Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A New Temporal Error Concealment Algorithm for H.264 Using Motion Strength of Neighboring Area

Transmission of compressed video over error prone channels may result in packet losses or errors, which can significantly degrade the image quality. Error concealment is an effective approach to reduce the influence. In this paper, a new temporal error concealment algorithm for the H.264 is presented, which efficiently utilize the motion vectors of top/bottom macro blocks adjacent to the lost macro block. Firstly, the motion strength of neighboring area (MSNA) is estimated by calculating a ratio involving the motion vectors of adjacent macro blocks. Then the motion vector recovery algorithm using either minimum variance of boundary motion vectors method or polynomial interpolation method is employed according to the magnitude of MSNA. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm improves the subjective video quality and obtains a gain of about 0.2dB~2.5dB in PSNR, compared with conventional temporal error concealment algorithms in the condition of equal packet loss rate.
Investigating Perceived Usability and Choice Satisfaction of Alternative Search Engine’s Presentation for Older Adults

Information search and retrieval is a feature used by various software applications, in particular web search engines. When conducting information search and retrieval, a user exhibits perceptual, motoric, and cognitive capabilities. However, these capabilities tend to deteriorate as adults age. As a result, older adults have shown a tendency to exhibit superficial behaviors that ultimately influence their decision-making during search and retrieval. It has been found that decision-making can be influenced by one’s emotional state. Meanwhile, unconscious exposure to certain elements such as visual stimuli can induce one’s emotional state. This article discusses a study that examined the employment of visual stimuli such as colors, shapes, and their combinations on user satisfaction and search performance with older adults while using search engine interface prototypes. Our findings show that the integration of certain stimuli within search engine interfaces potentially improves web search performance and experience for older adults.
Checkpointing and Recovery Mechanism in Grid

Grid is a collection of distributed computing resources that performs tasks in co-ordination to achieve high-end computational capabilities by dividing a given task into sub-tasks. Each sub-task could be large and run for several hours or days on a number of grid nodes. If a sub-task fails to complete even on a single site, all the computations should be performed again. In scalable distributed systems, an individual component failure usually does not result in failure of the entire system. The probability of a single component failure rises rapidly with the increase in number of components in the system. As system grows in size, efficient recovery mechanism is most important for highly parallel mission critical and long running applications of grid environment. This paper addresses a recovery mechanism using checkpoints to recover from grid service failure resulting in task or transaction failure in computational or data grid which will prevent computations to be restarted from scratch. This work helps in preserving two main objectives of grid namely optimal resource utilization and speedy computations, which can be achieved by using resources in a better way for improving performance of the system rather than engaging them in tasks like rollbacks resulting from cascading aborts. This work aims to address checkpointing mechanism to recover from system failure leading to failure of running services and computational tasks or transactions being executed. The saved state using checkpoints can also be used for job migration using job schedulers of grid.
An area-speed efficient method for current mode analog to digital converters

A novel method for converting analog information to digital in current mode is proposed. This configuration is efficient in terms of speed and area consumption. It is designed for a 4-bit conversion in particular, although it can be easily expanded for more number of bits. For a 4-bit approach, the proposed Analog to Digital Conversion Method (ADCM) provides the conversion of each two bits at the same time resulting in a fast conversion. In addition, its specific architecture occupies a small area. The proposed ADCM is suitable for current mode applications.
An Efficient and Accurate Time Series Classification Using Shapelets

—Time series data are sequences of values measured over time. One of the most recent approaches to classification of time series data is to find shapelets within a data set. Time series shapelets are time series subsequences which represent a class. In order to compare two time series sequences using shapelets, existing work uses Euclidean distance measure. But Euclidean distance has following limitation : it requires data to be standardized if scales differ. In this paper, we perform classification of time series data using time series shapelets and used Mahalanobis distance measure. And also we have performed pessimistic pruning on decision tree. The Mahalanobis distance improves the accuracy of algorithm and pessimistic pruning method reduces the time complexity of testing and classification of unseen data. The Mahalanobis distance measure differs from Euclidean distance in that it takes into account the correlations of the data set and is scale-invariant. We show that our algorithm is much more accurate and faster than existing algorithms.
The Saccharomyces cerevisiae Homologues of Endonuclease III from Escherichia coli, Ntg1 and Ntg2, Are Both Required for Efficient Repair of Spontaneous and Induced Oxidative DNA Damage in Yeast

