Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An automatic approach to Hemorrhages detection

Microaneurysms and hemorrhage detection is the first step of diabetic retinopathy (DR). The red lesions fundus images are used to analyse the hemorrhage. Occurance of blindness can be reducing by early detection of microaneurysms. In this paper we proposed robust approach for automatic red lesions detection in fundus images based on mathematical morphology, pixel classification and various filters. Geometric characteristics are well providing by the mathematical morphology and also provide image segmentation which is used for further processing. FP reduction is based on four parameters, Area, aspect ratio, mean and foveal filter. The proposed algorithm provides promising results to detect microaneurysms.
Lensing Effects on Gravitational Waves in a Clumpy Universe: Effects of Inhomogeneity on the Distance-Redshift Relation

The distance-redshift relation determined by means of gravitational waves in the clumpy universe is simulated numerically by taking into account the effects of gravitational lensing. It is assumed that all of the matter in the universe takes the form of randomly distributed point masses, each of which has the identical mass ML. Calculations are carried out in two extreme cases, λ ≫ GML/c2 and λ ≪ GML/c2, where λ denotes the wavelength of gravitational waves. In the first case, the distance-redshift relation for the fully homogeneous and isotropic universe is reproduced with a small distance dispersion, whereas in the second case, the distance dispersion is larger. This result suggests that we might obtain information about the typical mass of lens objects through the distance-redshift relation gleaned through observation of gravitational waves of various wavelengths. In this paper, we show how to set limitations on the mass ML through the observation of gravitational waves in the clumpy universe model described above.
Ripple flooding in wireless sensor networks

Flooding is a fundamental operation to support route discovery and time synchronization in wireless sensor networks. A simple flooding causes the broadcast storm problem and leads to long latency to complete the broadcast. This paper presents the Ripple flooding scheme (RFS) for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The proposed scheme improves the convergence speed of flooding by using a synchronized packet rebroadcasting instead of using a CSMA (Carrier Sense Multiple Access) MAC based packet rebroadcasting. We analyse the multipath delay spread feasibility on a receiver for the packets from multiple senders. The theoretical upper bound of packet loss rate (PLR) is less than 13%. The experimental result shows the same as the PLR of the theoretical analysis. We implement the RFS on the sensor node with the MSP430 microcontroller and the CC2420 transceiver and evaluate the major performance metrics including the convergence time and the reliability in various network scales and densities. The convergence time is at least 3.5 times faster than the CSMA MAC based flooding in the dense network environments. The transmission reliability of the RFS is slightly better than the reliability of the CSMA MAC based flooding because of the implicit overhearing scheme provided by the RFS.
Oral Leptin Treatment in Suckling Rats Ameliorates Detrimental Effects in Hypothalamic Structure and Function Caused by Maternal Caloric Restriction during Gestation

A poor prenatal environment brings about perturbations in leptin surge and hypothalamic circuitry that program impaired ability to regulate energy homeostasis in adulthood. Here, using a rat model of moderate maternal caloric restriction during gestation, we aimed to investigate whether leptin supplementation with physiological doses throughout lactation is able to ameliorate the adverse developmental malprogramming effects exerted in offspring hypothalamus structure and function. Three groups of male and female rats were studied: the offspring of ad libitum fed dams (controls), the offspring of 20% calorie restricted dams during the first part of pregnancy (CR), and CR rats supplemented with physiological doses of leptin throughout lactation (CR-Leptin). Animals were sacrificed on postnatal day 25. Morphometric and immunohistochemical studies on arcuate (ARC) and paraventicular (PVN) nucleus were performed and hypothalamic expression levels of selected genes were determined. In CR males, leptin treatment restored, at least in part, the number of immunoreactive neuropeptide Y (NPY+) cells in ARC, the total number of cells in PVN, hypothalamic NPY, cocaine- and amphetamine-regulated transcript (CART) and suppressor of cytokine signalling-3 (SOCS-3) mRNA levels, and plasma leptin levels, which were decreased in CR animals. CR-Leptin males showed higher hypothalamic long-form leptin receptor (ObRb) mRNA levels, compared to control and CR animals. In CR females, leptin treatment reverted the increased number of cells in ARC and cell density in ARC and PVN, and reduced hypothalamic SOCS-3 mRNA expression to levels similar to controls. Leptin treatment also reverted the increased relative area of NPY+ fibers in the PVN occurring in CR animals. In conclusion, leptin supplementation throughout lactation is able to revert, at least partly, most of the developmental effects on hypothalamic structure and function caused by moderate maternal caloric restriction during gestation, and hence making this metabolic malprogramming reversible to some extent.
Distributed under Creative Commons Cc-by 4.0 Functional Flexibility in Wild Bonobo Vocal Behaviour

