Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Extracting concentrated guided light.

The maximum concentration of radiation is proportional to the square of the refractive index of the medium in which it propagates. A medium with a high refractive index can also serve as a lightguide for concentrated radiation. However, if concentrated radiation is extracted from one medium, with a high refractive index, to another, whose index is lower (e.g., from fused silica into air), part of the radiation may be lost because of the total internal reflection at the interface. We present polygonal shapes suitable for efficient extraction of the concentrated radiation in a controllable way, without increasing the cross-section area (or diameter) of the lightguide. It is shown analytically and experimentally that the use of a secondary concentrator, followed by such a light extractor, both having a high refractive index, can provide considerably more power to a solar receiver with a specific aperture.
FRAUD ANALYTICS: A SURVEY ON BANK FRAUD AND FRAUD PREDICTION USING UNSUPERVISED LEARNING BASED APPROACH

Fraud in banks has been steadily growing over the past years and is a challenge to banks worldwide. The complexity involved in detection of such fraudulent activities further adds to the problem. A thorough examination of fraud and its possibilities is necessary to pinpoint and distinguish the few fraudulent cases within the vast volumes of banking data. In this paper we have discussed various scenarios in which fraud could take place and applied unsupervised learning approaches to detect fraudulent acts in areas such as credit cards, money laundering and financial statements. We have keenly analyzed various attributes which would be necessary in detection of culprits who may cause a loss to the banks/organizations. Our analysis assists in discovering anomalous behavior among peer groups to more consistently uncover frauds with lesser amount of false positives.
Effect of Age and High Blood Pressure on Barorefiex Sensitivity in Man

The purpose of this study was to relate baroreflex sensitivity to age and arterial pressure in 61 male and 20 female untreated subjects, aged 19−66 years, whose mean arterial pressures ranged from 70 to 150 mm Hg. In this selected group of subjects there was no correlation between age and arterial pressure. The index of sensitivity used was the increase in pulse interval which occurs reflexly in response to a rise in systolic pressure induced by the intravenous injection of phenylephrine and is measured as the increase in pulse interval in milliseconds per mm Hg rise in systolic blood pressure. It ranged from 1.9 to 48.9 msec/mm Hg. Increasing age and arterial pressure act independently to reduce baroreflex sensitivity. Eight subjects who had normal blood pressure at the time of testing but whose pressure had been elevated in the past, had reflex sensitivities significantly less than expected in persons of the same age and mean arterial pressure. The heart rate in these subjects was not significantly different from that in the controls; the heart rate of the 12 hypertensive subjects aged under 40 years was significantly faster than that of age-matched normotensive subjects but not that of older hypertensive subjects.
Education and Voter Turnout in a Quasi-Experimental School Reform

It is often argued that an educated electorate is essential for the functioning of democracy, and that this relationship represents an important externality of educational investment. This paper revisits the question by measuring the impact of additional schooling at the lower end of the educational distribution on voter turnout. We instrument the supply of education with a school reform that created large, quasi-random variation in the minimum years of mandatory schooling across cohorts and municipalities in Norway. The impact of the reform on turnout is measured at two levels: individual level and municipality level. The individual level data is based on electoral surveys, while the municipality level analysis utilises Norwegian register data and municipal voter turnout rates. Both levels of analysis point to a similar conclusion. We find that additional education at low levels of attainment does not in general have a causal impact on the turnout rates. We nevertheless find a significant and large effect on men in the individual level, suggesting that the voting behaviour of men and women may respond differently to education.
Árbol de decisión C4.5 basado en entropía minoritaria para clasificación de conjuntos de datos no balanceados

Resumen. En el area de aprendizaje automatico, el problema de desbalance en los datos es uno de los mas desafiantes. Desde hace mas de una decada, se han desarrollado nuevos metodos para mejorar el desempeno de los metodos de clasificacion para este tipo de problema. En este articulo se presenta una modificacion al algoritmo C4.5 usando el concepto de entroṕia minoritaria. La propuesta esta basada en la correccion de un error que observamos en una publicacion previa. La implementacion del nuevo metodo presentado es probada con conjuntos publicamente disponibles. Los resultados obtenidos muestran la utilidad del metodo desarrollado.
TLR4 gene dosage contributes to endotoxin‐induced acute respiratory inflammation

