Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Render synthetic fog into interior and exterior photographs

In this paper, we propose a framework for rendering synthetic fog into interior and exterior photographs. Given a single photograph as input, our approach first obtains an approximation of the illumination and geometry for the underlying scene with a few user assistance, then generates a Transmittance Map (TMap) and a Volumetric Map (VMap) for the input photograph according to a decomposition of reflective radiance and transmittance, finally synthesizes the foggy photograph by combining the input photograph, the Transmittance Map and the Volumetric Map. Our approach employs physically based rendering technique and take into account not only the effect of increasing illumination in shadow areas and desaturation of surface reflection but also glow around the area lights and light shafts for directional lights. Compared with the previous image processing method, our approach can produce more realistic results. In addition, we demonstrate in a user study that synthetic images produced by our approach are confusable with real photographs.
Japanese studies on the so-called geometrical-optical illusions.

The so-called geometrical-optical illusion (geometrisch-optische Tauschung) was one of the most important problems of psychology during the second half of the last century. However, only a few of European and American psychologists today are seemingly studying it, while in Japan it has continuously interested psychologists for these three decades. As Boring (1942) said, "the problem of the geometrical illusions is not a special problem of space perception. " They will serve as useful cues to discover the general laws. In the present paper, the important experimental works in Japan which have been done quantitatively through psychophysical methods will be mainly reviewed. ** Theoretical works will be referred to only briefly.
The power-aware cord: energy awareness through ambient information display

In order to support increased consumer awareness regarding energy consumption, we have been developing new ways of representing and interacting with energy in electric products intended for domestic environments. The 'Power-Aware Cord' is a re-design of a common electrical power strip that displays the amount of energy passing through it at any given moment. This is done by dynamic glowing patterns produced by electroluminescent wires molded into the transparent electrical cord. Using this fully functional prototype, we have been investigating how such ambient displays can be used to increase energy awareness. An initial user study indicates that the Power-Aware Cord is a very accessible and intuitive mean for better understanding energy consumption. Future work includes further development of the mapping between load and visual pattern and in-depth studies of user perception and learning over time.
Identifying context factors as a source for teacher professional learning

ABSTRACT Traditionally, teacher professional learning is often seen as something that mainly takes place in organized, formalized settings. This article takes a broader starting point: the idea that it can be understood as the result of the teachers’ confrontations and interactions with and within their professional contexts, and that context can thus serve as a source for learning. To gain a closer understanding of the nature of these contexts, we start with exploring these contexts from a theoretical point of view. We then look for evidence for the role of different contexts in teacher learning autobiographies and learner reports, produced by a diverse group of experienced teachers (n = 18), as part of their course work in a master’s programme. The findings suggest that three contexts can be identified – a perso3nal practice domain, a social domain, and a theoretical domain – and that confrontations in each of these domains can take place planned as well as unplanned. The relevance of the study is that understanding the ways in which context can serve as a source for learning can contribute to the debate on how to stimulate teacher professional learning.
Assessing Stock Market Time Series Predictors Quality through a Pairs Trading System

The interest of both investors and researchers in stock market behaviour forecasting has increased throughout the recent years. Despite the wide number of publications examining this problem, accurately predicting future stock trends and developing business strategies capable of translating good predictions into profits are still great challenges. This is partly due to the nonlinearity and the noise shown by the stock market data source. And partly because benchmarking systems to assess the forecasting quality are not publicly available. Here, we present ANN models for both interday and intraday stock market forecasts. We also propose a trading system as a better way to assess the forecasting quality. The system is tested for Pairs Trading. We examine three pairs, composed by six assets of the top ten most traded companies of BM&FBOVESPA Stock Exchange, the world's third largest and official Brazilian stock exchange. The results are presented and compared to four benchmarks. The difference in the forecasting quality, when considering either the forecasting error metric or the trading system metrics, is remarkable. If we consider just the mean absolute percentage error, the ANN does not show a significant superiority. Nevertheless, when considering the trading system evaluation, it shows really outstanding results. The yields in some cases amount to a return on investment of more than 300%.
Characterizing selective mutism: Is it more than social anxiety?

