Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
COMPRESSED DETECTION VIA MANIFOLD LEARNING

In many imaging applications such as Computed Tomography (CT) in medical imaging and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging, the collected raw data, residing in R , of the receiver or detector can be modeled as data lying in the Fourier space of the target reflectivity function. The magnitude of the reflectivity is considered as the image of the target, and we are often interested in detecting specific features in the image, e.g. tumor in medical imaging and military weapons in SAR imaging. A natural way to achieve this goal is to form an image in R , where N > M , and detect the feature in the spatial domain. Recent development of a theory in [1] states that under certain conditions, random linear projections, Φ : R 7→ R, guarantees, with high probability, that all pairwise Euclidean and geodesic distances between points on M ⊂ R are well preserved under the mapping Φ. This made us wonder if the geodesic distances of the original image, R , and the corresponding raw data, R , in SAR imaging were also reasonably preserved. Motivated by satisfactory results of simple tests to check this, which will be discussed in more detail later, we tried to detect features directly from the lower dimensional, or compressed, SAR raw data, without involving any image reconstruction step. In this report, manifold learning techniques are applied to reduce the dimension of the raw data, and is followed by a detection step to achieve our goal. The theoretical framework will be discussed later in more detail. To our best knowledge, there has not yet been a successful image detection or classification algorithm that takes advantage of this framework and works directly on the domain where the raw data resides in. Since existing algorithms work in the spatial domain, the algorithms first have to transform the raw data to the spatial domain. This transformation step could be time consuming, and in general results in loss of information. Also, working with M dimensional data will be computationally less demanding. Thus, it is interesting to look at the problem of working directly on the raw data. The rest of the report is structured as follows. First, technical background such as the theoretical framework mentioned above, the Laplacian Eigenmaps as a method of dimensionality reduction, and semi-supervised learning algorithm will be discussed. Carrying on, experimental results will be presented. Finally, we will conclude this report by giving discussion on the challenges and future works.
Morphology approach for features extraction in retinal images for diabetic retionopathy diagnosis

In this paper, a novel approach for vessels extraction edge-based image segmentation is proposed. Vessels segmentation and extraction play an important role in supporting computer assistance for diagnosis of Diabetic Retinopathy (DR). Diabetic Retinopathy is a severe and widely spread eye disease. The algorithms to detect and extract vessels from retinal images are mainly based on morphological filtering and segmentation methods. We proposed an image segmentation algorithm by integrating mathematical morphological edge detector with TopHat technique. In this paper, theoretical backgrounds and procedure illustrations of the proposed algorithm are presented. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm has been evaluated on several images of publicly available database. The results are compared with those obtained by other known methods as well as with the golden images. It is shown that the proposed method can yield a specificity value as high as 82%, which is comparable to the results obtained by other known methods.
Increased Urinary Phthalate Levels in Women with Uterine Leiomyoma: A Case-Control Study

We assessed the urinary concentration of 16 phthalate metabolites in 57 women with and without uterine leiomyoma (n = 30 and 27; respectively) to determine the association between phthalate exposure and uterine leiomyoma. To evaluate exposure to di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP); we calculated the molar sum of DEHP metabolites; ∑3-DEHP (combining mono-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (MEHP); mono-(2-ethyl-5-hydroxyhexyl) phthalate (MEHHP); and mono-(2-ethyl-5-oxohexyl) phthalate); ∑4-DEHP (∑3-DEHP plus mono-(2-ethyl-5-carboxypentyl) phthalate); and ∑5-DEHP (∑4-DEHP plus mono (2-(carboxylmethyl)hexyl) phthalate (2cx-MMHP)). The log transformed urinary levels of MEHP; MEHHP; 2cx-MMHP; ∑3-DEHP; ∑4-DEHP; and ∑5-DEHP in the leiomyoma group were significantly higher than those of controls. When we adjusted for age; waist circumference; and parity using multiple logistic regression analyses; we found log ∑3-DEHP (OR = 10.82; 95% CI = 1.25; 93.46) and ∑4-DEHP (OR = 8.78; 95% CI = 1.03; 75.29) were significantly associated with uterine leiomyoma. Our findings suggest an association between phthalate exposure and uterine leiomyoma. However; larger studies are needed to investigate potential interactions between phthalate exposure and uterine leiomyoma.
Improving vehicle detection by adapting parameters of HOG and kernel functions of SVM

Currently, vehicle detection suffers from low performance in terms of accuracy and time costs in real-time application. Histograms Oriented of Gradients(HOG) and Support Vector Machine(SVM) are popular methods used to address these problems, however, while they can give high accuracy, detection is still too slow for real-time application. The V-HOG method has previously been proposed to reduce detection time in real-time application by adjusting HOG structures. Although V-HOG detection is faster than that of HOG, the accuracy is lower. Therefore, this paper proposed to improve accuracy and classification time by adjusting HOG parameters and SVM kernel functions. The experimental results showed that the proposed method results in 100% accuracy and supports real-time application.
Further evidence that culture media affect perinatal outcome: findings after transfer of fresh and cryopreserved embryos.

