Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A new segmentation technique for multi font Farsi/Arabic texts

Segmentation is a very important stage of Farsi/Arabic character recognition systems. A new segmentation algorithm - for multi font Farsi/Arabic texts - based on the conditional labeling of the up contour and down contour is presented. A pre-processing technique is used to adjust the local base line for each subword. This algorithm uses an adaptive base line for each subword to improve the segmentation results. This segmentation algorithm, in addition to up and down contours, takes advantage of their curvatures also. The algorithm was tested on a data set of printed Farsi texts, containing 22236 characters, in 18 different fonts. 97% of characters were correctly segmented.
The Bufferbloat Problem over Intermittent Multi-Gbps mmWave Links

Due to massive available spectrum in the millimeter wave (mmWave) bands, cellular systems in these frequencies may provides orders of magnitude greater capacity than networks in conventional lower frequency bands. However, due to high susceptibility to blocking, mmWave links can be extremely intermittent in quality. This combination of high peak throughputs and intermittency can cause significant challenges in end-to-end transport-layer mechanisms such as TCP. This paper studies the particularly challenging problem of bufferbloat. Specifically, with current buffering and congestion control mechanisms, high throughput-high variable links can lead to excessive buffers incurring long latency. In this paper, we capture the performance trends obtained while adopting two potential solutions that have been proposed in the literature: Active queue management (AQM) and dynamic receive window. We show that, over mmWave links, AQM mitigates the latency but cannot deliver high throughput. The main reason relies on the fact that the current congestion control was not designed to cope with high data rates with sudden change. Conversely, the dynamic receive window approach is more responsive and therefore supports higher channel utilization while mitigating the delay, thus representing a viable solution.
Home Environment and School Learning

From a systematic search of educational, psychological, and sociological literature, 18 studies of 5,831 school-aged students on the correlation of home environment and learning in eight countries over a 19-year period were selected. Correlations (the units of analysis) of intelligence, motivation, and achievement with indexes of parent stimulation of the student in the home are considerably higher than those with indexes of socioeconomic status (SES); specifically the medians (and ranges) of 92 simple correlations of home environment and learning are . 37 (and .02 to .82) and of 62 multipleregression-weighted composites are . 44 (and .23 to .81). Jackknifed regression estimates indicate that gender and SES of the sample affect the sizes of the correlations and suggest priorities for future primary investigations. The analyses suggest that ability and achievement are more closely linked to the sociopsychological environment and intellectual stimulation in the home than they are to parental socioeconomic sta.
Long-term Effect of Conventional and No-Tillage Production Systems on Nitrous Oxide Fluxes from Corn ( Zea mays L.) Field in Southwestern Quebec

Problem statement: There is a growing trend in the adoption of conservation tillage as an alternative to conventional tillage farming system. Implications of this agricultural management shift with respect to nitrous oxide (N2O) emission, which has been a topic of intense research for the past few decades, is not yet completely understood. Approach: This study was conducted on a 2.4 ha field located at Macdonald research farm of McGill university, Montreal, to investigate the relative impact of long-term Conventional Tillage (CT) and No-Tillage (NT) practices on soil N2O fluxes (FN2O) under grain and silage corn (Zea mays L.) during the 2003 and 2004 growing seasons (May-Sept). Nitrous oxide fluxes were measured using static closed chamber by taking gas samples at 0, 10, 20 and 30 min. Results: In both years, the N2O fluxes were generally similar between the two tillage systems, with the exception of few sampling dates at the beginning of the growing season when N2O emissions measured under CT were significantly (p≤0.05) greater than NT. Despite our efforts to reduce experimental error by deploying six chambers per treatment plots, spatial and temporal variations were high which might had obscured the treatment differences to be detected. Conclusion: An important implication of present findings was that, contrary to many reports in the literature, the adoption of NT may not add to concerns over global atmospheric N2O concentrations. This might be due to a greater rate of N2O reduction to N2 in soils under NT than CT during diffusion up the soil profile because of the higher moisture content under NT system than CT.
Differential Distribution of Genes Encoding the Virulence Factor Trans-Sialidase along Trypanosoma cruzi Discrete Typing Units

