Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison between the cosine and hartley based naturalness preserving transforms for image watermarking and data hiding

A comparison between two image-watermarking schemes is demonstrated in this paper. The proposed watermarking techniques use modified forms of the naturalness preserving transform (NPT) to encode a watermark logo image into a host image. The modified NPT forms employ the Hartley and cosine matrices, respectively, instead of the Hadamard matrix used in the classical Hadamard based NPT. The modified NPT enhances the quality of the transformed image by reducing the artifacts that occur in images transformed via the Hadamard NPT. The proposed watermark has proven robust against variety of image attacks including, image filtering, JPEG compression, cropping, and noise.
Clinical characterization of influenza A and human respiratory syncytial virus among patients with influenza like illness

Influenza A and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) has been recognized as a major cause of acute respiratory tract infection. H1N1 is one of the subtypes of influenza A, pandemic worldwide in July 2009, causing 18,449 deaths globally. To investigate the prevalence and clinical manifestation of the influenza A, H1N1pdm09, and RSV. Throat/nasal swab collected from the patients of all age group either outpatients/inpatients having respiratory illness from 2 to 5 days. The clinical data were recorded in a predesigned questionnaire. RNA was extracted and analyzed by real time PCR at a tertiary care center, 2009–2014. Total 4,352 samples tested for influenza A and H1N1. Out of 4,352, 32.2% (median positivity 21%; range 16–41% during 6 years) were positive for influenza A and 19% were H1N1 (median positivity 16.7%; range 8.7–23% during 6 years). Total 1653 samples were analyzed for RSV from 2011 to 2014, 12% were RSV positive (median positivity 11.35%; range 10–16.3% during 4 years). Pharyngitis, dyspnea were frequent symptoms in influenza A and H1N1 (P < 0.005) whereas bronchiolitis and pneumonia were commonly present in RSV (P < 0.005). The positivity of influenza A and H1N1 was higher in age‐group 21–30, whereas RSV in infant and children. H1N1 and RSV were co‐circulated and have common clinical symptoms particularly in lower age group. Therefore, laboratory confirmation is necessary for further disease prognosis. Age was an important risk factor that affects the positivity of influenza A, H1N1, and RSV. Different clinical manifestation of H1N1 and RSV will be helpful for early and accurate diagnosis. J. Med. Virol. 89:49–54, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Automatic Discovery, Association Estimation and Learning of Semantic Attributes for a Thousand Categories

Attribute-based recognition models, due to their impressive performance and their ability to generalize well on novel categories, have been widely adopted for many computer vision applications. However, usually both the attribute vocabulary and the class-attribute associations have to be provided manually by domain experts or large number of annotators. This is very costly and not necessarily optimal regarding recognition performance, and most importantly, it limits the applicability of attribute-based models to large scale data sets. To tackle this problem, we propose an end-to-end unsupervised attribute learning approach. We utilize online text corpora to automatically discover a salient and discriminative vocabulary that correlates well with the human concept of semantic attributes. Moreover, we propose a deep convolutional model to optimize class-attribute associations with a linguistic prior that accounts for noise and missing data in text. In a thorough evaluation on ImageNet, we demonstrate that our model is able to efficiently discover and learn semantic attributes at a large scale. Furthermore, we demonstrate that our model outperforms the state-of-the-art in zero-shot learning on three data sets: ImageNet, Animals with Attributes and aPascal/aYahoo. Finally, we enable attribute-based learning on ImageNet and will share the attributes and associations for future research.
Differential effects of lycopene consumed in tomato paste and lycopene in the form of a purified extract on target genes of cancer prostatic cells.

BACKGROUND Prospective studies indicate that tomato consumers are protected against prostate cancer. Lycopene has been hypothesized to be responsible for tomato health benefits. OBJECTIVE Our aim was to differentiate the effects of tomato matrix from those of lycopene by using lycopene-rich red tomatoes, lycopene-free yellow tomatoes, and purified lycopene. DESIGN Thirty healthy men (aged 50-70 y old) were randomly assigned to 2 groups after a 2-wk washout period. In a crossover design, each group consumed yellow and red tomato paste (200 g/d, which provided 0 and 16 mg lycopene, respectively) as part of their regular diet for 1 wk separated by 2 wk of washout. Then, in a parallel design, the first group underwent supplementation with purified lycopene (16 mg/d) for 1 wk, whereas the second group received a placebo. Sera collected before and after the interventions were incubated with lymph node cancer prostate cells to measure the expression of 45 target genes. RESULTS Circulating lycopene concentration increased only after consumption of red tomato paste and purified lycopene. Lipid profile, antioxidant status, prostate-specific antigen, and insulin-like growth factor I were not modified by consumption of tomato pastes and lycopene. We observed significant up-regulation of IGFBP-3 and Bax:Bcl-2 ratio and down-regulation of cyclin-D1, p53, and Nrf-2 after cell incubation with sera from men who consumed red tomato paste when compared with sera collected after the first washout period, with intermediate values for yellow tomato paste consumption. Cell incubation with sera from men who consumed purified lycopene led to significant up-regulation of IGFBP-3, c-fos, and uPAR compared with sera collected after placebo consumption. CONCLUSION Dietary lycopene can affect gene expression whether or not it is included in its food matrix. This trial was registered by the French Health Ministry at http://www.sante-sports.gouv. fr as 2006-A00396-45.
Symmetrical EEG-FMRI imaging by sparse regularization