Toll‐like receptor (TLR)4 is critical for endotoxin recognition and cellular responses. Using Tlr4 transgenic mice, we investigated the influence of Tlr4 gene dosage on acute respiratory response to endotoxin. Transgenic mice expressing three, six, or 30 copies of Tlr4, control, and Tlr4‐deficient mice received intranasal administration of lipopolysaccharide (LPS; 10 ug), and the airway response was analyzed by plethysmography, lung histology, cell recruitment, cytokine and chemokine secretion and protein leakage into the bronchoalveolar space. We demonstrate that overexpression of Tlr4 augmented a LPS‐induced bronchoconstrictive effect, as well as tumor necrosis factor and CXC chemokine ligand 1 (keratinocyte‐derived chemokine) production. Neutrophil recruitment, microvascular and alveolar epithelial injury with protein leak in the airways, and damage of the lung microarchitecture were Tlr4 gene dose‐dependently increased. Therefore, the TLR4 expression level determines the extent of acute pulmonary response to inhaled endotoxin, and TLR4 may thus be a valuable target for immunointervention in acute lung inflammation as a result of endotoxins.
Paraquat Contamination in Surface Waters of a Rural Stream in the Mountain Region in the State of Rio De Janeiro Southeastern Brazil

Paraquat is an herbicide widely applied to agriculture in Brazil. As it has human toxic properties, it is of great interest for public health to evaluate water contamination, especially when the local population consumes water from aquifer springs near crops. Paraquat concentrations were assessed in surface waters of a stream that crosses a rural area of intensive agricultural production in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro. Water samples were collected at 7 sampling sites (n=84) during 1 year, and paraquat concentrations were determined by ELISA. Residues were found in 62.5% of the samples. The sampling point located closest to the plantation area was the most frequently contaminated (average 0.075μg/L; maximum 0.279μg/L). The local rainfall regime seems to be an important predictor of paraquat contamination according to Spearman’s correlation coefficient (R=0.7053; p=0.0128). The results suggest that paraquat residues in water represent a distinct threat to human and environmental health, especially after rainy periods.
Crosstalk Analysis for Microring Based Optical Interconnection Networks

Recently a new approach was proposed to tackle the wavelength non-uniformity problem of the silicon photonic ring technology. By lowering the Q value of the ring, the likelihood of finding a common operating wavelength can be significantly increased. But lowering Q will increase the crosstalk level in such a network. This crosstalk problem can be tackled with a generalized space dilation technique. Since crosstalk is a central issue of this approach, computing the crosstalk level accurately is critical for a microring-based photonic interconnect. Prior work on crosstalk analysis for interconnects based on directional couplers assumed that the extinction ratios are the same for the two switching states. But this is usually not the case for silicon photonic microrings. In this paper, we develop an analytical model for analyzing the crosstalk level in a microring-based optical interconnection network. The analytical approach presented in the paper can be used for studying the crosstalk problem in optical networks based on other optical switching technologies.
The steepest watershed: from graphs to images

The watershed is a powerful tool for segmenting objects whose contours appear as crest lines on a gradient image. The watershed transform associates to a topographic surface a partition into catchment basins, defined as attraction zones of a drop of water falling on the relief and following a line of steepest descent. Unfortunately, catchment basins may overlap and do not form a partition. Moreover, current watershed algorithms, being shortsighted, do not correctly estimate the steepness of the downwards trajectories and overestimate the overlapping zones of catchment basins. An arbitrary division of these zones between adjacent catchment basin results in a poor localization of the contours. We propose an algorithm without myopia, which considers the total length of a trajectory for estimating its steepness. We first consider topographic surfaces defined on node weighted graphs. The graphs are pruned in order to eliminate all downwards trajectories which are not the steepest. An iterative algorithm with simple neighborhood operations performs the pruning and constructs the catchment basins. The algorithm is then adapted to gray tone images. The graph structure itself is encoded as an image thanks to the fixed neighborhood structure of grids. A pair of adaptative erosions and dilations prune the graph and extend the catchment basins. As a result one obtains a precise detection of the catchment basins and a graph of the steepest trajectories. A last iterative algorithm allows to follow selected downwards trajectories in order to detect particular structures such as rivers or thalweg lines of the topographic surface.
Large-scale Simulation Method of Mobile Robots

Recently mobile robots act in various situations such as disaster areas, office buildings, factories and homes. When these new mobile robots are released, they should be confirmed to work correctly and safety from evaluation. In this paper, we propose large-scale simulation environment of mobile robots on StarBED which is a large-scale networked testbed. By using the simulation environment, we could confirm that four hundreds of mobile robots act in real-time.
Fast Affine Projection Algorithms for Filtered-x Multichannel Active Noise Control