Trypanosoma cruzi the agent of Chagas disease is a monophyletic but heterogeneous group conformed by several Discrete Typing Units (DTUs) named TcI to TcVI characterized by genetic markers. The trans-sialidase (TS) is a virulence factor involved in cell invasion and pathogenesis that is differentially expressed in aggressive and less virulent parasite stocks. Genes encoding TS-related proteins are included in a large family divided in several groups but only one of them contains TS genes. Two closely related genes differing in a T/C transition encode the enzymatically active TS (aTS) and a lectin-like TS (iTS). We quantified the aTS/iTS genes from TcII and TcVI aggressive and TcI low virulent strains and found variable aTS number (1–32) per haploid genome. In spite of being low TS enzyme-expressers, TcI strains carry 28–32 aTS gene copies. The intriguing absence of iTS genes in TcI strains together with the presence of aTS/iTS in TcII and TcVI strains (virulent) were observed. Moreover, after sequencing aTS/iTS from 38 isolates collected along the Americas encompassing all DTUs, the persistent absence of the iTS gene in TcI, TcIII and TcIV was found. In addition, the sequence clustering together with T/C transition analysis correlated to DTUs of T. cruzi. The consistence of TS results with both evolutionary genome models proposed for T. cruzi, namely the “Two Hybridization” and the “Three Ancestor” was discussed and reviewed to fit present findings. Parasite stocks to attempt genetic KO or to assay the involvement of iTS in parasite biology and virulence are finally available.
16-Channel CMOS Impedance Spectroscopy DNA Analyzer With Dual-Slope Multiplying ADCs

We present a 16-channel, mixed-signal CMOS DNA analyzer that utilizes frequency response analysis (FRA) to extract the real and imaginary impedance components of the biosensor. Two computationally intensive operations, the multiplication and integration required by the FRA algorithm, are performed by an in-channel dual-slope multiplying ADC in the mixed-signal domain resulting in minimal area and power consumption. Multiplication of the input current by a digital coefficient is implemented by modulating the counter-controlled duration of the charging phase of the ADC. Integration is implemented by accumulating output digital bits in the ADC counter over multiple input samples. The 1.05 × 1.6 mm prototype fabricated in a 0.13 μm standard CMOS technology has been validated in prostate cancer DNA detection. Each channel occupies an area of only 0.06 mm2 and consumes 42 μW of power from a 1.2 V supply.
The Temperature Scale of Metal-rich M Giants Based On TiO Bands: Population Synthesis in the Near-Infrared

We have computed a grid of high-resolution synthetic spectra for cool stars (2500<Teff<6000 K) in the wavelength range 6000-10200 Å by employing an updated line list of atomic and molecular lines together with state-of-the-art model atmospheres. As a by-product, by fitting TiO band heads in spectra of well-known M giants, we have derived the electronic oscillator strengths of the TiO γ', δ, ϵ, and ϕ systems. The derived oscillator strengths for the γ′, ϵ, and ϕ systems differ from the laboratory and ab initio values found in the literature, but they are consistent with the model atmospheres and line lists employed, resulting in a good match to the observed spectra of M giants of known parameters. The behavior of TiO bands as a function of the stellar parameters Teff, log g and [Fe/H] is presented, and the use of TiO spectral indices in stellar population studies is discussed.
The Need for Cross-Cultural Research on the Pervasive Developmental Disorders

Research on the pervasive developmental disorders within a cultural context and in developing countries has received limited attention from both the fields of mental health and anthropology. Although autism holds considerable potential for expanding the field of transcultural psychiatry, the bulk of research has consisted of case studies and brief reviews, with few studies undertaking a serious discussion of cultural factors. The current article reviews the literature to date on autism within a cultural context and highlights both rationale and directions for future efforts in this area, drawing from research with 109 families of autistic children in urban India.
Herramientas de manufactura esbelta aplicadas al desarrollo de software con calidad