BACKGROUND We have previously shown that the medium used for culturing IVF embryos affects the birthweight of the resulting newborns. This observation with potentially far-reaching clinical consequences during later life, was made in singletons conceived during the first IVF treatment cycle after the transfer of fresh embryos. In the present study, we hypothesize that in vitro culture of embryos during the first few days of preimplantation development affects perinatal outcome, not only in singletons conceived in all rank order cycles but also in twins and in children born after transfer of frozen embryos. Furthermore, we investigated the effect of culture medium on gestational age (GA) at birth. METHODS Oocytes and embryos from consecutive treatment cycles were alternately assigned to culture in either medium from Vitrolife or from Cook. Data on a cohort of 294 live born singletons conceived after fresh transfer during any of a patient's IVF treatment cycles, as well as data of 67 singletons conceived after frozen embryo transfer (FET) and of 88 children of 44 twin pregnancies after fresh transfer were analysed by means of multiple linear regression. RESULTS In vitro culture in medium from Cook resulted in singletons after fresh transfer with a lower mean birthweight (adjusted mean difference, 112 g, P= 0.03), and in more singletons with low birthweight (LBW) <2500 g (P= 0.006) and LBW for GA ≥ 37 weeks (P= 0.015), when compared with singletons born after culture in medium from Vitrolife AB. GA at birth was not related to the medium used (adjusted difference, 0.05 weeks, P = 0.83). Among twins in the Cook group, higher inter-twin mean birthweight disparity and birthweight discordance were found. Z-scores after FET were -0.04 (± 0.14) in the Cook group compared with 0.18 (± 0.21) in the Vitrolife group (P> 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Our findings support our hypothesis that culture medium influences perinatal outcome of IVF singletons and twins. A similar trend is seen in case of singletons born after FET. GA was not affected by culture medium. These results indicate that in vitro culture might be an important factor explaining the poorer perinatal outcome after assisted reproduction technology (ART). Further research is needed to confirm this culture medium-induced effect in humans and to provide more insight into whether it is caused by epigenetic disturbance of imprinted genes in fetal or placental tissues. Moreover, embryo culture media and their effects need to be investigated thoroughly to select the best embryo culture medium in order to minimize or prevent short-term risks and maybe even long-term disease susceptibility.
Enterprising Women in Transition Economies

Contents: Part 1 Women's Entrepreneurship in a Transition Context - Key Issues: Introduction, Friederike Welter, David Smallbone and Nina Isakova. Part 2 Women's Entrepreneurship in Former Soviet Republics: Entrepreneurship in the Ukraine: a male female comparison, Nina Isakova, Olha Krasovska, Lidia Kavunenko and Alexander Lugovy Women entrepreneurs between tradition and modernity - the case of Uzbekistan, Friederike Welter, David Smallbone, Damira Mirzakhalikova, Natalja Ju. Schakirova and Charos Maksudova Women business owners in Moldova: proprietors or entrepreneurs? , Elena Aculai, Nelly Rodionova and Natalia Vinogradova Djamila's journey from Kolkhoz to Bazaar: female entrepreneurs in Kyrgyzstan, GA l Berna A-czan. Part 3 Women Entrepreneurship in Central Europe: From business ownership to informal market traders: the characteristics of female entrepreneurship in Lithuania, Ruta Aidis Women entrepreneurs in Slovenia: By Fits and Starts, Mateja DrnovA! ek and Miroslav Glas West and East German women entrepreneurs: (why) are they still different? , Friederike Welter.Part 4 Policy Issues and Policy Perspectives: Conclusions and policy perspectives, Friederike Welter, David Smallbone and Nina Isakova Index.
New computational perspectives on scattering and transport in III/V channel materials

A physically-grounded modeling, simulation, and parameter-extraction framework that targets design and engineering of ultra-scaled devices and next-generation channel materials. The framework consists of a fast and accurate Schrdinger-Poisson solver/mobility extractor coupled to a device simulator. It brings physical modeling of semiconductor channels to device design and engineering which until now has been the domain of TCAD tools based on purely empirical models. In this work, we specifically explore the framework components required to model devices based on III/V compound semiconductors.
Unequal Erasure Protection and Object Bundle Protection with the Generalized Object Encoding Approach