This work considers the problem of brain imaging using simultaneously recorded electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). To this end, we introduce a linear coupling model that links the electrical EEG signal to the hemodynamic response from the blood-oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal. Both modalities are then symmetrically integrated, to achieve a high resolution in time and space while allowing some robustness against potential decoupling of the BOLD effect. The novelty of the approach consists in expressing the joint imaging problem as a linear inverse problem, which is addressed using sparse regularization. We consider several sparsity-enforcing penalties, which naturally reflect the fact that only few areas of the brain are activated at a certain time, and allow for a fast optimization through proximal algorithms. The significance of the method and the effectiveness of the algorithms are demonstrated through numerical investigations on a spherical head model.
An Efficient TDTR Algorithm for Mining Frequent Itemsets

Research on mining frequent itemsets is one of the em rging task in data mining . The purchasing of one product when another product is purchased represents an ass oci tion rule. Association rules are useful for ana lyzing the customer behavior. It takes an important part in shopping ba sket data analysis, clustering. The FP-Growth algor ithm is the basic algorithm for mining association rules. This paper resents an efficient algorithm for mining frequent itemsets using Two Dimensional Transactions Reduction(TDTR) approach which reduces the original database(D) transactio ns to the reduced data base transactions D 1 based on the min_sup count. Then for each item it finds the number of transactions that the item present and hence find the largest frequ ent itemset using the two dimensional approach. Us ing the largest item set property ,it finds the subset of frequent item sets. Thus TDTR approach reduces the number of sc ans in the database and hence improve the efficiency & accuracy by find ing the number of association rules and reduces tim e to find the rules.
Distance learning model with local workshop sessions applied to in-service teacher training

This paper presents the development, implementation and evaluation of a novel distance learning model integrated with local workshop sessions. The model was developed for a large-scale in-service teacher training, and applied to introduce a new computer science curriculum and its didactic approach. The model evaluation showed a significant success, both in terms of participants' attitudes, and the assimilation of the subject matter and its didactic approach.
Monotonic References for Gradual Typing

Gradual typing enables both static and dynamic typing in the same program, and makes it convenient to migrate code between the two typing disciplines. We have had a satisfactory static semantics for gradual typing for some time but the dynamic semantics has proved much more difficult, raising numerous research challenges. Ongoing efforts to integrate gradual typing into existing functional and object-oriented languages revealed problems regarding space efficiency, run-time overhead, and object identity. While the first problem has been solved, the later two problems remain open. The essence of these problems is best studied in the context of the gradually-typed lambda calculus with mutable references. In this paper we present a new dynamic semantics called monotonic references, which does not require proxies, thereby solving the object identity problem, and is the first to completely eliminate run-time overhead in statically typed code while maintaining the flexibility of gradual typing. With our design, casting a reference may cause a heap cell to become less dynamically typed (but not more). However, retaining type safety is challenging in a semantics such as this that allows strong updates to the heap. Nevertheless, we present a mechanized proof that monotonic references are type safe. We also present a blame tracking strategy for monotonic references and prove the blame theorem.
fMRI Localization of Spinal Cord Processing Underlying Female Sexual Arousal

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the authors aimed to determine the roles of the human spinal cord in mediating sexual responses in women. Functional magnetic resonance imaging of the entire lower thoracic, lumbar, and sacral spinal cord was performed using a sexual stimulation paradigm designed to elicit psychological and physical components of sexual arousal. Responses were measured in 9 healthy adult women during 3 consecutive conditions: (a) erotic audiovisual, (b) manual clitoral, and (c) audiovisual plus manual stimulation. Functional magnetic resonance imaging results in healthy subjects demonstrate that this method is sensitive for mapping sexual function in the spinal cord, and identify several key regions involved in human sexual response, including the intermediolateral cell column, the dorsal commissural nucleus, and the sacral parasympathetic nucleus. Using spinal functional magnetic resonance imaging, this study identified many of the spinal cord regions involved in female sexual responses. Results from audiovisual and manual clitoral stimulation correspond with previous data regarding lumbar and sacral neurologic changes during sexual arousal. This study provides the first characterization of neural activity in the human spinal cord underlying healthy female sexual responses and sets a foundation for future studies aimed at mapping changes that result from sexual dysfunction, spinal cord trauma or disease.
Foxd3 suppresses NFAT‐mediated differentiation to maintain self‐renewal of embryonic stem cells