El articulo presenta una propuesta de herramientas de manufactura esbelta aplicadas al desarrollo de software, dentro del marco de metodos agiles, en particular el Desarrollo de Software Esbelto; lo que permitira a equipos de desarrollo obtener una calidad sistemica del software (producto, procesos y personas que intervienen). Se recomienda emplear estas herramientas y evaluarlas constantemente con la aplicacion iterativa e incremental del ciclo de calidad propuesto por Deming: planificar, hacer, verificar y actuar. Con esta propuesta se contribuye al desarrollo de proyectos de software con calidad en entornos cientificos-academicos, ajustados al tiempo planificado y con los recursos presupuestados; utilizando herramientas propias de la Ingenieria.
Waypoint navigation with a vibrotactile waist belt

Presenting waypoint navigation on a visual display is not suited for all situations. The present experiments investigate if it is feasible to present the navigation information on a tactile display. Important design issue of the display is how direction and distance information must be coded. Important usability issues are the resolution of the display and its usefulness in vibrating environments. In a pilot study with 12 pedestrians, different distance-coding schemes were compared. The schemes translated distance to vibration rhythm while the direction was translated into vibration location. The display consisted of eight tactors around the user's waist. The results show that mapping waypoint direction on the location of vibration is an effective coding scheme that requires no training, but that coding for distance does not improve performance compared to a control condition with no distance information. In Experiment 2, the usefulness of the tactile display was shown in two case studies with a helicopter and a fast boat.
Conversational Group Detection Based on Social Context Using Graph Clustering Algorithm

With the development of single-person analysis in computer vision, social group analysis has received growing attention as the next area of research. In particular, group detection has been actively studied as the first step of social analysis. Here, group means an F-formation, that is, a spatial organization of people gathered for conversation. Popular group detection methods are based on coincidences in the visual attention field that are calculated from the position and body orientation of the individuals in the group. However, most previous studies have assumed that each member has the same visual attention field, and they do not consider changes in the scene over time. In this paper, we present a robust method for detection of time-varying F-formations in social space, its visual attention field model is based on the local environment. We present the results of an experiment that uses a dataset of multiple scenes, an analysis of these results validates the advantages of our method.
Mobbing and well-being: Economic and personnel development implications.

Abstract The aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between mobbing at work and the well-being of the affected person, and to explore possible organizational effects of mobbing in connection with coping behaviour. The article reports data from two studies carried out in Austria (368 health professionals) and Germany (10 in-patients) between 1993 and 1994. The results support other findings that mobbing has a negative impact on the well-being of the affected person. Moreover, the results indicate that employees do not cope with mobbing by using simple flight or fight reactions (e.g. absenteeism, lower level of productivity). The results suggest that it should be possible to identify mobbing in an early stage, which, in turn, should enhance the prevention of mobbing.
Climate Exposure of US National Parks in a New Era of Change

US national parks are challenged by climate and other forms of broad-scale environmental change that operate beyond administrative boundaries and in some instances are occurring at especially rapid rates. Here, we evaluate the climate change exposure of 289 natural resource parks administered by the US National Park Service (NPS), and ask which are presently (past 10 to 30 years) experiencing extreme (<5th percentile or >95th percentile) climates relative to their 1901–2012 historical range of variability (HRV). We consider parks in a landscape context (including surrounding 30 km) and evaluate both mean and inter-annual variation in 25 biologically relevant climate variables related to temperature, precipitation, frost and wet day frequencies, vapor pressure, cloud cover, and seasonality. We also consider sensitivity of findings to the moving time window of analysis (10, 20, and 30 year windows). Results show that parks are overwhelmingly at the extreme warm end of historical temperature distributions and this is true for several variables (e.g., annual mean temperature, minimum temperature of the coldest month, mean temperature of the warmest quarter). Precipitation and other moisture patterns are geographically more heterogeneous across parks and show greater variation among variables. Across climate variables, recent inter-annual variation is generally well within the range of variability observed since 1901. Moving window size has a measureable effect on these estimates, but parks with extreme climates also tend to exhibit low sensitivity to the time window of analysis. We highlight particular parks that illustrate different extremes and may facilitate understanding responses of park resources to ongoing climate change. We conclude with discussion of how results relate to anticipated future changes in climate, as well as how they can inform NPS and neighboring land management and planning in a new era of change.
WELFARE IMPLICATIONS OF HETEROGENEOUS LABOR MARKETS IN A CURRENCY AREA