Selective mutism (SM) occurs when a child persistently lacks speech in some social situations but not in others, despite the ability to use and comprehend language. While considered to be related to anxiety, SM is poorly understood and studies of SM children are often based on parent reports. This study developed a unique, non‐verbally based assessment protocol for SM children in order to better characterize their clinical profile, language abilities, and learning abilities. A comparison was done with a group of children of similar age, with social phobia (SP) but no SM, to search for characteristics that might distinguish SM from other anxiety disorders. Twenty‐three children participated in the study (14 SM and 9 SP). The assessment protocol included standardized anxiety rating scales, cognitive and academic tests, and a speech and language assessment. SM and SP groups showed similar levels of anxiety and academic ability, but the SM group showed some language impairments relative to the SP group. Though requiring replication with a larger sample and nonclinical comparison group, the results suggest that SM children can be assessed by non‐verbal means and that their disorder is characterized by anxiety and subtle language impairments. Depression and Anxiety 18:153–161, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Revisiting Perceptron: Efficient and Label-Optimal Active Learning of Halfspaces

It has been a long-standing problem to efficiently learn a halfspace using as few labels as possible in the presence of noise. In this work, we propose an efficient Perceptron-based algorithm for actively learning homogeneous halfspaces under the uniform distribution over the unit sphere. Under the bounded noise condition~\cite{MN06}, where each label is flipped with probability at most $\eta < \frac 1 2$, our algorithm achieves a near-optimal label complexity of $\tilde{O}\left(\frac{d}{(1-2\eta)^2}\ln\frac{1}{\epsilon}\right)$ in time $\tilde{O}\left(\frac{d^2}{\epsilon(1-2\eta)^3}\right)$. Under the adversarial noise condition~\cite{ABL14, KLS09, KKMS08}, where at most a $\tilde \Omega(\epsilon)$ fraction of labels can be flipped, our algorithm achieves a near-optimal label complexity of $\tilde{O}\left(d\ln\frac{1}{\epsilon}\right)$ in time $\tilde{O}\left(\frac{d^2}{\epsilon}\right)$. Furthermore, we show that our active learning algorithm can be converted to an efficient passive learning algorithm that has near-optimal sample complexities with respect to $\epsilon$ and $d$.
Association between intraoperative cerebral microembolic signals and postoperative neuropsychological deficit: comparison between patients with cardiac valve replacement and patients with coronary artery bypass grafting

OBJECTIVES To examine the association between intraoperative cerebral microembolic signals (MES) and postoperative neuropsychological deficit in patients with valve replacement (VR) and patients with coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). METHODS Neuropsychological examination (10 tests) was performed 1–2 days before and 2 months after surgery (VR (n=26) and CABG (n=14)). The intraoperative number of cerebral MES were monitored from the right middle cerebral artery using transcranial Doppler. RESULTS A higher number of cerebral MES were detected in VR patients with neurological deficit (6/26) compared with those without deficit (20/26) (MES median number 2083 v645, p=0.04). No such difference was found in patients with CABG (2/14v 12/14) (MES median number 50 v 112, p=0.2). CONCLUSION A high number of MES were detected in patients with VR with neuropsychological deficit. In patients with CABG with such a deficit, a low number of MES were detected. This difference in number may be explained by relatively more gaseous emboli in the first and more solid in the second. However, the results in the patients with CABG should be interpreted with caution due to the few patients in this subgroup.
The ATLAS3D project – XI. Dense molecular gas properties of CO-luminous early-type galaxies

