity is greater to object categories while later amygdala activity is greater to specific objects. Self--reported anthropomorphizing predicts both STS activity to object categories and amygdala activity to specific objects. Anthropomorphizing object categories (versus single objects) resembles dispositional inferences.
Applying two-level reinforcement ranking in query-oriented multidocument summarization

Sentence ranking is the issue of most concern in document summarization today. While traditional featurebased approaches evaluate sentence significance and rank the sentences relying on the features that are particularly designed to characterize the different aspects of the individual sentences, the newly emerging graphbased ranking algorithms (such as the PageRank-like algorithms) recursively compute sentence significance using the global information in a text graph that links sentences together. In general, the existing PageRank-like algorithms can model well the phenomena that a sentence is important if it is linked by many other important sentences. Or they are capable of modeling the mutual reinforcement among the sentences in the text graph. However, when dealing with multidocument summarization these algorithms often assemble a set of documents into one large file. The document dimension is totally ignored. In this article we present a framework to model the two-level mutual reinforcement among sentences as well as documents. Under this framework we design and develop a novel ranking algorithm such that the document reinforcement is taken into account in the process of sentence ranking.The convergence issue is examined. We also explore an interesting and important property of the proposed algorithm.When evaluated on the DUC 2005 and 2006 query-oriented multidocument summarization datasets, significant results are achieved.
Generating video description with Long-Short Term Memory

Connecting visual imagery with visual descriptive language is a challenge for computer vision and machine translation. Inspired by image description, which used `encoder-decoder' model to translate image into target sentence. We propose an approach that can generate descriptions for video. Different from image which record the information in a moment, video have time-serials property. So when generating video description, we requires encoding dynamic temporal structure. Our model in this paper successfully takes into account both the global and local information. First, our approach extract the features of sample frames by a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) which is pre-trained for image classification. Second, we get the global feature of video by max pooling the features of frames. Third, we divide the Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM) into two parts, one of which encode the features of frames into local feature, another decode the features which contains global and local information into target sentence. Finally, we compare two variants of our model with recent works using BLEU metrics on YouTube dataset.
On the correlation between Brain Computer Interface performance and chronotype

—A novel way of using Brain Computer Interface (BCI) has emerged, which proposes to use these systems to monitor users mental states. In this work we would investigate if the users’ morning/evening activity preference could be related to BCI performances. Preliminary findings highlighted a correlation between chronotype and the latter.
Mutlivariate Discrimination of Binary Data using SAS Software ®

The use of a linear discrimination rule for binary data is discussed and evaluated. SAS procedures for nonparametric discriminant analysis are introduced and analyzed for their use with discrete data. Methods based on the multinomial model, kernel density estimators and nearest neighbor rules are proposed. Algorithms for implementing these methods in practice are provided using a combination of Base SAS and SAS/IML.
A NEW APPROACH OF ALTERED FINGERPRINTS DETECTION ON THE ALTERED AND NORMAL FINGERPRINT DATABASE

The Research work of this paper is to investigate the current techniques for Altered fingerprint detection. Pattern recognition modalities being used in the world are fingerprint, footprint, palm print. But these pattern recognition methods cannot identify the persons having altered finger. The objective of this research work is to propose an algorithm for Detection. The Proposed method for Detection is one of the most reliable methods of personal verification. This can be widely used in Criminal Identification, Access Authority Verification, ATM verification and many other citizen centric applications. The Proposed method SVM-KERNEL is effective search method over the large clustered fingerprint database.
Transcriptome Analysis of Cultured Limbal Epithelial Cells on an Intact Amniotic Membrane following Hypothermic Storage in Optisol-GS