In recent years, affine projection algorithms have been proposed for adaptive system applications as an efficient alternative to the slow convergence speed of least mean square (LMS)-type algorithms. Whereas much attention has been focused on the development of efficient versions of affine projection algorithms for echo cancellation applications, the similar adaptive problem presented by active noise control (ANC) systems has not been studied so deeply. This paper is focused on the necessity to reduce even more the computational complexity of affine projection algorithms for real-time ANC applications. We present some alternative efficient versions of existing affine projection algorithms that do not significantly degrade performance in practice. Furthermore, while in the ANC context the commonly used affine projection algorithm is based on the modified filtered-x structure, an efficient affine projection algorithm based on the (nonmodified) conventional filtered-x structure, as well as efficient methods to reduce its computational burden, are discussed throughout this paper. Although the modified filtered-x scheme exhibits better convergence speed than the conventional filtered-x structure and allows recovery of all the signals needed in the affine projection algorithm for ANC, the conventional filtered-x scheme provides a significant computational saving, avoiding the additional filtering needed by the modified filtered-x structure. In this paper, it is shown that the proposed efficient versions of affine projection algorithms based on the conventional filtered-x structure show good performance, comparable to the performance exhibited by the efficient approaches of modified filtered-x affine projection algorithms, and also achieve meaningful computational savings. Experimental results are presented to validate the use of the algorithms introduced in the paper for practical applications.
BURSTINESS DESCRIPTORS OF TRAFFIC STREAMS: INDICES OF DISPERSION AND PEAKEDNESS

Abstract The burstiness of a trafﬁc stream can have a profound ef-fect on performance statistics in the queue to which thestream is offered, such as line length, waiting times andblocking probabilities. Mathematical descriptors quanti-fyingburstinessshouldbe versatileenough tocharacterizeburstiness, yet analytically tractable to permit numericalcalculation. This paper surveys two important descrip-tors of burstiness: indices of dispersion and peakedness.It discusses their effect on queueing statistics and illus-trates them via an example from thedomain of TES trafﬁcstreams. A conclusion of this example is that peakednessis more general than indices of dispersion. 1 Introduction The effect of burstiness on queueing systems has beenlong recognized by telephone trafﬁc engineers and otherworkers [4, 14, 15]. Intuitively, burstiness is present ina discrete trafﬁc process, if its arrival points appear toform visual clusters. The mathematical underpinning ofburstiness are less obvious. If fXng
Channel Assignment Based on Routing Decisions (CARD): Traffic-Dependent Topology Control for Multi-Channel Networks

Dynamic spectrum access (DSA) holds the promise for more efficient utilization of the spectrum, while requiring greater cooperation between PHY, MAC, and NET layers to allocate resources and dynamically react to changing network conditions. In this paper, we propose Channel Assignment based on Routing Decisions (CARD), a mechanism that combines channel assignment and topology control so that at any given time the cognitive network self-organizes into the topology that is best suited to support the current offered traffic. CARD is a distributed mechanism, and each network node relies on local information only. We show that CARD results in an improvement in route length (and, thus, end-to-end delay), aggregate network capacity, and, in some situations, energy efficiency. In the process of designing a DSA medium access con- trol (MAC) scheme, new abstractions that span the physical, data-link, and network layers must be developed. This design encompasses the traditional PHY/MAC/NET functions along with new issues such as neighbor discovery in a multi-channel environment, rendezvous, and intelligent channel assignment. In this paper, we propose an approach that combines channel assignment and topology control, so that at any given time the network self-organizes into the topology that is best suited to support the current offered traffic. This approach, Channel Assignment based on Routing Decisions (CARD), is a distributed mechanism where each node makes decisions given its local information. Each node inspects the current route and attempts to shorten the route through dynamic selection of channels. It produces, whenever feasible, both an interference-free channel assignment for nodes actively involved in routing and shorter routes from source to destination. Preliminary results indicate that this method of jointly assigning channels and routes has benefits such as reduced delay and increased network capacity. In some cases energy-efficiency improvements are also obtained, and if enough channels are available intra- and inter-flow inter- ference avoidance techniques can be applied to improve network throughput.
Matrix Attachment Region Binding Protein MFP1 Is Localized in Discrete Domains at the Nuclear Envelope

Recently, it has been suggested that nuclear processes, such as replication, transcription, and splicing, are spatially organized and associated with a nuclear framework called the nuclear matrix, a structure of unknown molecular composition. It has been shown that chromatin is attached to the nuclear matrix via specific DNA fragments called matrix attachment regions (MARs). We have begun to dissect the plant nuclear matrix by isolating a DNA binding protein with specific affinity for MARs. Here, it is shown that MAR binding filament–like protein 1 (MFP1) is associated with specklelike structures at the nuclear periphery that are part of isolated nuclei and the nuclear matrix. A predicted N-terminal transmembrane domain is necessary for the specific targeting of MFP1 to the speckles, indicating an association with the nuclear envelope–endoplasmic reticulum continuum. In addition, it is shown that a marker protein for plant microtubule organizing centers, which has been shown to be localized on the outside of the plant nuclear envelope, is also part of the nuclear matrix. These findings indicate a close and previously undescribed connection in plants between the nuclear envelope and the internal nuclear matrix, and they suggest a function for MFP1 in attaching chromatin to specific sites at the nuclear periphery.
Acquiring Schemata Through Understanding and Generalizing Plans