A shared principle in the evolution of language and the development of speech is the emergence of functional flexibility, the capacity of vocal signals to express a range of emotional states independently of context and biological function. Functional flexibility has recently been demonstrated in the vocalisations of pre-linguistic human infants, which has been contrasted to the functionally fixed vocal behaviour of non-human primates. Here, we revisited the presumed chasm in functional flexibility between human and non-human primate vocal behaviour, with a study on our closest living primate relatives, the bonobo (Pan paniscus). We found that wild bonobos use a specific call type (the " peep ") across a range of contexts that cover the full valence range (positive-neutral-negative) in much of their daily activities, including feeding, travel, rest, aggression, alarm, nesting and grooming. Peeps were produced in functionally flexible ways in some contexts, but not others. Crucially, calls did not vary acoustically between neutral and positive contexts, suggesting that recipients take pragmatic information into account to make inferences about call meaning. In comparison, peeps during negative contexts were acoustically distinct. Our data suggest that the capacity for functional flexibility has evolutionary roots that predate the evolution of human speech. We interpret this evidence as an example of an evolutionary early transition away from fixed vocal signalling towards functional flexibility.
Rac1 and RhoA GTPases have antagonistic functions during N‐cadherin‐dependent cell—cell contact formation in C2C12 myoblasts

Background information. N‐cadherin, a member of the Ca2+‐dependent cell—cell adhesion molecule family, plays an essential role in the induction of the skeletal muscle differentiation programme. However, the molecular mechanisms which govern the formation of N‐cadherin‐dependent cell—cell contacts in myoblasts remain unexplored.
Corpus-based syntax-prosody tree matching

Empirical study of the syntax-prosody relation is hampered by the fact that current prosodic models are essentially linear, while syntactic structure is hierarchical. The present contribution describes a syntax-prosody comparison heuristic based on two new algorithms: Time Tree Induction, TTI, for building a prosodic treebank from time-annotated speech data, and Tree Similarity Indexing, TSI) for comparing syntactic trees with the prosodic trees. Two parametrisations of the TTI algorithm, for different tree branching conditions, are applied to sentences taken from a read-aloud narrative, and compared with parses of the same sentences, using the TSI. In addition, null-hypotheses in the form of ﬂat bracketing of the sentences are compared. A preference for iambic (heavy rightmost branch) grouping is found. The resulting quantitative evidence for syntax-prosody relations has applications in speech genre characterisation and in duration models for speech synthesis.
Perceptually motivated coherence preservation in multi-channel wiener filtering based noise reduction for binaural hearing aids

Besides noise reduction an important objective of binaural speech enhancement algorithms is the preservation of the binaural cues of both desired and undesired sound sources. Recently, an extension of the binaural Multi-channel Wiener filter (MWF), namely the MWF-IC, has been presented, which aims to preserve the Interaural Coherence (IC) of the noise component. Since for the MWF-IC a substantial trade-off between noise reduction and IC preservation exists, in this paper we propose a perceptually constrained version of the MWF-IC, where the amount of IC preservation is controlled based on psychoacoustic criterias of the IC discrimination ability of the human auditory system. In addition, we present a simplified version of the MWF-IC, resulting in a decrease of computational complexity. Experimental results show that the perceptually motivated MWF-IC and its simplified version yield a very similar performance and the loss in intelligibility weighted output SNR compared to the binaural MWF can be limited to 0.5 dB, whereas the spatial separation between the output speech and noise component is increased leading to better perceptual results.
A Novel Developed Linear and Nonlinear System Identification for an Industrial Dryer

system is a controlled plant which is normally used in chemical industry. The proper modeling of this system facilitates its maintenance and keeping. Normally this is not an easy task, unless having a complete model of the process, due to sudden and nonlinear events. In this paper the linear identification of dryer plant in Arak petroleum, is introduced according to the Autoregressive with Exogenous Input (ARX) model and Box-Jenkins model and also the nonlinear identification based on Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) algorithm is investigated. The simulation results were satisfactory. It was concluded that these models can be used to design adaptive or robust controllers. KeywordsLinear system identification, Nonlinear system identification, ARX structure, Box-Jenkins model.
Bridging consumer perception and on-farm assessment of animal welfare