The aim of the present study was to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying activation of cell death pathways using genome-wide transcriptional analysis in human limbal epithelial cell (HLEC) cultures following conventional hypothermic storage in Optisol-GS. Three-week HLEC cultures were stored in Optisol-GS for 2, 4, and 7 days at 4 °C. Partek Genomics Suite software v.6. 15.0422, (Partec Inc., St. Louis, MO, USA) was used to identify genes that showed significantly different (P < 0.05) levels of expression following hypothermic storage compared to non-stored cell sheets. There were few changes in gene expression after 2 days of storage, but several genes were differently regulated following 4 and 7 days of storage. The histone-coding genes HIST1H3A and HIST4H4 were among the most upregulated genes following 4 and 7 days of hypothermic storage. Bioinformatic analysis suggested that these two genes are involved in a functional network highly associated with cell death, necrosis, and transcription of RNA. HDAC1, encoding histone deacetylase 1, was the most downregulated gene after 7 days of storage. Together with other downregulated genes, it is suggested that HDAC1 is involved in a regulating network significantly associated with cellular function and maintenance, differentiation of cells, and DNA repair. Our data suggest that the upregulated expression of histone-coding genes together with downregulated genes affecting cell differentiation and DNA repair may be responsible for increased cell death following hypothermic storage of cultured HLEC. In summary, our results demonstrated that a higher number of genes changed with increasing storage time. Moreover, in general, larger differences in absolute gene expression values were observed with increasing storage time. Further understanding of these molecular mechanisms is important for optimization of storage technology for limbal epithelial sheets.
A Fast Method for DOA Estimation of Coherent Signal from Sparse Signal Reconstruction Perspective

we proposed a fast method for direction of arrival (DOA) estimation of coherent signal with arbitrary array geometry from a perspective of sparse signal reconstruction. The feasibility of sparse signal reconstruction is mainly affected by the inter-atom interference of redundant dictionary. In the paper, our method for the DOA estimation of coherent signal is based on orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) algorithm by designing adaptive sensing dictionary to mitigate the inter-atom interference (AMIAI). We demonstrate the effectiveness of the method on simulated results by arithmetic speed, by plots of spatial spectra and by comparing the estimator variance to the Cramer-Rao Lower Bound (CRLB). Our approach takes low computation as starting point, makes effort to improve the estimation performance of algorithm and has source overload capability.
Synergistic effects of A-B-C-type amphiphilic copolymer on reversal of drug resistance in MCF-7/ADR breast carcinoma

P-glycoprotein (P-gp) overexpression has become the most common cause of occurrence of multidrug resistance in clinical settings. We aimed to construct a micellar polymer carrier to sensitize drug-resistant tumors to doxorubicin (DOX). This A-B-C-type amphiphilic copolymer was prepared by the sequential linkage of β-cyclodextrin, hydrophobic poly(d,l-lactide), and hydrophilic poly(ethylene glycol). Upon incubation of the DOX-loaded micelles with DOX-resistant human breast carcinoma MCF-7/ADR cells, significantly enhanced cytotoxicity and apoptosis were achieved. A series of studies on the action mechanism showed that the polymer components such as β-cyclodextrin, hydrophobic poly(d,l-lactide) segment, and poly(ethylene glycol) coordinatively contributed to the improved intracellular ATP depletion and ATPase activity, increased intracellular uptake of P-gp substrates via competitive binding to P-gp, and decreased P-gp expression in MCF-7/ADR cells. More interestingly, a similar phenomenon was observed in the zebrafish xenograft model, resulting in ~64% inhibition of MCF-7/ADR tumor growth. These results implied that the polymeric micelles displayed great potentials as P-gp modulators to reverse DOX resistance in MCF-7/ADR breast carcinoma.
Explaining Outputs in Modern Data Analytics

We report on the design and implementation of a general framework for interactively explaining the outputs of modern data-parallel computations, including iterative data analytics. To produce explanations, existing works adopt a naive backward tracing approach which runs into known issues; naive backward tracing may identify: (i) too much information that is difficult to process, and (ii) not enough information to reproduce the output, which hinders the logical debugging of the program. The contribution of this work is twofold. First, we provide methods to effectively reduce the size of explanations based on the first occurrence of a record in an iterative computation. Second, we provide a general method for identifying explanations that are sufficient to reproduce the target output in arbitrary computations -- a problem for which no viable solution existed until now. We implement our approach on differential dataflow, a modern high-throughput, low-latency dataflow platform. We add a small (but extensible) set of rules to explain each of its data-parallel operators, and we implement these rules as differential dataflow operators themselves. This choice allows our implementation to inherit the performance characteristics of differential dataflow, and results in a system that efficiently computes and updates explanatory inputs even as the inputs of the reference computation change. We evaluate our system with various analytic tasks on real datasets, and we show that it produces concise explanations in tens of milliseconds, while remaining faster -- up to two orders of magnitude -- than even the best implementations that do not support explanations.
The effects of birth weight and postnatal linear growth retardation on body mass index, fatness and fat distribution in mid and late childhood

