Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stochastic gradient approximation: An efficient method to optimize many-body wave functions

A novel, efficient optimization method for physical problems is presented. The method utilizes the noise inherent in stochastic functions. As an application, an algorithm for the variational optimization of quantum many-body wave functions is derived. The numerical results indicate superior performance when compared to traditional techniques. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}
3D user-perspective, voxel-based estimation of visual focus of attention in dynamic meeting scenarios

In this paper we present a new framework for the online estimation of people's visual focus of attention from their head poses in dynamic meeting scenarios. We describe a voxel based approach to reconstruct the scene composition from an observer's perspective, in order to integrate occlusion handling and visibility verification. The observer's perspective is thereby simulated with live head pose tracking over four far-field views from the room's upper corners. We integrate motion and speech activity as further scene observations in a Bayesian Surprise framework to model prior attractors of attention within the situation's context. As evaluations on a dedicated dataset with 10 meeting videos show, this allows us to predict a meeting participant's focus of attention correctly in up to 72.2% of all frames.
Difunctional Graphene–Fe3O4 Hybrid Nanosheet/Polydimethylsiloxane Nanocomposites with High Positive Piezoresistive and Superparamagnetism Properties as Flexible Touch Sensors

Functional materials with excellent electrical and magnetic properties have a potential application in most high‐tech fields. Here, superparamagnetic graphene–Fe3O4 (G–F) nanosheet hybrids are prepared by a facile one‐step hydrothermal process, which will beneficial to well combine with various polymer matrix to get binary functional composites. Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) nanocomposites filled with G–F nanosheets are prepared by a three rolling method. The microstructures of G–F nanosheets as well as the electrical, piezoresistive, and magnetic properties of the G–F/PDMS nanocomposites are investigated. Slightly above the percolation threshold ( fc = 3.4 wt%), the G–F/PDMS nanocomposites with 3.65 wt% of G–F nanosheets show a high conductivity, which is about 10 orders of magnitudes higher than that of pure PDMS, showing an obvious insulator–semiconductor transition. Moreover, the resistance of the nanocomposites with G–F filler near the percolation threshold exponentially increases with the uniaxial pressure. The normalized resistance (R/R0) can reach up to 870 at 0.88 MPa with 3.65 wt% G–F nanosheets loading. The G–F/PDMS nanocomposites also show superparamagnetism with saturation magnetization values of 0.21 emu g−1. These results suggest that the G–F/PDMS nanocomposites in this work provide a new route to fabricate difunctional polymer‐based nanocomposites with a potential application as flexible touch sensors.
Ethanol-Induced Changes in Insulin-Like Growth Factors and IGF Gene Expression in the Fetal Brain

Abstract Brain growth retardation is a major feature of the fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Insulin-like growth factors (IGF-I and IGF-II) have been shown to exert significant metabolic and growth-promoting effects. Previously, we showed that circulating levels of IGF-I as well as hepatic gene expression of both IGFs were decreased in newborn offspring of rats fed ethanol during pregnancy. This study investigated the effects of maternal ethanol ingestion on fetal rat brain growth and on levels of IGF-I and IGF-II, as well as their mRNAs, in fetal brain. IGF-binding protein (IGFBP) levels also were determined. Rats were fed 5% w/v ethanol in a liquid diet during gestation (EF group). Weight-matched animals were pair-fed equicaloric control diet (PF group) or were fed ad libitum (AF group). The mean fetal brain weight of EF offspring was 13% and 16% lower (P < 0.01) than that of PF and AF offspring, respectively. Body weight of EF pups was decreased to a greater extent, resulting in higher brain to body weight ratios in EF pups than in either control group (P < 0.05). IGF-I levels in EF pups decreased by 33% and 41% compared with the corresponding PF and AF values (P < 0.01). IGF-l mRNA levels decreased by 27% and 40% compared with PF and AF values, respectively. A positive correlation was observed between brain IGF-I level and brain weight (r = 0.561, P < 0.01). IGF-II levels were not affected despite a 50% decrease in IGF-II expression. In PF animals, the fetal brain IGF-I and IGF-II mRNA levels were reduced by 28% and 21%, apparently in response to undernutrition. IGF-binding proteins levels were low in the EF group but not statistically significant compared with control values. The diminished fetal brain concentration of IGF-I and decreased gene expression of IGFs may play a role in brain growth retardation associated with FAS.
A fast dense stereo matching algorithm with an application to 3D occupancy mapping using quadrocopters