Pluripotency‐associated transcription factor Foxd3 is required for maintaining pluripotent cells. However, molecular mechanisms underlying its function are largely unknown. Here, we report that Foxd3 suppresses differentiation induced by calcineurin–NFAT signaling to maintain the ESC identity. Mechanistically, Foxd3 interacts with NFAT proteins and recruits co‐repressor Tle4, a member of the Tle repressor family highly expressed in undifferentiated ESCs, to suppress NFATc3's transcriptional activities. Furthermore, global transcriptome analysis shows that Foxd3 and NFATc3 co‐regulate a set of differentiation‐associated genes in ESCs. Collectively, our study establishes a molecular and functional link between a pluripotency‐associated factor and an important ESC differentiation‐inducing pathway.
Intellectual Property on the Internet : What ' s Wrong with Conventional Wisdom ?

by James Bessen and Eric Maskin Revised 2004 Introduction The growth of the Internet has put pressure on traditional intellectual property protections such as copyright and patent. Some forms of information, when made accessible on the Internet, are easily copied. Because the costs of copying are low and because copying is often anonymous, publishers have often responded with more aggressive enforcement of existing intellectual property rights and with calls for extensions of those rights to cover additional content, new media and new forms of access. This effort can actually be seen as part of a twenty-year trend toward tighter intellectual property enforcement and extensions of intellectual property rights. Yet this response and this trend toward tighter intellectual property rights are not always appropriate, especially on the Internet. This paper argues that the Internet and World Wide Web possess characteristics that may make such policy inappropriate—the Web is a "community" that is highly interactive and dynamic. Indeed, much of the software that runs the web is Free/Open Source software. This paper summarizes a formal economic model applied to such an interactive and dynamic environment. The model suggests that both individual publishers and society more generally may benefit from weak intellectual property enforcement and protection in such an environment. As policy-makers address this new environment they should tread carefully. The conventional view that tighter intellectual property protections always improve innovation incentives is based on a limited economic model that often is inappropriate in such highly interactive and dynamic environments. The Traditional Intellectual Property Model The conventional argument for tight intellectual property protection is that it preserves the incentive for authors and inventors to create. The argument goes as follows: Creative activity typically involves substantial development costs. Artists, authors and inventors are not necessarily motivated exclusively or even primarily by the prospect of financial gain. Nevertheless, the potentially high expense of originating, developing and distributing creative works imply that many creators need a financial return to recoup their development costs. This return provides the "innovation incentive. " If a work is copied, the original author/inventor may lose potential sales and profits, and thus an environment that permits copying reduces the innovation incentive. With a smaller prospect of profits, some
SOP 3 : Service Oriented Privacy Preservation Protocol for Mobile Networks

Mobility is a key to personal freedom. Thus, the emergence of privacy has gained considerable importance in mobile networking. Privacy is to be considered as a state of limited access to an entity. Privacy is required in mobile networks for on-demand services in the various forms such as content privacy, identity privacy, location privacy, authentication etc. The main concern about privacy in different services have arisen due to mobile constraints and its wide-spread explorations. We have proposed the service-oriented privacy preservation protocol (SOP3) for different services in mobile networks using encryption-based privacy-preservation techniques and attempt to identify the directions for future research.
SALT TOLERANCE OF RUPPIA MARITIMA IN LAKES OF HIGH MAGNESIUM SULPHATE CONTENT.