ABSTRACT Endonuclease III from Escherichia coli is the prototype of a ubiquitous DNA repair enzyme essential for the removal of oxidized pyrimidine base damage. The yeast genome project has revealed the presence of two genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae,NTG1 and NTG2, encoding proteins with similarity to endonuclease III. Both contain the highly conserved helix-hairpin-helix motif, whereas only one (Ntg2) harbors the characteristic iron-sulfur cluster of the endonuclease III family. We have characterized these gene functions by mutant and enzyme analysis as well as by gene expression and intracellular localization studies. Targeted gene disruption of NTG1 and NTG2produced mutants with greatly increased spontaneous and hydrogen peroxide-induced mutation frequency relative to the wild type, and the mutation response was further increased in the double mutant. Both enzymes were found to remove thymine glycol and 2,6-diamino-4-hydroxy-5-N-methylformamidopyrimidine (faPy) residues from DNA with high efficiency. However, on UV-irradiated DNA, saturating concentrations of Ntg2 removed only half of the cytosine photoproducts released by Ntg1. Conversely, 5-hydroxycytosine was removed efficiently only by Ntg2. The enzymes appear to have different reaction modes, as judged from much higher affinity of Ntg2 for damaged DNA and more efficient borhydride trapping of Ntg1 to abasic sites in DNA despite limited DNA binding. Northern blot and promoter fusion analysis showed that NTG1 is inducible by cell exposure to DNA-damaging agents, whereas NTG2 is constitutively expressed. Ntg2 appears to be a nuclear enzyme, whereas Ntg1 was sorted both to the nucleus and to the mitochondria. We conclude that functions of both NTG1 and NTG2 are important for removal of oxidative DNA damage in yeast.
Advantages of Using the Natural Element Method (NEM) to Determine the Probable Slip Surface and Its Factor of Safety

One of the most important issues in geotechnical engineering is the slope stability analysis for determining the factor of safety and the probable slip surface. In recent decades, numerical methods have been improved because of the significant computing and memory resources. Through a variety of numerical methods, FEM is the most successful which can be used for advanced geotechnical problems. Despite of that, mesh requirements in these methods have made some difficulties for solution processing in certain problems. Recently, according to this limitation, several new numerical meshless methods such as natural element method (NEM) have been emerged to analyze the problems without meshes. In this paper, the advantages of using the NEM in 2D slope stability analysis in order to determine the probable slip surface and its factor of safety is described. The stress field is produced in plane strain condition by natural element linear elastic analysis and used in conjunction with a conventional limit equilibrium method to analyze the slope stability. In order to justify the preciseness and convergence of the proposed method an example is conducted and the results are compared with FEM and conventional limit equilibrium methods. Results show the robustness of the NEM in slope stability analysis. Keywords—Natural Element Method (NEM), reinforced slope, meshfree.
Track and turnout detection in video-signals using probabilistic spline curves

Track selective localization for rail vehicles is a task that is not yet solved completely as far as autonomous localization methods are concerned. Satellite-based navigation can not fulfill all demands as the signal might not always be available. The localization information might be corrupted as well. So, a fusion with other sensors can be useful to enhance availability. In this paper a monofocal camera based turnout detection is described. It can be used for localization when used together with a digital map. The tracks are represented by spline curves that are adjusted in every frame by a recursive estimation algorithm. The efficiency of the algorithm is shown through experimental results.
GAMMA-RAY AND NEUTRINO FLARES PRODUCED BY PROTONS ACCELERATED ON AN ACCRETION DISC SURFACE IN ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI

