Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Benchmark Kannada Handwritten Document Dataset and Its Segmentation

Research towards Indian handwritten document analysis achieved increasing attention in recent years. In pattern recognition and especially in handwritten document recognition, standard databases play vital roles for evaluating performances of algorithms and comparing results obtained by different groups of researchers. For Indian languages, there is a lack of standard database of handwritten texts to evaluate performance of different document recognition approaches and for comparison purpose. In this paper, an unconstrained Kannada handwritten text database (KHTD) is introduced. The KHTD contains 204 handwritten documents of four different categories written by 51 native speakers of Kannada. Total number of text-lines and words in the dataset are 4298 and 26115, respectively. In most of text-pages of the KHTD contains either an overlapping or a touching text-lines and the average number of text-lines in each document on the database is 21. Two types of ground truths based on pixels information and content information are generated for the database. Providing these two types of ground truths for the KHTD, it can be utilized in many areas of document image processing such as sentence recognition/understanding, text-line segmentation, word segmentation, word recognition, and character segmentation. To provide a framework for other researches, recent text-line segmentation results on this dataset are also reported. The KHTD is available for research purposes.
Horn Antenna using Substrate Integrated Waveguide: Design of H-Plane X-Band Horn Antenna

In this paper, a `Substrate Integrated Waveguide H-Plane Horn Antenna' is designed for operating specifically in X-Band i.e. from major 8.2 GHz-12.4 GHz. The antenna is designed and simulated by using the ANSYS-HFSS Software with FR-4 or typically `Flame Retardant-4' as the substrate. The authors have done analysis where it obtained a bandwidth of 250 MHz with an ideal antenna size & showed out the classical behaviour as a front of a `perfect antenna'. All the simulations are carried out by using the Full Wave Simulator termed ANSYS-HFSS as known to be High Frequency Structure Simulator. As a virtue of it, the main implementation is shifted on the Wireless Communication Domain.
The Real Estate Market and Private Consumption in Macao

Macao’s real estate sector has remained stagnant since the late 1990s and the real estate price level continues to be downwardly adjusted. As properties make up part of their owners’ wealth, the declining property price implies shrinkage in the financial resources of the owners. In fact, private consumption is responsive to levels of wealth. The contraction of wealth caused by declining property prices will eventually affect private consumption in a negative way. This paper studies the relationship between real estate prices and private consumption expenditure in Macao. The price level of real estates in Macao between 1992 and 2001 and the possible reasons for fluctuations in property prices are also discussed.
Resilience as a dynamic concept

Abstract The concept of resilience has as its starting point the recognition that there is huge heterogeneity in people's responses to all manner of environmental adversities. Resilience is an inference based on evidence that some individuals have a better outcome than others who have experienced a comparable level of adversity; moreover, the negative experience may have either a sensitizing effect or a strengthening “steeling” effect in relation to the response to later stress or adversity. After noting the crucial importance of first testing for the environmental mediation of risk through “natural experiments,” findings are reviewed on “steeling effects” in animal models and humans. Gene–environment interaction findings are considered, and it is noted that there is some evidence that the genetic influences concerns responsivity to all environments and not just bad ones. Life course effects are reviewed in relation to evidence on turning point effects associated with experiences that increase opportunities and enhance coping. Attention is drawn to both research implications and substantive findings as features that foster resilience.
Recognizing Facial Expressions Using Eigenspaces

In this paper we attempt to recognize the facial expressions using well known Eigenspaces approach for face recognition. In our approach we identify the user's facial expressions from the input images using a method that is modified from eigenface recognition. The simplicity in matching the input images with the database images for various facial expressions allows the system to be suitable for near real time applications. We have implemented this scheme and experimental results show the effectiveness of our scheme.
Active immersion: the goal of communications with interactive agents

The creation of interactive animated agents is one of the most active research areas for researchers who are trying to develop various kinds of technologies that give such agents human-like behaviors. However, there are other important issues concerning the agents. One is the introduction of narratives into the behaviors of the agents. Since narratives are the basic way movies and novels take us into cyberspace, they can be effective for creating really human-like agents. Based on this idea, we have developed an interactive movie system (R. Nakatsu and N. Tosa, 1997) in which people can act the main roles and enjoy the story development. At the same time, we have learned that the existence of spontaneous interactions is also the key to the success of this new media. Based on this lesson, we have developed a second system (R. Nakatsu et al., 1999), where we tried to achieve a good balance between narrative-based and spontaneous interactions. In the first part of the paper we introduce our interactive movie system by focusing on how we achieved an integration of narrative-based and spontaneous interactions. Also, there is the important question: what is the objective of creating interactive animated agents? Although the technological aspects of such agents have been studied and discussed in detail, this critical question has rarely been discussed. In the latter part of the paper, we discuss what is the ultimate goal of interactions with interactive agents.
AN ℓ1/2 regularized low-rank representation for hyperspectral imagery classification