The ability of halophytes to develop under conditions which would mean death to most vegetation is well known. Salt marsh plants, growing where sodium chloride is the chief constituent of the soil solution and where salt concentrations usually vary from 1 to 6 per cent. , are the most common halophytes. Much less numerous than the salt marshes are the lakes whose chief constituent is magnesium sulphate, a compound toxic to many plants in any but very dilute concentrations. Although the plants of the two types of lakes are to some extent the same, very little work has been done on those of the magnesium sulphate lakes. In view of the common toxicity of magnesium salts to plants and the scarcity of information concerning the physiological relations of halophytes, it has seemed worth while to investigate the vegetation of certain lakes lying in north central Washington and adjacent British Columbia which are unusual in having a very high proportion of magnesium sulphate in the salt content and in supporting seed plants at salt concentrations as high as 25 or 26 per cent. Studies were made on three lakes lying in the eastern foothills of the Cascade Mountains in the northern part of Okanogan County, Washington, and British Columbia, in one of which Buppia maritima L. grows abundantly, completely submerged in the salty water of the lake. The first of these, known locally as Epsom Lake and designated in this paper as no. 1, lies about 4 miles northwest of the town of Oroville, in northern Washington, about midway between Lake Osoyoos and the Similkameen River. The geology of the region was described by Jenkins (10). St. John and Courtney (35) listed the phanerogams growing in the lake and on the walls of the surrounding basin. They report the banks to be of practically pure salt, in which the plants were apparently rooted. Analyses of salts taken from the surface of the water gave a content of 99.64 per cent, of MgSO4. The lake lies at an elevation of about 2000 feet, with walls of the basin reaching several hundred feet higher. The lake itself, which drains an area of about one square mile, is, when full, approximately four acres in extent and 30 feet deep. There is no outlet and drainage waters remain until evaporated during the dry summer season, when the lake is reduced to a series of small i Contribution no. 39 from the Botany Department of the State College of Washington.
Flexible Workplace Policies: Lessons From the Federal Alternative Work Schedules Act

Abstract: This case study uses a feminist framework to examine the 7-year process by which the Federal Alternative Work Schedules Act (1978 – 1985) became law and the reasons for reenergized implementation in the 1990s. We analyze the legislative discourse for rationale in support of and opposition to this policy, connect findings to current flexible work research, and identify criteria for evaluating the impact of flextime policies with attention to intersections of gender and socioeconomic status. Unexpectedly, traditional views on hierarchical manager-worker relations figured more prominently than gender in the Congressional debates.
A Mechanism for MPLS Broadcast and Its Extension for Multicast Dense-Mode Support in MPLS 1

Due to the increasing multicast applications and high desire for its deployment, it seems that any new technology should support multicast. However; MPLS technology which enhances IP packet forwarding capability by using layer 2 switching still does not offer any special solution for multicast support. The main difficulty in supporting dense-mode multicast protocols like DVMRP and PIM-DM is lack of a broadcast mechanism in MPLS. We propose a genuine broadcast mechanism for MPLS in this paper. First, the proposed mechanism is based on a central broadcast label assigner called BLAC (Broadcast Label Assignment Center). Then, we propose a new dense-mode multicast protocol for MPLS as an extension to our broadcast mechanism. Our method consumes fewer labels compared to the existing proposals supporting dense-mode multicast groups and has smaller forwarding tables.
Anisotropic LMMSE denoising of MRI based on statistical tissue models

Linear Minimum Mean Squared Error Estimation (LMMSE) is a simple, yet powerful denoising technique within MRI. It is based on the computation of the mean and variance of the data being filtered according to a noise model assumed, which is usually accomplished by calculating local moments over squared neighborhoods. When these neighborhoods are centered in pixels corresponding to image contours, the estimation is not accurate due to the presence of two or more tissues with different statistical properties. We overcome this limitation by introducing an anisotropic LMMSE scheme: the gray levels of each tissue in the MRI volume are modeled as a Gamma-mixture, such that we can discriminate between the different matters to construct anisotropic neighborhoods containing only one kind of tissue. The potential of the Gamma distribution relies on its ability to fit both the Rician distribution traditionally used to model the noise in MRI and the non-central Chi noise found in modern parallel MRI systems.
On generic context lemmas for lambda calculi with sharing

This paper proves several generic variants of context lemmas and thus contributes to improving the tools to develop observational semantics that is based on a reduction semantics for a language. The context lemmas are provided for may- as well as two variants of mustconvergence and a wide class of extended lambda calculi, which satisfy certain abstract conditions. The calculi must have a form of node sharing, e.g. plain beta reduction is not permitted. There are two variants, weakly sharing calculi, where the beta-reduction is only permitted for arguments that are variables, and strongly sharing calculi, which roughly correspond to call-by-need calculi, where beta-reduction is completely replaced by a sharing variant. The calculi must obey three abstract assumptions, which are in general easily recognizable given the syntax and the reduction rules. The generic context lemmas have as instances several context lemmas already proved in the literature for specific lambda calculi with sharing. The scope of the generic context lemmas comprises not only call-by-need calculi, but also call-by-value calculi with a form of built-in sharing. Investigations in other, new variants of extended lambda-calculi with sharing, where the language or the reduction rules and/or strategy varies, will be simplified by our result, since specific context lemmas are immediately derivable from the generic context lemma, provided our abstract conditions are met.