Abstract Objective: To determine the effects of birth weight and early childhood stunting on body mass index (BMI), body fat and fat distribution at ages 7 and 11 years, and the change from 7 to 11 years. Design: Prospective cohort study. Setting: Kingston, Jamaica. Subjects: One hundred and sixteen stunted children (height-for-age below two standard deviations (<-2SD) of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) references) and 190 non-stunted children (height-for-age > -1SD), identified at age 9–24 months. The stunted group was divided into a previously stunted group (height-for-age at 11 years ≥ -1SD) and a chronically stunted group (height-for-age <-1SD). Results: Birth weight was positively related to the children's BMI but not to measures of body fat. Birth weight was negatively associated with the subscapular/triceps skinfold (SSF/TSF) ratio at age 11 years, and to the change between 7 and 11 years. Controlling for birth weight, the chronically stunted group remained significantly smaller than the non-stunted children at both ages and increased less from 7 to 11 years in all measures except the SSF/TSF ratio, which was significantly greater at age 7 years. The previously stunted group had significantly lower BMI and percentage body fat at age 7 years than the non-stunted group. Change from 7 to 11 years was not significantly different from that of the non-stunted group except for a smaller increase in TSF. At age 11 years they had significantly lower TSF and percentage body fat1. Conclusions: Children stunted in early childhood had less fat and lower BMI than non-stunted children but had a more central fat distribution that was partially explained by their lower birth weights. The association between birth weight and central fat distribution developed between 7 and 11 years.
Automatic Intruder Detection and Tracking System with Pan-Tilt-Zoom Camera

We propose an automatic monitoring system which detects and tracks intruders, using a pan-tiltzoom camera. Detection is based on a background subtraction method which detects the difference between input image and continuously updated background images. Tracking is based on a newly developed algorithm incorporating two complementary methods: template matching and frame difference. When both methods are available, the template position is corrected with the frame difference data, enabling the robust tracking of intruders regardless of shape, aspect, and moving velocity. When either of the two methods is not available, the other method continues tracking alone till both methods are available again. Tracking mode is selected automatically according to preva.iling conditions.
Deterrence and Antitrust Punishment: Firms versus Agents

Antitrust enforcement regimes rely on two types of penalties for deterrence: penalties against the violating firm and penalties against the agents of the violating firm. In this paper I examine the economics of punishing agents versus firms. My area of application is antitrust, but the argument applies generally to other fields in which the government has the choice between punishing the agent, the firm, or both. This analysis suggests that whenever the firm has an incentive, given existing penalties, to engage in some illegal act that may result in relatively modest punishment for its agents, it can almost always induce its agents to carry out the illegal act. It follows that almost any plausible effort to use penalties against agents to deter price fixing can be undone by the firm’s own system of rewards for agents. For deterrence, penalties against the firm sufficient to eliminate the firm’s incentive to fix prices are necessary.
Pivotal role of integrin 5 1 in hypotonic stress- induced responses of human endothelium

We have previously reported that both hypotonic stress (HTS) and lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) induce ATP release and a transient reorganization of actin through sequential activation of RhoA/ Rho-kinase and focal adhesion kinase F-actin (FAK)/ paxillin in human umbilical cord vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). LPA is known to induce the activation of RhoA via its specific receptors, but the mechanisms by which HTS initiates these intracellular signals are not known. The present study aimed to identify the molecule(s) that are unique to the sensing and/or transducing the mechanical stress. Reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction revealed the expression of several integrin subunits in HUVECs. Anti-integrin 5 1 antibody (Ab), but not anti-integrin 2, 6, v, or 4 antibodies, inhibited HTS-induced RhoA translocation, tyrosine phosphorylation of FAK and paxillin, ATP release, and actin reorganization. However, the LPA-induced ATP release and actin reorganization were not inhibited by any of these anti-integrin antibodies, indicating that integrin 5 1 plays a pivotal role in the HTS-induced but not in the LPA-induced responses. It is therefore reasonable to assume that this particular subtype of integrin is involved in the initiation of the responses induced by mechanical stimuli in HUVECs. —Hirakawa, M. , Oike, M. , Watanabe, M. , Karashima, Y. , Ito, Y. Pivotal role of integrin 5 1 in hypotonic stress-induced responses of human endothelium. FASEB J. 20, 1992–1999 (2006)