Hundreds of narrow contiguous spectral bands collected by a hyperspectral sensor has provided the opportunity to identify the various materials present on the surface. Spatial information, that means the adjacent pixels belong to the same class with a high probability, is a valuable complement to the spectral information. In this paper, by decomposing each pixel and the spatial neighborhood into a low-rank form, the spatial information can be efficiently integrated into the spectral signatures. Meanwhile, in order to describe the low-rank structure of the decomposed data more precisely, an ℓ1/2 norm regularization is introduced and a discrete algorithm is proposed to solve the combined optimization problem. Experimental results on real hyperspectral data have demonstrated the effectiveness and versatility of the proposed spatial information-fused approach for hyperspectral imagery classification.
The unleashed scandal: the end of control in the digital age

[. ] suggests that people feel a sense of moral duty towards others. On that basis, public policy could be driven by the moral philosophical notion of the common good. Policymakers could be operating on the basis of a sense of moral obligation to create policies which benefit all in society. We could therefore conclude that satisfying the common good is the predominant motive among policy makers, but is this the case? (109, italics in the original)
Saccade deficits in amnestic mild cognitive impairment resemble mild Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a disorder of progressive memory loss and executive dysfunction. Little is known about the progression from amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI; isolated memory loss) to AD. Studies have found impairments in mild‐stage AD and aMCI in specific tests of executive function. Here, we used objective saccade tasks to determine if they can effectively assess executive function deficits otherwise assessed by neuropsychological testing. To determine which executive function deficits the saccade tasks are most sensitive to, we also investigated the relationship between performance on saccade tasks and neuropsychological test scores. Twenty‐two aMCI patients (63–90 years), 24 mild AD patients (61–87 years) and 76 healthy controls (60–85 years) performed a battery of neuropsychological tests, and two saccade tasks designed to probe sensory, motor and cognitive function. The prosaccade task requires a fast, automatic saccade toward an eccentric visual stimulus. The antisaccade task requires additional executive processing to inhibit the automatic prosaccade toward the stimulus, so that a voluntary saccade can be initiated to a location opposite the stimulus. Antisaccade performance was impaired similarly in aMCI and AD patients relative to controls; both groups were slower to initiate correct antisaccades and they made more direction errors (erroneous prosaccades), suggesting similar brain deficits. Scores on the Stroop task were inversely correlated with the percentage of short‐latency direction errors in the antisaccade task for controls and aMCI patients, whereas other more global measures of executive function were not related to saccade measures in any subject group. Our results show that the antisaccade task is useful for detecting executive dysfunction in aMCI and AD, especially dysfunction in selective attention. Saccade tasks may therefore have potential to assess executive dysfunction when use of neuropsychological tests is not possible.
Semantic Conflict Prevention in Service Choreography

The choreography of business processes deployed across different organizations on large-scale enterprise networks is prone to producing semantically conflicting behavior. For example, increasing production is inconsistent with a sales promotion given the business goal of clearing out the inventory. This kind of conflicting behavior among collaborating partners is usually caused by a nonrealizable global specification that is unable to control the partners’ interaction in a complete and consistent way. To address this issue, we propose a framework to discover and fix a problematic global specification by introducing extra coordination mechanisms. We prove that the resulting global specification can be realized by a set of local specifications that guarantee consistent behavior among partners. Experimental results show that our approach is promising in preventing semantic conflicts in the choreography of business processes with a reasonable overhead.
Family Factors of Internet Addiction and Substance Use Experience in Taiwanese Adolescents

The aim of the study is to examine the differences in the diversity of family factors between adolescents with and without Internet addiction and substance use experience. A total of 3662 students (2328 boys and 1334 girls) were recruited from seven junior high schools, six senior high schools, and four vocational high schools in southern Taiwan. Internet addiction and substance experience were classified according to the score of Chen Internet Addiction Scale Questionnaires for Experience of Substance use. The family factors assessed included perceived family satisfaction, family economic status, parents' marriage status, care-givers, the frequency of intra-family conflict, families' habitual alcohol use, and perceived parents' or care givers' attitude toward adolescents' substance use. This study demonstrated that the characteristics of higher parent-adolescent conflict, habitual alcohol use of siblings, perceived parents' positive attitude to adolescent substance use, and lower family function could be used develop a predictive model for Internet addiction in the multiple logistic regression analysis. The former three family factors were also sufficient in themselves to develop a predictive model for substance use experience. The results revealed that adolescent Internet addiction and substance use experience shared similar family factors, which indicate that Internet addiction and substance use should be considered in the group of behavioral problem syndromes. A family-based preventive approach for Internet addiction and substance use should be introduced for adolescents with negative family factors.
Immobilization of Yarrowia lipolytica Lipase on Macroporous Resin Using Different Methods: Characterization of the Biocatalysts in Hydrolysis Reaction