When a data flow contains information of different priority levels, it is natural to try to offer an unequal protection where the high priority data benefits from a higher protection than the rest of data. In this work we focus on the "erasure channel", for instance the Internet where the UDP/IP datagram integrity is guaranteed by the physical layer FCS (or CRC) and the UDP checksum. In this context UEP refers to an Unequal Erasure Protection (rather than Error) and the FEC code being used is one of the various Application-Layer Forward Erasure Correction (AL-FEC) codes that have been designed and standardized in the past years, like Reed-Solomon, one of the LDPC variants, or Raptor(Q) codes. Offering an unequal protection in this context can be achieved by one of the following three general approaches: by using dedicated UEP-aware FEC codes, by using a dedicated UEP-aware packetization scheme, or by using an UEP-aware signaling scheme. In this work we ignore the first approach as we want to reuse existing AL-FEC codes. Instead we focus on and compare the last two approaches and more precisely the well known Priority Encoding Transmission (PET) scheme that belongs to the UEP-aware packetization category and a Generalized Object Encoding (GOE) scheme, we propose, that belongs to the UEP-aware signaling category. We compare them both from an analytical point of view (we use an N-truncated negative binomial distribution to that purpose) and from an experimental, simulation based, point of view. Since we want to derive practical recommendations, we consider erasure recovery metrics, but also processing load and peak memory requirements metrics that can be of high importance. We show that the GOE approach, by the flexibility it offers, its simplicity, its backward compatibility and its good recovery capabilities, is highly recommendable for practical systems requiring UEP. In a second part of the paper we consider the use of PET, more precisely an extension called Universal Object Delivery (UOD), and GOE in situations where one needs to send a bundle of small object (e.g. files). If both solutions can address this need, we show that once again the GOE scheme is highly recommendable for practical realizations.
Light-Weight Rule-Based Test Case Generation for Detecting Buffer Overflow Vulnerabilities

Buffer overflow exploits form a substantial portion of input manipulation attacks as they are commonly found and are easy to exploit. Despite existence of many detection solutions, buffer overflow bugs are widely being reported in multitude of applications suggesting either inherent limitations in current solutions or problems with their adoption by the end-users. To address this, we propose a novel light-weight rule-based test case generation approach for detecting buffer overflows. The proposed approach uses information collected from static program analysis and pre-defined rules to generate test cases. Since the proposed approach uses only static analysis information and does not involve any constraint solving it is termed as light-weight. Our experimental evaluation on benchmark programs shows that the test inputs generated by the proposed approach are effective in detecting known bugs along with reporting some new bugs.
Role of Oxidative Stress in Drug-Induced Kidney Injury

The kidney plays a primary role in maintaining homeostasis and detoxification of numerous hydrophilic xenobiotics as well as endogenous compounds. Because the kidney is exposed to a larger proportion and higher concentration of drugs and toxins than other organs through the secretion of ionic drugs by tubular organic ion transporters across the luminal membranes of renal tubular epithelial cells, and through the reabsorption of filtered toxins into the lumen of the tubule, these cells are at greater risk for injury. In fact, drug-induced kidney injury is a serious problem in clinical practice and accounts for roughly 20% of cases of acute kidney injury (AKI) among hospitalized patients. Therefore, its early detection is becoming more important. Usually, drug-induced AKI consists of two patterns of renal injury: acute tubular necrosis (ATN) and acute interstitial nephritis (AIN). Whereas AIN develops from medications that incite an allergic reaction, ATN develops from direct toxicity on tubular epithelial cells. Among several cellular mechanisms underlying ATN, oxidative stress plays an important role in progression to ATN by activation of inflammatory response via proinflammatory cytokine release and inflammatory cell accumulation in tissues. This review provides an overview of drugs associated with AKI, the role of oxidative stress in drug-induced AKI, and a biomarker for drug-induced AKI focusing on oxidative stress.
Digital Audio Effects ( DAFX-05 ) , Madrid , Spain , September 20-22 , 2005 DAFX-1 MORPHING TECHNIQUES FOR ENHANCED SCAT SINGING

In jazz, scat singing is a phonetic improvisation that imitates instrumental sounds. In this paper, we propose a system that aims to transform singing voice into real instrument sounds, extending the possibilities for scat singers. Analysis algorithms in the spectral domain extract voice parameters, which drive the resulting instrument sound. A small database contains real instrument samples that have been spectrally analyzed offline. Two different prototypes are introduced, reproducing a trumpet and a bass guitar respectively.
Symptoms, signs, and tests: The general practitioner's comprehensive approach towards a cancer diagnosis