We propose a fast algorithm for computing stereo correspondences and correcting the mismatches. The correspondences are computed using stereo block matching and refined with a depth-aware method. We compute 16 disparities at the same time using SSE instructions. We evaluated our method on the Middlebury benchmark and obtained promosing results for practical realtime applications. The use of SSE instructions allows us to reduce the time needed to process the Tsukuba stereo pair to 8 milliseconds (125 fps) on a Core i5 CPU with 2×3.3 GHz. Our disparity refinement method has corrected 40% of the wrong matches with an additional computational time of 5.2% (0.41ms). The algorithm has been used to build 3D occupancy grid maps from stereo images. We used the datasets provided by the EuRoC Robotic Challenge. The reconstruction was accurate enough to perform realtime safe navigation.
A novel mutation in GRK1 causes Oguchi disease in a consanguineous Pakistani family

Purpose The purpose of this study was to identify the underlying molecular genetic defect in a large consanguineous Pakistani family with Oguchi disease who had been given a diagnosis of autosomal recessive retinitis pigmentosa. Methods The family was genotyped with the Affymetrix 10K single nucleotide polymorphism array. Fine-mapping of a common homozygous region on chromosome 13q was performed using fluorescent microsatellite markers. Mutation analysis was done by direct sequencing of the candidate gene GRK1 located in the region. The segregation of a novel mutation in the family and the frequency of the identified mutation in the Pakistani population were determined by StuI RFLP analysis. Results Genetic mapping supported the diagnosis of typical Oguchi disease in a Pakistani family and also resulted in the identification of a novel nonsense mutation (c.614C>A; p.S205X) in exon 1 of GRK1. This mutation is predicted to result in premature termination of the protein product, thereby affecting the phototransduction cascade. A clinical reappraisal of the family revealed that all patients homozygous for this variant had Oguchi disease. Conclusions This is the first report to describe a mutation causing typical Oguchi disease in a large consanguineous Pakistani family. This mutation segregated in eight affected members.
Enabling Efficient Preemption for SIMT Architectures with Lightweight Context Switching

Context switching is a key technique enabling preemption and time-multiplexing for CPUs. However, for single-instruction multiple-thread (SIMT) processors such as high-end graphics processing units (GPUs), it is challenging to support context switching due to the massive number of threads, which leads to a huge amount of architectural states to be swapped during context switching. The architectural state of SIMT processors includes registers, shared memory, SIMT stacks and barrier states. Recent works present thread-block-level preemption on SIMT processors to avoid context switching overhead. However, because the execution time of a thread block (TB) is highly dependent on the kernel program. The response time of preemption cannot be guaranteed and some TB-level preemption techniques cannot be applied to all kernel functions. In this paper, we propose three complementary ways to reduce and compress the architectural states to achieve lightweight context switching on SIMT processors. Experiments show that our approaches can reduce the register context size by 91.5% on average. Based on lightweight context switching, we enable instruction-level preemption on SIMT processors with compiler and hardware co-design. With our proposed schemes, the preemption latency is reduced by 59.7% on average compared to the naive approach.
Study on Soil Particle Size Distribution by Digital Image Processing

The particle size distribution of soil is very importantto its physical and mechanical property. The ordinary method of the particlesize distribution analysis is based on shaking the soil through a set of sieves.But it will be difficult to use the method while there have particles largerthan the biggest aperture of the size sieves. Then the digital image processingwas used to solve the problem here. The processing technologies, such as imageanalysis and enhancement, deblurring, edge detection were studied to analyzethe image of soil particles. Then the image processing method was used to getthe particle size distribution accurately. Though some promotions need to becarried out in the further study, it is can be found that the image processingmethod is more efficiently than the traditional method.
The Anytime Reliability of the AWGN+erasure channel with Feedback

We study the feedback anytime reliability of a discrete-time channel with additive white Gaussian noise where the channel output is also subject to iid erasure. The encoder has noiseless access to the past channel outputs, which includes perfect information regarding which transmissions were erased. There is an average power constraint on the channel input. We show that the anytime reliability is constant at all rates up to the Shannon capacity of the channel and that this constant is essentially the logarithm of the probability of erasure. In order to show achievability of this reliability, we give a construction involving a hybrid control system consisting of a FIFO queue where the server can adjust its service rate based on the number of bits awaiting transmission. The server takes the data bits and uses them to drive a scalar linear control system with continuous state where the dynamics can switch between fast and slow based on the service rate.
Exfoliation of Hexagonal Boron Nitride by Molten Hydroxides

Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) nanosheets are prepared by a novel and effective method, in which sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide molten salts are used to exfoliate h-BN to obtain nanosheets. BN nanoscrolls are also obtained. The as-prepared products can be readily dispersed in a wide range of solvents, including water and ethanol, and form stable dispersions.
Multi-Constrained QoS Geographic Routing for Heterogeneous Traffic in Sensor Networks