The present study aims to assess the relationship between consumer perception and on-farm assessment of animal welfare performed using the Animal Needs Index 35L (ANI). Two tie-stall, 2 straw yard and 2 cubicle farms were scored by trained assessors using the ANI and filmed to produce six 3.5 min videos. Each of them contained 4 clips: barn overall view, feeding, milking and individual animals. Ten untrained observers were asked to elicit terms describing how they perceived the observed farming systems to affect animal welfare using Free Choice Profiling (FCP). Data from FCP were subjected to Generalised Procrustes Analysis (GPA). GPA showed a significant consensus among observers. Observers characterised the first dimension with terms ranging from constrictive to comfortable conditions and the second one in terms of cleanliness/dirtiness. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was conducted using the scores of the farms on the first two dimensions of GPA and the data gathered through the ANI. The first dimension of GPA (Comfortable), ANI's sheet 1 (Locomotion), sheet 2 (Social interaction) and sheet 6 (Total score) showed high loadings on the first component of PCA, whereas the second dimension of GPA (Clean), sheet 3 (Flooring) and sheet 4 (Stockmanship) were correlated with the second component of PCA. We concluded that FCP may be used to elicit lay person perception of welfare-related characteristics of dairy cattle farming systems, thus providing a tool to study the relationships between consumer perception and on-farm assessment of animal welfare.
Understanding the Significance of Network Performance in End Applications : A Case Study with EtherFabric and InfiniBand ∗ †

Due to the low speeds of earlier generation networks such as Fast Ethernet, network communication was considered to be one of the primary bottlenecks in cluster computing. Accordingly, researchers used a number of techniques to hide the communication overheads in networks. In order to alleviate this problem, several researchers and industries proposed and implemented faster networks such as Gigabit Ethernet (GigE). This trend soon led to the development of even higher speed networks such as 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10GigE) and InfiniBand (IBA). Today, industries are taking the next step in high-speed networking with multi tengigabit networks such as the Mellanox 20-Gigabit IBA DDR adapters, IBM 30-Gigabit IBA adapters, etc. Many of these innovations emerged due to the underlying assumption that the network is still one of the primary bottlenecks in cluster computing. However, whether this assumption is in fact a reality for current environments is yet to be understood. In this paper, we take a step back to understand if such multi-gigabit network speeds justify the cost of these newer networks with respect to the performance gains they provide for end applications. Specifically, we perform comparative analysis with conventional 1-GigE adapters, 2-GigE adapters (using two 1-GigE ports in adapters such as EtherFabric) and 8-Gigabit network adapters such as IBA1 for end applications in two broad domains: (i) message passing interface (MPI) based scientific applications such as GROMACS and the NAS parallel benchmarks and (ii) data-intensive applications relying on parallel file-systems (e.g., PVFS), such as MPI-Blast. Our experimental results show that for many of the end-applications that we studied, EtherFabric was able to achieve 70-90% of the performance gains achievable by IBA. This research is funded in part by DOE Grant #DE-FC02-01ER25506, NSF grants #CCR-0204429 and #CCR0311542 and technical and equipment support from Level-5 Networks, Mellanox Corporation and Intel We would like to thank Heshan Lin, Jeremy Archuleta and Dr. Wu-chun Feng for providing us with the several significant details about the MPI-Blast application and helping us tremendously in our evaluations. 1Though several people believe that the IBA (SDR) is a 10-gigabit network, it only provides a signaling rate of 10-gigabit per second and uses a 8b/10b encoding; thus the actual theoretical peak data rate it can achieve is only 8Gbps.
Worldwide Use and Impact of the NASA Astrophysics Data System Digital Library

The NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS), along with astronomy's journals and data centers (a collaboration dubbed URANIA), has developed a distributed online digital library which has become the dominant means by which astronomers search, access, and read their technical literature. Digital libraries permit the easy accumulation of a new type of bibliometric measure: the number of electronic accesses (“reads”) of individual articles. By combining data from the text, citation, and reference databases with data from the ADS readership logs we have been able to create second-order bibliometric operators, a customizable class of collaborative filters that permits substantially improved accuracy in literature queries. Using the ADS usage logs along with membership statistics from the International Astronomical Union and data on the population and gross domestic product (GDP), we have developed an accurate model for worldwide basic research where the number of scientists in a country is proportional to the GDP of that country, and the amount of basic research done by a country is proportional to the number of scientists in that country times that country's per capita GDP. We introduce the concept of utility time to measure the impact of the ADS/URANIA and the electronic astronomical library on astronomical research. We find that in 2002 it amounted to the equivalent of 736 full-time researchers, or $250 million, or the astronomical research done in France.
The Initial Helium Abundance of the Galactic Globular Cluster System