Objective. To study the relative importance of different tools a GP can use during the diagnostic process towards cancer detection. Design. Retrospective cohort study with prospective registration of cancer in general practice. Setting and subjects. One hundred and fifty-seven Norwegian general practitioners (GPs) reported 261 cancer patients. Method. During 10 consecutive days, GPs registered all patient consultations and recorded any presence of seven focal symptoms and three general symptoms, commonly considered as warning signs of cancer (WSC). Follow-up was done six to 11 months later. For each patient with new or recurrent cancer, the GP completed a questionnaire with medical-record-based information concerning the diagnostic procedure. Results. In 78% of cancer cases, symptoms, signs, or tests helped diagnose cancer. In 90 cases, there were 131 consultation-recorded WSC that seemed related to the cancer. Further symptoms were reported for another 74 cases. Different clinical signs were noted in 41 patients, 16 of whom had no previous recording of symptoms. Supplementary tests added information in 59 cases; in 25 of these there were no recordings of symptoms or signs. Sensitivity of any cancer-relevant symptom or clinical finding ranged from 100% for patients with uterine body cancer to 57% for patients with renal cancer. Conclusion. WSC had a major role as initiator of a cancer diagnostic procedure. Low-risk-but-not-no-risk symptoms also played an important role, and in 7% of patients they were the only symptoms. Clinical findings and/or supplementary procedures were sometimes decisive for rapid referral.
When to Run and When to Hide: Electoral Coordination and Exit

Elections represent a coordination problem for voters and candidates for office. Electoral coordination is also the causal mechanism behind any explanation of the relationship between electoral systems and the number of parties. I present a dynamic model of electoral coordination with candidate exit. The model extends two important results from the literature to a dynamic setting. The extension of Duverger's Law and the median-voter theorem also offers a simultaneous prediction of the number of parties and their ideological positions. Coordination failure is shown to be possible in a mixed-strategy equilibrium.
Redefining Success in the PICU: New Patient Populations Shift Targets of Care

Over the last 3 decades, mortality rates of children admitted to PICUs in North America have declined significantly.1 By this measure alone, PICUs have been extremely successful, offering children the best possibility for survival and recovery after life-threatening trauma and illness. Yet as mortality rates have declined, the PICU patient population has become steadily more complex. A recent analysis of admissions across 54 PICUs in the United States ( n = 52 791) revealed that 53% of critically ill children had underlying chronic, complex illnesses.2 This finding is supported by a secondary analysis of a national administrative database in the United States that revealed comorbid illness among critically ill children increased from 35% in 1997 to 41% in 2006.3 The emergence of this new population of critically ill children reflects the medical and technological advances of recent decades.1 What do we mean by children with chronic, complex illness, and how do they impact the provision of critical care? This population has been defined as children with severe antecedent disorders; children with medical complexity, such as neuromuscular conditions and neurologic impairment; children with special health care needs; and children with a chronic comorbid illness, such as cardiovascular disease. What they have in common is a greater risk of PICU admission if they become acutely ill, along with extensive medical needs that continue long after the illness that brings them to the PICU is resolved. They are typically technology dependent, requiring a medical device to maintain body functions necessary to sustain life. Family members act … Address correspondence to Janet E. Rennick, RN, MScN, PhD, Department of Nursing, Room A-405, The Montreal Children’s Hospital, 2300 rue Tupper, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3H 1P3. E-mail: janet.rennick{at}muhc.mcgill. ca
Comparison of Wind Power and Load Forecasting Error Distributions: Preprint

The introduction of large amounts of variable and uncertain power sources, such as wind power, into the electricity grid presents a number of challenges for system operations. One issue involves the uncertainty associated with scheduling power that wind will supply in future timeframes. However, this is not an entirely new challenge; load is also variable and uncertain, and is strongly influenced by weather patterns. In this work we make a comparison between the day-ahead forecasting errors encountered in wind power forecasting and load forecasting. The study examines the distribution of errors from operational forecasting systems in two different Independent System Operator (ISO) regions for both wind power and load forecasts at the day-ahead timeframe. The day-ahead timescale is critical in power system operations because it serves the unit commitment function for slow-starting conventional generators.
Neural Plastic Effects of Cognitive Training on Aging Brain

Increasing research has evidenced that our brain retains a capacity to change in response to experience until late adulthood. This implies that cognitive training can possibly ameliorate age-associated cognitive decline by inducing training-specific neural plastic changes at both neural and behavioral levels. This longitudinal study examined the behavioral effects of a systematic thirteen-week cognitive training program on attention and working memory of older adults who were at risk of cognitive decline. These older adults were randomly assigned to the Cognitive Training Group (n = 109) and the Active Control Group (n = 100). Findings clearly indicated that training induced improvement in auditory and visual-spatial attention and working memory. The training effect was specific to the experience provided because no significant difference in verbal and visual-spatial memory between the two groups was observed. This pattern of findings is consistent with the prediction and the principle of experience-dependent neuroplasticity. Findings of our study provided further support to the notion that the neural plastic potential continues until older age. The baseline cognitive status did not correlate with pre- versus posttraining changes to any cognitive variables studied, suggesting that the initial cognitive status may not limit the neuroplastic potential of the brain at an old age.