Sensor nodes report the sensed data packets to the sink and depending on the application these packets may have diverse attributes: time-critical (TC) and non time-critical (NTC). In such a heterogeneous traffic environment, designing a data dissemination framework that can achieve both the reliability and delay guarantee while preserving the energy efficiency, namely multi-constraint QoS (MCQoS), is a challenging problem. This paper proposes a new aggregate routing model and a localized algorithm (DARA) that implements the model. DARA is designed for multi-sink multipath location aware network architecture. Delay-differentiated multi-speed packet forwarding and in-node packet scheduling mechanisms are also incorporated with DARA. The simulation results demonstrate that DARA effectively improves the reliability, delay guarantee and energy efficiency.
‘Ye Olde Hot Aire’: reporting on human contributions to climate change in the UK tabloid press

This letter explores daily print media coverage of climate change in four United Kingdom (UK) tabloid newspapers: The Sun (and News of the World), Daily Mail (and Mail on Sunday), the Daily Express (and Sunday Express), and the Mirror (and Sunday Mirror). Through examinations of content in articles over the last seven years (2000–2006), triangulated with semi-structured interviews of journalists and editors, the study finds that UK tabloid coverage significantly diverged from the scientific consensus that humans contribute to climate change. Moreover, there was no consistent increase in the percentage of accurate coverage throughout the period of analysis and across all tabloid newspapers, and these findings are not consistent with recent trends documented in United States and UK ‘prestige press’ or broadsheet newspaper reporting. Findings from interviews indicate that inaccurate reporting may be linked to the lack of specialist journalists in the tabloid press. This study therefore contributes to wider discussions of socio-economic inequality, media and the environment. Looking to newspapers that are consumed by typically working class readership, this article contributes to ongoing investigations related to what media representations mean for ongoing science–policy interactions as well as potentialities for public engagement.
Neuromuscular findings in thyroid dysfunction: a prospective clinical and electrodiagnostic study

OBJECTIVES To evaluate neuromuscular signs and symptoms in patients with newly diagnosed hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism. METHODS A prospective cohort study was performed in adult patients with newly diagnosed thyroid dysfunction. Patients were evaluated clinically with hand held dynamometry and with electrodiagnosis. The clinical features of weakness and sensory signs and the biochemical data were evaluated during treatment. RESULTS In hypothyroid patients 79% had neuromuscular complaints, 38% had clinical weakness (manual muscle strength testing) in one or more muscle groups, 42% had signs of sensorimotor axonal neuropathy, and 29% had carpal tunnel syndrome. Serum creatine kinase did not correlate with weakness. After 1 year of treatment 13% of the patients still had weakness. In hyperthyroid patients 67% had neuromuscular symptoms, 62% had clinical weakness in at least one muscle group that correlated with FT4 concentrations, but not with serum CK. Nineteen per cent of the patients had sensory-motor axonal neuropathy and 0% had carpal tunnel syndrome. The neuromuscular signs developed rapidly, early in the course of the disorder and were severe, but resolved rapidly and completely during treatment (average time 3.6 months). CONCLUSIONS Neuromuscular symptoms and signs were present in most patients. About 40% of the hypothyroid patients and 20% of the hyperthyroid patients had predominantly sensory signs of a sensorimotor axonal neuropathy early in the course of thyroid disease. Weakness in hyperthyroidism evolved rapidly at an early stage of the disorder and resolved completely during treatment, suggesting a functional muscle disorder. Hand held dynamometry is sensitive for the detection of weakness and for the clinical evaluation of treatment effects. Weakness in hypothyroidism is more difficult to treat, suggesting myopathy.
Motor imagery in spinal cord injury with neuropathic pain: a component clustering method

Large number of chronic Spinal Cord Injured (SCI) patients suffer from Central Neuropathic (CNP) pain that modifies both spontaneous EEG and Event related EEG responses. The aim of this paper was to analyze on a group level, using clustering approach, differences in EEG signatures between two Groups: the able-bodied persons and SCI patients with CNP during a motor imagination task. Results of this study showed that compared to the able-bodied, SCI patients with pain have lower ERS/ERD in the central and the centro/parietal areas of the motor cortex, which correspond to the paralyzed part of the body and higher event-related synchronization/desynchronisation (ERS/ERD) in the rest of the cortex, including frontal areas, remaining areas of the sensory-motor cortex and the occipital area. Significant differences in Power Spectral Density (PSD) between two Groups were found in 20-30 Hz range, possibly related to the baseline EEG rather then to the mental task.
Site Fidelity and Individual Variation in Winter Location in Partially Migratory European Shags