To improve the reusability and organic solvent tolerance of microbial lipase and expand the application of lipase (hydrolysis, esterification, and transesterification), we immobilized marine microbial lipase using different methods and determined the properties of immobilized lipases. Considering the activity and cost of immobilized lipase, the concentration of lipase was fixed at 2 mg/mL. The optimal temperature of immobilized lipases was 40°C and 5°C higher than free lipase. The activities of immobilized lipases were much higher than free lipase at alkaline pH (more than 50% at pH 12). The free lipase lost most activity (35.3%) and immobilized lipases retained more than 46.4% of their initial activity after 3 h heat treatment at 70°C. At alkaline pH, immobilized lipases were more stable than free lipase (more than 60% residue activity at pH 11 for 3 h). Immobilized lipases retained 80% of their activity after 5 cycles and increased enzyme activity (more than 108.7%) after 3 h treatment in tert-butanol. Immobilization of lipase which improved reusability of lipase and provided a chance to expand the application of marine microbial lipase in organic system expanded the application range of lipase to catalyze hydrolysis and esterification in harsh condition.
A study of dark matter halos and gas properties in clusters of galaxies from ROSAT data

Self-gravitating systems such as elliptical galaxies appear to have a constant integrated specific entropy and obey a scaling law relating their potential energy to their mass. These properties can be interpreted as due to the physical processes involved in the formation and evolution of these structures. Dark matter halos obtained through numerical simulations have also been found to obey a scaling law relating their potential energy to their mass with the same slope as for ellipticals, and very close to the expected value predicted by theory. Since the X- ray gas in clusters is weakly dissipative, we test here the hypothesis that it verifies similar properties. Comparable properties for the dark matter component are also investigated. With this aim, we have analyzed ROSAT-PSPC images of 24 clusters, and fit a Sersic law to their X-ray surface brightness profiles. We found that: 1) the Sersic law parameters (intensity, shape and scale) describing the X-ray gas emission are correlated two by two, with a strong correlation between the shape and scale parameters; 2) the hot gas in all these clusters roughly has the same integrated specific entropy, although a second order correlation between this integrated specific entropy and both the gas mass and the dynamical mass is observed; 3) a scaling law links the cluster potential energy to its total mass, with the same slope as that derived for elliptical galaxies and for dark matter halo simulations. Comparable relations are obtained for the dark matter component. All these correlations are probably the consequence of the formation and evolution processes undergone by clusters of galaxies.
A Hybrid Approach to Answering Why-Not Questions on Relational Query Results

In analyzing and debugging data transformations, or more specifically relational queries, a subproblem is to understand why some data are not part of the query result. This problem has recently been addressed from different perspectives for various fragments of relational queries. The different perspectives yield different yet complementary explanations of such missing answers. This article first aims at unifying the different approaches by defining a new type of explanation, called hybrid explanation, that encompasses the variety of previously defined types of explanations. This solution goes beyond simply forming the union of explanations produced by different algorithms and is shown to be able to explain a larger set of missing answers. Second, we present Conseil, an algorithm to generate hybrid explanations. Conseil is also the first algorithm to handle nonmonotonic queries. Experiments on efficiency and explanation quality show that Conseil is comparable and even outperforms previous algorithms. This article extends a previous short conference paper by providing proofs, additional theorems, and a detailed discussion of each step of the Conseil algorithm. It also significantly extends the experimental evaluation on efficiency and explanation quality.
A survey of combinatorial aspects in the topology of complex hyperplane arrangements

We survey interactions between the topology and the combinatorics of complex hyperplane arrangements. Without claiming to be exhaustive, we examine in this setting combinatorial aspects of fundamental groups, associated graded Lie algebras, higher homotopy groups, cohomology rings, twisted homology with rank 1 complex coefficients, and Milnor fibers.
Maximum Neighborhood Margin Discriminant Projection for Classification

We develop a novel maximum neighborhood margin discriminant projection (MNMDP) technique for dimensionality reduction of high-dimensional data. It utilizes both the local information and class information to model the intraclass and interclass neighborhood scatters. By maximizing the margin between intraclass and interclass neighborhoods of all points, MNMDP cannot only detect the true intrinsic manifold structure of the data but also strengthen the pattern discrimination among different classes. To verify the classification performance of the proposed MNMDP, it is applied to the PolyU HRF and FKP databases, the AR face database, and the UCI Musk database, in comparison with the competing methods such as PCA and LDA. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our MNMDP in pattern classification.
Message Passing Algorithms for Graphical Games