To identify the labor market reforms that offer the highest payoff, we develop a medium-scale two-country model representing a currency union featuring real and nominal rigidities and heterogeneous labor market frictions. A labor market reform is modeled as a permanent structural change in the labor market institutions. We find that changes in the domestic labor market can have drastic welfare implications for both countries. Welfare improvements are observed when a worker (a firm) is more likely to find a job (a worker) or when jobs are less likely to be destroyed. In addition, labor market heterogeneity has sizeable effects on the level of welfare gains. The more flexible the foreign labor market, the higher its welfare. Finally, we show that (i) the way the monetary authorities conduct their policy has negligible welfare effects and (ii) matching frictions can offset the negative effect of price rigidities in the economy.
Low-temperature synthesis of Mn3O4 nanoparticles loaded on multi-walled carbon nanotubes and their application in electrochemical capacitors

A low-temperature, efficient and one-step deposition method, in which Mn(CH3COO)2·4H2O serves as precursor and O2 as oxidant, was employed to deposit Mn3O4 nanoparticles on multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) in ethanol solution at 150 and 200 °C. The resulting Mn3O4/MWCNT composites were characterized by means of different techniques including x-ray diffraction, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy. It was indicated that the Mn3O4 nanoparticles were attached uniformly on MWCNTs with sizes less than 10 nm, and the loading amount of Mn3O4 could be tuned by changing the initial weight ratio of Mn(CH3COO)2·4H2O/MWCNT. The electrochemical behavior of the Mn3O4/MWCNT composites was examined by cyclic voltammetry, and the result indicated the specific capacitance of the composite electrode was 330 F g−1, nearly 18 times higher than that of the pure MWCNT electrode. The good performance of the as-prepared composites as electrode material may be attributed to the synergistic effects of the Mn3O4 nanoparticles and the MWCNTs.
Mean values of L-functions and symmetry

Recently Katz and Sarnak introduced the idea of a symmetry group attached to a family of L-functions, and they gave strong evidence that the symmetry group governs many properties of the distribution of zeros of the L-functions. We consider the mean-values of the L-functions and the mollified mean-square of the L-functions and find evidence that these are also governed by the symmetry group. We use recent work of Keating and Snaith to give a complete description of these mean values. We find a connection to the Barnes-Vign\'eras $\Gamma_2$-function and to a family of self-similar functions.
Effective ranking with arbitrary passages

Text retrieval systems store a great variety of documents, from abstracts, newspaper articles, and Web pages to journal articles, books, court transcripts, and legislation. Collections of diverse types of documents expose shortcomings in current approaches to ranking. Use of short fragments of documents, called passages, instead of whole documents can overcome these shortcomings: passage ranking provides convenient units of text to return to the user, can avoid the difficulties of comparing documents of different length, and enables identification of short blocks of relevant material among otherwise irrelevant text. In this article, we compare several kinds of passage in an extensive series of experiments. We introduce a new type of passage, overlapping fragments of either fixed or variable length. We show that ranking with these arbitrary passages gives substantial improvements in retrieval effectiveness over traditional document ranking schemes, particularly for queries on collections of long documents. Ranking with arbitrary passages shows consistent improvements compared to ranking with whole documents, and to ranking with previous passage types that depend on document structure or topic shifts in documents.
WITHDRAWN: Second or third additional chemotherapy drug for non-small cell lung cancer in patients with advanced disease.