In partially migratory populations, individuals from a single breeding area experience a range of environments during the non-breeding season. If individuals show high within- and among- year fidelity to specific locations, any annual environmental effect on individual life histories could be reinforced, causing substantial demographic heterogeneity. Quantifying within- and among- individual variation and repeatability in non-breeding season location is therefore key to predicting broad-scale environmental impacts on the dynamics of partially migratory populations. We used field resightings of colour-ringed adult European shags known to have bred on the Isle of May, Scotland, to quantify individual variation and repeatability in winter location within and among three consecutive winters. In total, 3797 resightings of 882 individuals were recorded over 622 km of coastline, including the Isle of May. These individuals comprised over 50% of the known breeding population, and encompassed representative distributions of ages and sexes. The distances from the Isle of May at which individuals were resighted during winter varied substantially, up to 486 km and 136 km north and south respectively and including the breeding colony on the Isle of May. However, resighting distances were highly repeatable within individuals; within- and among-winter repeatabilities were >0.72 and >0.59 respectively across the full September-March observation period, and >0.95 and >0.79 respectively across more restricted mid-winter periods. Repeatability did not differ significantly between males and females or among different age classes, either within or among winters. These data demonstrate that the focal shag population is partially migratory, and moreover that individuals show highly repeatable variation in winter location and hence migration strategy across consecutive winters. Such high among-individual variation and within-individual repeatability, both within and among winters, could lead to substantial life history variation, and therefore influence population dynamics and future conservation management strategies.
Image enhancement techniques used for THz imaging

Terahertz (THz) radiation has been widely applied in the areas of spectroscopy, sensing and imaging. With the advancement of THz technologies, THz imaging has been progressed significantly and has huge potential applications in medical diagnosis, environmental control, chemical and biological identification. In the past, people mainly focused on overcoming the obstacles in the hardware, such as the limitation of resolution, accuracy and speed in THz imaging system. In this paper, image enhancement techniques are employed to enhance the contrast and get the better profile of THz image. Our results clearly demonstrate that digital image processing techniques can suppress noise effectively, extract target edges robustly, and therefore improve the quality of THz image.181
PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL PROTECTION OF CELL CONSTITUENTS AND THE PRECISE LOCALIZATION OF ENZYMES

1. Physical and chemical protection of cytoplasmic constituents in tissue sections from the time of tissue removal until completion of the histochemical reaction resulted in a more precise intracellular localization of various enzymes. 2. In many instances sites of enzymatic activity were localized on rod-shaped and ovoid bodies resembling mitochondria and lysosomes. 3. Thermal, osmotic and chemical injury of cytoplasmic structures produced extensive intracellular and extracellular diffusion of enzyme and reaction product. 4. Once thermal damage had occurred mitochondrial swelling and enzyme diffusion appeared despite osmotic and chemical protection.
VizWear-Active: distributed Monte Carlo face tracking for wearable active cameras

In this paper we discuss a distributed Monte Carlo (DMC) tracking method which achieves real-time and accurate face tracking for wearable active vision systems. The DMC is an extension of sequential Monte Carlo approaches to a client-server distributed architecture. The client feeds back the results of tracking for use in the control of the wearable active camera with minimal delay, and the server accurately tracks the faces at the same time. In our method, the client is able to complete the tracking processes even when it is unable to communicate with the server Furthermore, more accurate results are obtained when it is able to communicate with the server. We have implemented and demonstrated this method on the VizWear-Active system which includes a wearable active camera.
Colonic Inflammation in Mice Is Improved by Cigarette Smoke through iNKT Cells Recruitment

Cigarette smoke (CS) protects against intestinal inflammation during ulcerative colitis. Immunoregulatory mechanisms sustaining this effect remain unknown. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of CS on experimental colitis and to characterize the intestinal inflammatory response at the cellular and molecular levels. Using the InExpose® System, a smoking device accurately reproducing human smoking habit, we pre-exposed C57BL/6 mice for 2 weeks to CS, and then we induced colitis by administration of dextran sodium sulfate (DSS). This system allowed us to demonstrate that CS exposure improved colonic inflammation (significant decrease in clinical score, body weight loss and weight/length colonic ratio). This improvement was associated with a significant decrease in colonic proinflammatory Th1/Th17 cytokine expression, as compared to unexposed mice (TNF (p = 0.0169), IFNγ (p<0.0001), and IL-17 (p = 0.0008)). Smoke exposure also induced an increased expression of IL-10 mRNA (p = 0.0035) and a marked recruitment of iNKT (invariant Natural Killer T; CD45+ TCRβ+ CD1d tetramer+) cells in the colon of DSS-untreated mice. Demonstration of the role of iNKT cells in CS-dependent colitis improvement was performed using two different strains of NKT cells deficient mice. Indeed, in Jα18KO and CD1dKO animals, CS exposure failed to induce significant regulation of DSS-induced colitis both at the clinical and molecular levels. Thus, our study demonstrates that iNKT cells are pivotal actors in the CS-dependent protection of the colon. These results highlight the role of intestinal iNKT lymphocytes and their responsiveness to environmental stimuli. Targeting iNKT cells would represent a new therapeutic way for inflammatory bowel diseases.