ABSTRA C T We discuss the consequences of almost rectilinear acceleration of protons to extremely high energies in a reconnection region on the surface of an accretion disc that surrounds a central black hole in an active galaxy. The protons produce g-rays and neutrinos in interactions with the disc radiation as considered in several previous papers. However, in this model the secondary g-rays can initiate cascades in the magnetic and radiation fields above the disc. We compute the spectra of g-rays and neutrinos emerging from regions close to the disc surface. Depending on the parameters of the reconnection regions, this model predicts the appearance of g-ray and neutrino flares if protons take most of the energy from the reconnection region. In contrast, if leptons take most of the energy, they produce pure g-ray flares. The g-ray spectrum expected in the case of hadronic cascading is compared with the spectrum observed during the flare in 1991 June from 3C 279. The neutrino flares that should accompany these g-ray flares may be detected by future large-scale neutrino telescopes sensitive at ,10 5 TeV.
Use of a novel through-the-needle biopsy forceps in endoscopic ultrasound

Background and aims: Pancreatic cysts are becoming more common. Their differential diagnosis includes benign, premalignant, and malignant lesions. Distinguishing the type of cyst helps in the management decision making. We report on a novel tissue acquisition device for pancreatic cysts. Methods: Data on two patients who underwent endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) – guided fine-needle aspiration with a new micro forceps device are presented. Results: Two patients had large pancreatic cystic lesions in the pancreatic head. Linear EUS was performed, and tissue samples were obtained with the Moray micro forceps through a 19-gauge needle. In both patients, mucinous columnar epithelium lined the cystic walls. One patient underwent surgical resection, and the other elected surveillance. Examination of the surgical specimen from the first patient confirmed the cyst was a side-branch intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (IPMN), gastric type. Conclusions: The Moray micro forceps is a new tool that can be used to help determine the nature of pancreatic cysts and aid in their risk stratification and management.
Acquired Antibody Responses against Plasmodium vivax Infection Vary with Host Genotype for Duffy Antigen Receptor for Chemokines (DARC)

Background Polymorphism of the Duffy Antigen Receptor for Chemokines (DARC) is associated with susceptibility to and the severity of Plasmodium vivax malaria in humans. P. vivax uses DARC to invade erythrocytes. Individuals lacking DARC are ‘resistant’ to P. vivax erythrocytic infection. However, susceptibility to P. vivax in DARC+ individuals is reported to vary between specific DARC genotypes. We hypothesized that the natural acquisition of antibodies to P. vivax blood stages may vary with the host genotype and the level of DARC expression. Furthermore, high parasitemia has been reported to effect the acquisition of immunity against pre-erythrocytic parasites. We investigated the correlation between host DARC genotypes and the frequency and magnitude of antibodies against P. vivax erythrocytic stage antigens. Methodology/Findings We assessed the frequencies and magnitudes of antibody responses against P. vivax and P. falciparum sporozoite and erythrocytic antigens in Colombian donors from malaria-endemic regions. The frequency and level of naturally-acquired antibodies against the P. vivax erythrocytic antigens merozoite surface protein 1 (PvMSP1) and Duffy binding protein (PvDBP) varied with the host DARC genotypes. Donors with one negative allele (FY*B/FY*Bnull and FY*A/FY*Bnull) were more likely to have anti-PvMSP1 and anti-PvDBP antibodies than those with two positive alleles (FY*B/FY*B and FY*A/FY*B). The lower IgG3 and IgG1 components of the total IgG response may account for the decreased responses to P. vivax erythrocytic antigens with FY*A/FY*B and FY*B/FY*B genotypes. No such association was detected with P. falciparum erythrocytic antigens, which does not use DARC for erythrocyte invasion. Conclusion/Significance Individuals with higher DARC expression, which is associated with higher susceptibility to P. vivax infection, exhibited low frequencies and magnitudes of P. vivax blood-stage specific antibody responses. This may indicate that one of the primary mechanisms by which P. vivax evades host immunity is through DARC indirectly down-regulating humoral responses against erythrocytic invasion and development.
‘To Boldly Go Where No Psychologist Has Gone Before”: Effects of Participation in Fandom Activities on Parasocial Relationships