Received ; accepted Abstract. In this paper we estimate the initial He content in about 30% of the Galactic globular clusters (GGCs) from new star counts we have performed on the recently published HST snapshot database of Colour Magnitude Diagrams (Piotto et al. 2002). More specifically, we use the so-called R-parameter and estimate the He content from a theoretical calibration based on a recently updated set of stellar evolution models. We performed an accurate statistical analysis in order to assess whether GGCs show a statistically significant spread in their initial He abundances, and whether there is a correlation with the cluster metallicity. As in previous works on the subject, we do not find any significant dependence of the He abundance on the cluster metallicity; this provides an important constraint for models of Galaxy formation and evolution. Apart from GGCs with the bluest Horizontal Branch morphology, the observed spread in the individual helium abundances is statistically compatible with the individual errors. This means that either there is no intrinsic abundance spread among the GGCs, or that this is masked by the errors. In the latter case we have estimated a firm 1� upper limit of 0.019 to the possible intrinsic spread. In case of the GGCs with the bluest Horizontal Branch morphology we detect a significant spread towards higher abundances inconsistent with the individual errors; this can be fully explained by additional effects not accounted for in our theoretical calibrations, which do not affect the abundances estimated for the clusters with redder Horizontal Branch morphology. In the hypothesis that the intrinsic dispersion on the individual He abundances is zero, taking into account the errors on the individual R-parameter estimates, as well as the uncertainties on the cluster metallicity scale and theoretical calibration, we have determined an initial He abundance mass fraction YGGC = 0.250 ± 0.006. This value is in perfect agreement with current estimates based on Cosmic Microwave Background radiation analyses and cosmological nucleosynthesis computations.
Active learning on the classification of voice pathologies

In this article, it is studied the usefulness of the support vector machines (SVM) algorithm in the active classification of voice records into the sets normal and pathologic. In practice, each one of the samples employed on the classifier training must be manually labelled by an specialist, increasing in this way the training cost. Thus, it is imperative to obtain a classifier with a low generalization error, such that the number of training samples is as low as possible. A model selection technique, namely the Leave-One-Out criterion, was applied for the tuning of the appropriate parameters of the SVM. Also, a Radial Basis Function kernel was employed. The results obtained in the categorization of the aforementioned voice records showed that the number of tagged training samples can be reduced up to a 70% for the same testing error that the one obtained when the whole training set is labelled.
Approximating Weak Bisimulation on Basic Process

Themaximal strong andweak bisimulations on any class of processes can be obtained as the limits of decreasing chains of binary relations, approximants. In the case of strong bisimulation and Basic Process Algebras this chain has length at most ! which enables semidecidability of strong bisimilarity. We show that it is not so for weak bisimulation where the chain can grow much longer, and discuss the implications this has for the problem of (semi)decidability of weak bisimilarity.
Specialization, Agency Cost and Firm Size

This paper extends the principal-agent model to determine the size of the firm as measured by the number of agent hired. Hiring more agents results in benefits and costs to the principal. The benefits are gains from specialization: higher productivity can be achieved if, as the number of agents increases, their task assignments become more specialized. However, increases in task specialization make monitoring more difficult and costly. In this paper I study peer monitoring among agents. Balancing productivity gains with monitoring costs determines the optimal size of the firm. This paper shows that agency costs due to moral hazard are one factor that sets limits on firm size in a model where it would otherwise be unbounded
The effect of variability of practice upon recall and recognition of motor memory : Analysis based upon the information processing activities during pre- and post-perfomance

The purpose of this study was twefold, one was to examine whether the effects of variability of practice upon retention and transfer can be found not only in recall but also in recegnition of motor memory. The seoond obiective was to exarnine whether those effects are due to the formation of motor schemata (Schmidt, 1975) or to the contextual interference eff t t <Battig, 1979). Sixty-four subiects performed a novel aiming task designed by Kudo (1989), and were randomly assigned to the fo11owing four groups. A Constant group practioed 96 trials of the same target, whereas a Random group practiced 96 trials of four different targets in a random order, The remaining two groups a;so practiced 96 trials of four different targets, but the practice schedules were changed. A BIock 6 group practiced at one target for six trials, whereas a Block 12 group practioed at one target for 12 trials continuously. Nl groups were tested on new targets irnmediately and one week later. The results were as follows. (1) almost the same results were obtained in both recall and recognition measures. (2) Comparing the test performanoes of a Constant grvup with the two blocked practice groups, inconsi$tent results were obtained. These results suggest that "the variability of practice hypothesis" was not neccessarily supported. (3) Large decrements of performance in the ene week retention interval were found in the blocked practice groups, whereas the random group's decrement was very small. Moreover, the randorn grvup's performance in the transfer test was better than those of blocked groups. These results suggest that facilitation f retention and transfer by the variability of practice might be due to the contextual interferenoe effect. (4) Programming time to perform the aiming response in practice session differed aocording to the practice schedule conditions. That is, the random group was the longest, while the constant group was the shortest, and the blocked group$ were intermediate. These results supported Lee and Magi11's (1985) interpretation f the superiority of random scheduling over the blocked scheduling.