This paper discusses explanatory schema acquisition, a learning technique with several interesting properties. It does not require a teacher or concept matching predicate to be provided. It does not reply on searching a concept space to produce generalizations. It can acquire a new concept based on only one input example, although later inputs might result in refinement of learned concepts. These features are made possible by taking a very knowledge-based approach.
The Molecular Mechanism of a Cis-Regulatory Adaptation in Yeast

Despite recent advances in our ability to detect adaptive evolution involving the cis-regulation of gene expression, our knowledge of the molecular mechanisms underlying these adaptations has lagged far behind. Across all model organisms, the causal mutations have been discovered for only a handful of gene expression adaptations, and even for these, mechanistic details (e.g. the trans-regulatory factors involved) have not been determined. We previously reported a polygenic gene expression adaptation involving down-regulation of the ergosterol biosynthesis pathway in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Here we investigate the molecular mechanism of a cis-acting mutation affecting a member of this pathway, ERG28. We show that the causal mutation is a two-base deletion in the promoter of ERG28 that strongly reduces the binding of two transcription factors, Sok2 and Mot3, thus abolishing their regulation of ERG28. This down-regulation increases resistance to a widely used antifungal drug targeting ergosterol, similar to mutations disrupting this pathway in clinical yeast isolates. The identification of the causal genetic variant revealed that the selection likely occurred after the deletion was already present at high frequency in the population, rather than when it was a new mutation. These results provide a detailed view of the molecular mechanism of a cis-regulatory adaptation, and underscore the importance of this view to our understanding of evolution at the molecular level.
Estimates of pregnancies and pregnancy rates for the United States, 1976-81.

Mrs. Ventura, Mrs. Taffel, and Dr. Mosher are statisticians in the Division of Vital Statistics, National Center for Health Statis tics. Mrs. Ventura and Mrs. Taffel are.in the Natality Statistics Branch, and Dr. Mosher is in the Family Growth Survey Branch. Cecilie Witt and Teri Liss of the Division of Vital Statistics provided statistical assistance. Tearsheet requests to Mrs. Stephanie J. Ventura, NCHS, Rm. 1-44, Center Bldg. , 3700 East-West Highway, Hyattsville, MD 20782.
Language interpretation and generation for football commentary

Our interest in the computer processing of football commentary was at first given in by the EU/IST funded project MUMIS (Multimedia Indexing and Searching) that started in 2000 [11, 18, 19]. This project's objective is to develop technology for automatic indexing of multimedia programme material (texts, news streams, speech transcripts) and to develop a user interface that supports the conceptual querying and browsing of related video content over the internet. One of the innovative features of MUMIS is that it aims at the disclosure of video archives by applying information extraction techniques, originally developed for the textual domain. Information extraction is a technique that is typically suited for content in specific domains. In MUMIS the extraction technology is applied to the domain of football. The project requires the integration of lexicons, ontology and information extraction tools for this domain, and the development of merging algorithms to integrate the (incomplete) information coming from different sources. For example, the information extraction components should be able to extract some thirty different event types, using methods such as part of speech tagging, syntactic parsing, semantic tagging, and discourse analysis Typical football events to be detected are: kick-off, penalty, goal, halftime, free-kick, etc. The user interface should help users to formulate queries that can be matched on the annotations generated by the extraction component and linked to the time-codes of the corresponding video fragments. In parallel to the MUMIS project we surveyed a number of research efforts that deal all with football commentary but for which the technology focus differs: retrieval, interpretation or generation of commentary and related (but not necessarily language oriented) research. There were two reasons for this investigation. One obvious reason is to find out how the new technology and tools can be adapted to similar applications. The other is to see how the domain knowledge obtained for extraction purposes can be employed for other intelligent applications in the same domain. Since at the same time several of our M.Sc. students got interested in learning multi-agent systems for developing teams for the RoboCup leagues we decided to stick close to the football domain in this survey as well. In this paper we start with the survey of the domain specific research. The aim of the survey was to obtain a comprehensive view of the field could guide the selection of new research themes. In the second part of the paper we give a short introduction to the MUMIS project as it can be embedded in the general football related language technology research.
Three-dimensional model for particle-size segregation by shaking.

A three-dimensional model for particle-size segregation by shaking has been developed and used to study the upward motion of a large sphere in a random packing of smaller spheres. In this model segregation occurs only for values of the diameter ratio (Φ) above a critical value Φ c ≃-2.8. The ratio of the upward velocity of the large particles to their diameter is greatest for values of Φ just larger than Φ c . The simulation results can be understood in terms of a simple theoretical model that becomes exact in the limit Φ∞