The aim of the current research was to observe the effect that participating in fandom activities had on parasocial relationships. Research suggests that people who participate in fandom activities may feel excluded from society and experience loneliness; this is linked to symptoms of mental illness. It was further suggested that fan people often view fandom as a religion or way of life and that they are capable of forming relationships in their fandoms that mimic traditional social relationships so as to provide the same benefits. The data in this study comprised of twenty-three female participants who formed a targeted sample. They were asked to rate the intensity of their main parasocial relationship before and after they began participating in fandom activities, as well as asking the nature and frequency of which they participated in these behaviours. The data from the first set of questions was analysed using a Pearson’s Correlation, the second section, concerned with qualitative data was analysed using Thematic Analysis. Strengths and limitations of the research were discussed as well as practical applications and possible future research avenues.
Reaction-Diffusion Systems as Complex Networks

The spatially distributed reaction networks are indispensable for the understanding of many important phenomena concerning the development of organisms, coordinated cell behavior, and pattern formation. The purpose of this brief discussion paper is to point out some open problems in the theory of PDE and compartmental ODE models of balanced reaction-diffusion networks.
Clusters of synchronization and bistability in lattices of chaotic neurons

We investigated different regimes of synchronization in large lattices of chaotic spiking-bursting neurons. The lattices exhibit the following features: developed spatio-temporal disorder with no synchronization; spatial clusters of bursting synchronization; homogeneous bursting synchronization; and complete chaotic synchronization. We observed a bistable synchronization phenomenon in a wide region of the control parameter space. The bistability exists for homogeneous bursting synchronization with long-range correlation and spatial clusters of partial synchronization. The bistable regime appears in lattices with a size larger than the space-scale of these clusters.
Hindi POS Tagger Using Naive Stemming : Harnessing Morphological Information Without Extensive Linguistic Knowledge

Part of Speech tagging for Indian Languages in general and Hindi in particular is not a very widely explored territory. There have been many attempts at developing a good POS tagger for Hindi, but the morphological complexity of the language makes it a hard nut to crack. Some of the best taggers available for Indian Languages employ hybrids of machine learning or stochastic methods and linguistic knowledge. Though, the results achieved using such methods are good, there practicability for other inflective Indian Languages is reduced due to their heavy dependence on linguistic knowledge. Even though taggers can achieve very good results if provided good morphological information, the cost of creating these resources renders such methods impractical. In this paper, we present a simple HMM based POS tagger, which employs a naive(longest suffix matching) stemmer as a pre-processor to achieve reasonably good accuracy of 93.12%. This method does not require any linguistic resource apart from a list of possible suffixes for the language. This list can be easily created using existing machine learning techniques. The aim of this method is to demonstrate that even without employing tools like morphological analyzer or resources like a pre-compiled structured lexicon, it is possible to harness the morphological richness of Indian Languages.
Bridging the Digital Divide: Reflections on "Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age"

IN 1998 the American Historical Association began an ambitious project, "Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age," designed to allow groups of historians in different parts of the country to experiment with the use of computer-based technologies to enhance the teaching of undergraduate survey courses. It aimed to enable these historians to reflect upon the implications of the new technologies for the teaching enterprise in general, and for their own teaching in particular. An important feature of the project was the focus on using primary sources in the teaching of survey courses so as to increase engagement and active learning by our students. In furtherance of the project and supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, three groups of historians representing collaborative linkages between two-year and four-year institutions in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Southern California have been organized. Their purpose, following a discussion of the surveys they teach and setting goals, has been to design web-based lessons and materials that can be used in survey courses, and to reflect on what they have learned. These materials will soon be made available on the web for all history teachers to use through the American Historical Association. What follows are my observations about serving as a leader of the Southern California cluster of historians in this project.
Mitigating DDoS using Threshold-based Filtering in Collaboration with Capability Mechanisms