My intention is to better understand message passing methods and algorithms so that I can develop and implement an algorithm to solve for a Nash equilibrium on a hypergraph (a graph in which the edges can contain more than two vertices). Although hypergraphs can be mapped to the space of bipartite graphs (by setting one part of the bipartite graph to be vertices and the other part to be edges in the hypergraph and then connecting hypergraph vertex i to hypergraph edge j with the edge in the bipartite graph (i, j) if the hyperedge j contains vertex i), this mapping would not make for a natural transition from the original algorithms that have been put forth. Looking at hypergraphs is important for graphical games because this allows for the possibility of more than two players to be directly involved in a game with each other (as opposed to having each game only involving two players).
ClipAudit: A Simple Risk-Limiting Post-Election Audit

We propose a simple risk-limiting audit for elections, ClipAudit. To determine whether candidate A (the reported winner) actually beat candidate B in a plurality election, ClipAudit draws ballots at random, without replacement, until either all cast ballots have been drawn, or until \[ a - b \ge \beta \sqrt{a+b} \] where $a$ is the number of ballots in the sample for the reported winner A, and $b$ is the number of ballots in the sample for opponent B, and where $\beta$ is a constant determined a priori as a function of the number $n$ of ballots cast and the risk-limit $\alpha$. ClipAudit doesn't depend on the unofficial margin (as does Bravo). We show how to extend ClipAudit to contests with multiple winners or losers, or to multiple contests.
Klasifikasi dan Klastering Penjurusan Siswa SMA Negeri 3 Boyolali

SMA N 3 Boyolali merupakan salah satu sekolah menengah di kota Boyolali yang saat ini telah memiliki 2 jurusan yaitu IPA dan IPS. Penjurusan siswa ini dapat mengarahkan peserta didik agar lebih fokus dalam mengembangkan kemampuan diri dan minat yang dimiliki. Pemilihan jurusan yang tidak tepat bisa sangat merugikan siswa terhadap minat dan karir mereka di masa mendatang. Dengan penjurusan tersebut diharapkan dapat memaksimalkan potensi, bakat atau talenta individu, sehingga dapat memaksimalkan nilai akademisnya. Berdasarkan latar belakang tersebut, maka dengan menerapkan teknik data mining diharapkan dapat membantu siswa untuk menentukan jurusan yang tepat sesuai dengan kriteria yang ditetapkan. Adapaun teknik data mining yang digunakan dalam penentuan jurusan ini menggunakan 3 buah metode yaitu Algoritma C4.5, Naive Bayes dan Algoritma K-Means. Sedangkan atribut yang digunakan terdiri dari Gender, Minat, Rata-rata nilai IPA, Rata-rata nilai IPS, nilai Psikotest IPA, nilai Psikotest IPS, Asal Sekolah dan Jurusan. Analisis dilakukan dengan bantuan aplikasi RapidMiner 5 untuk mengetahui nilai-nilai perbandingan terhadap metode yang digunakan. Hasil penelitian menggunakan perbandingan 3 metode menunjukkan bahwa berdasarkan nilai precision, metode naive bayes lebih baik dibandingkan dengan metode yang lain dengan nilai 77,51%. Sedangkan berdasarkan nilai recall dan accuracy, decision tree lebih baik dibandingkan dengan metode yang lain dengan nilai recall sebesar 90,80% dan nilai accuracy sebesar 79,14%. Variabel yang paling berpengaruh dalam menentukan penjurusan yaitu rata-rata nilai IPA sehingga perlu dijadikan pertimbangan bagi pihak sekolah untuk menentukan jurusan siswa.
Off-Path TCP Injection Attacks

We present practical off-path TCP injection attacks for connections between current, nonbuggy browsers and Web servers. The attacks allow Web-cache poisoning with malicious objects such as spoofed Web pages and scripts; these objects can be cached for a long period of time, exposing any user of that cache to cross-site scripting, cross-site request forgery, and phishing attacks. In contrast to previous TCP injection attacks, we do not require MitM capabilities or malware running on the client machine. Instead, our attacks rely on a weaker assumption, that the user only enters a malicious Web site, but does not download or install any application. Our attacks exploit subtle details of the TCP and HTTP specifications, and features of legitimate (and very common) browser implementations. An empirical evaluation of our techniques with current versions of browsers shows that connections with most popular Web sites are vulnerable. We conclude this work with practical client- and server-end defenses against our attacks.