BACKGROUND Randomized trials have demonstrated that adding a drug to a single-agent or to a two-agent regimen increased the tumor response rate in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), although its impact on survival remains controversial. OBJECTIVES To evaluate the clinical benefit of adding a drug to a single-agent or two-agent chemotherapy regimen in terms of tumor response rate, survival, and toxicity in patients with advanced NSCLC. SEARCH METHODS There were no language restrictions. Searches of MEDLINE and EMBASE were performed using the search terms non-small cell lung carcinoma/drug therapy, adenocarcinoma, large-cell carcinoma, squamous-cell carcinoma, lung, neoplasms, clinical trial phase III, and randomized trial. Manual searches were also performed to find conference proceedings published between January 1982 and June 2006. SELECTION CRITERIA Data from all randomized controlled trials performed between 1980 and 2006 (published between January 1980 and June 2006) comparing a doublet regimen with a single-agent regimen or comparing a triplet regimen with a doublet regimen in patients with advanced NSCLC. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Two independent investigators reviewed the publications and extracted the data. Pooled odds ratios (ORs) for the objective tumor response rate, one-year survival rate, and toxicity rate were calculated using the fixed-effect model. Pooled median ratios (MRs) for median survival also were calculated using the fixed-effect model. ORs and MRs lower than unity (< 1.0) indicate a benefit of a doublet regimen compared with a single-agent regimen (or a triplet regimen compared with a doublet regimen). MAIN RESULTS Sixty-five trials (13601 patients) were eligible. In the trials comparing a doublet regimen with a single-agent regimen, a significant increase was observed in tumor response (OR 0.42, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.37 to 0.47, P < 0.001) and one-year survival (OR 0.80, 95% CI 0.70 to 0.91, P < 0.001) in favor of the doublet regimen. The median survival ratio was 0.83 (95% CI 0.79 to 0.89, P < 0.001). An increase also was observed in the tumor response rate (OR 0.66, 95% CI 0.58 to 0.75, P < 0.001) in favor of the triplet regimen, but not for one-year survival (OR 1.01, 95% CI 0.85 to 1.21, P = 0.88). The median survival ratio was 1.00 (95% CI 0.94 to 1.06, P = 0.97). AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS Adding a second drug improved tumor response and survival rate. Adding a third drug had a weaker effect on tumor response and no effect on survival.
LBP-Guided Depth Image Filter

The multi-view video plus depth (MVD) format has been put forward for the call for proposals in free view video (FVV) and 3DTV. Since representing the 3D scene geometry, depth maps are used for synthesizing virtual views. However, compression artifacts of the depth images always lead to geometry distortions in synthesized views. By exploiting LBP features of the corresponding color samples, we propose a novel local binary pattern (LBP) guided depth filter which enables the local neighborhood samples those are in the same object of the current pixel to be filtering input. In recognition of its ability for describing the object edges, the LBP operator is used to calculate the weighted values of the local depth pixels for the depth-map filter. Furthermore, the filter is incorporated into the framework of H.264/MVC as an in-loop filter. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach offers 0.45dB and 0.66dB average PSNR gains in terms of video rendering quality and depth coding efficiency, as well as significant subjective improvement in rendering views.
Rainbow Induced Subgraphs in Proper Vertex Colorings

Given a graph H we define ρ(H) to be the minimum order of a graph G such that every proper vertex coloring of G contains a rainbow induced subgraph isomorphic to H. We give upper and lower bounds for ρ(H), compute the exact value for some classes of graphs, and consider an interesting combinatorial problem connected with computation of ρ(H) for paths. A part of this research has been guided by a computer search and, accordingly, some computational results are presented. A special motivation comes from research in on-line coloring.