Capability based approaches have been a major area of work since long time. They are robust against address spoofing attacks. However, they are vulnerable to a new type of attack called Denial-of-Capability attack. Also, bandwidth flooding is another serious issue. This article proposed a novel approach for collaboration of capability with a filtering mechanism. Dynamic threshold for traffic monitoring, implemented over underlying basic capability approach is an effective attempt to mitigate these two major vulnerabilities. A detailed framework is discussed in this research work along with estimation of the expected latency. Essential algorithms are provided for implementation of the approach. The approach is an effective key to handle loopholes in capability techniques. Since, no standalone solution exists for DDoS mitigation; this work provides a collaborative defense, thereby, enhancing robustness against them.
In vivo susceptibility of ESBL producing Escherichia coli to ceftriaxone in children with acute pyelonephritis.

INTRODUCTION The choice of empiric therapy of acute pyelonephritis (APN) in children should be based on the knowledge of Escherichia coli (E. coli) as the most common uropathogen and its antibiotic sensitivities considering that nowadays ESBL-producing [ESBL (+)] E. coli is on the rise worldwide. OBJECTIVE To examine in vivo susceptibility of ESBL (+) E. coli to ceftriaxone (CTX), and to evaluate the options for empiric therapy for APN in children. METHODS Retrospective study of CTX empiric therapy of APN in children treated at the University Children's Hospital in Belgrade from January 2005 to December 2009. ESBL phenotypic confirmatory test with ceftazidime, CTX and cefotaxime was performed for all urine isolates by disc diffusion method on Mueller-Hinton agar plates. In vivo sensitivity of CTX documented by clinical response to empiric CTX therapy was compared between two groups of children: group I with ESBL (+) E. coli and group II with ESBL (-) E. coli APN. RESULTS Group I with ESBL (+) APN consisted of 94 patients and group II of 120 patients with ESBL (-) APN, respectively. All patients received CTX as empiric therapy at a mean dose of 66.9 mg during 7.2 +/- 2.6 days of therapy. Clinical effect of CTX was similar in patients with ESBL (+) compared to those with ESBL (-) APN. CONCLUSIONS In vitro resistance of ESBL E. coli to CTX determined by standard methods is not sufficiently predictive for its in vivo sensitivity. Therefore CTX may be used as empiric therapy for acute pyelonephritis in children.
Accurate Evaluation of European and American Options Under the CGMY Process

A finite-difference method for integro-differential equations arising from Le´vy driven asset processes in finance is discussed. The equations are discretized in space by the collocation method and in time by an explicit backward differentiation formula. The discretization is shown to be second-order accurate for a relevant parameter range determining the degree of the singularity in the Le´vy measure. The singularity is dealt with by means of an integration by parts technique. An application of the fast Fourier transform gives the overall amount of work $O(N_t N\log N)$, rendering the method fast.
Effect of EDTA and Na 2 EDTA along with Mussoorie rock phosphate and Tata basic slag on N , P , K , Ca , Mg , Na and Fe uptake by Paddy Field Suruchi

Chelates such as EDTA and DTPA are often used to increase micronutrient solubility, but micronutrients complexed by these chelates are not readily taken up by plants. A field experiment was conducted to assess the effect of the application of EDTA coupled with Tata basic slag and Mussorie Rock Phosphate on Rice . The aim of this study was to identify the interaction of Na,Ca,Mg,Fe,Cu and Zn when the rice was planted on the test soil and to evaluate the effect of EDTA ,Na2EDTA with MRP and TBS of these metals. It was found from the study that by applying increased the organic carbon, organic matter, micronutrient i.e. Fe,Cu and Zn in the soil. Further it was noticed that TBS, MRP increases the N,P and K content in soil. From the results of this experiment, it could be concluded that combined application of MRP and TBS improved micronutrients in rice.