Surveying 18 12CO-bright galaxies from the ATLAS3D early-type galaxy sample with the Institut de Radio Astronomie Millimetrique (IRAM) 30-m telescope, we detect 13CO(1-0) and 13CO(2-1) in all 18 galaxies, HCN(1-0) in 12/18 and HCO+(1-0) in 10/18. We find that the line ratios 12CO(1-0)/13CO(1-0) and 12CO(1-0)/HCN(1-0) are clearly correlated with several galaxy properties: total stellar mass, luminosity-weighted mean stellar age, molecular-to-atomic gas ratio, dust temperature and dust morphology. We suggest that these correlations are primarily governed by the optical depth in the 12CO lines; interacting, accreting and/or starbursting early-type galaxies have more optically thin molecular gas while those with settled dust and gas discs host optically thick molecular gas. The ranges of the integrated line intensity ratios generally overlap with those of spirals, although we note some outliers in the 12CO(1-0)/13CO(1-0), 12CO(2-1)/13CO(2-1) and HCN/HCO+(1-0) ratios. In particular, three galaxies are found to have very low 12CO(1-0)/13CO(1-0) and 12CO(2-1)/13CO(2-1) ratios. Such low ratios may signal particularly stable molecular gas which creates stars less efficiently than 'normal' (i.e. below Schmidt-Kennicutt prediction), consistent with the low dust temperatures seen in these galaxies.
Convergence of algorithms for solving the Nearest Point Problem in Reduced Convex Hulls

In this paper we establish a framework for the convergence of two algorithms for solving the Nearest Point Problem in Reduced Convex Hulls (RCH-NPP), namely the RCH-GSK method proposed in [1] and the RCH-MDM method suggested in [2]. This framework allows us to show the asymptotic convergence of both methods in a very simple way. Moreover, it allows to justify a shrinking strategy for RCH-MDM.
Fuzzy emotion recognition in natural speech dialogue

This paper describes the realization of a natural speech dialogue for the robot head MEXI with focus on its emotion recognition. Specific for MEXI is that it can recognize emotions from natural speech and also produce natural speech output with emotional prosody. For recognizing emotions from the prosody of natural speech we use a fuzzy rule based approach. Since MEXI often communicates with well known persons but also with unknown humans, for instance at exhibitions, we realized a speaker-dependent mode as well as a speaker-independent mode in the prosody based emotion recognition. A key point of our approach is that it automatically selects the most significant features from a set of twenty analyzed features based on a training data base of speech samples. This is important according to our results, since the set of significant features differs considerably between the distinguished emotions. With our approach we reached average recognition rates of 84% in speaker-dependent mode and 60% in speaker-independent mode.
Estimation of Minimal Clinically Important Difference in EQ-5D Visual Analog Scale Score After Pulmonary Rehabilitation in Subjects With COPD

BACKGROUND: The effect of pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) on the EuroQol Group's 5-dimension questionnaire (EQ-5D) in COPD has been poorly investigated. In addition, conflicting results were reported about the visual analog scale component of EQ-5D (EQ-VAS). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the responsiveness of EQ-VAS to PR and its relationship with clinical and functional parameters in subjects with COPD, as well as to define the minimal clinically important difference (MCID) estimate for the EQ-VAS after PR. METHODS: A total of 468 in-patients with stable moderate-to-severe COPD, allocated to a 3-wk PR program, were retrospectively evaluated. EQ-VAS was assessed before and after PR, and its relationship with baseline pulmonary function, changes in 6-min walk test, and baseline, and transitional dyspnea index (BDI/TDI) after PR were evaluated. Using an anchor-based approach and receiver operating characteristic curves, the EQ-VAS change cutoff that identified subjects achieving the known MCID for TDI after PR was identified. RESULTS: Four hundred and thirty-nine subjects (94%, mean FEV1 55.3% predicted) completed pre- and post-PR EQ-VAS scores. After PR, EQ-VAS increased from 58 ± 17 to 72 ± 15 (ΔEQ-VAS 14 ± 12, P < .001). ΔEQ-VAS was negatively related to baseline FEV1 (r = −0.32, P < .001) and positively to TDI (r = 0.50, P < .001) and 6-min walk distance (r = 0.46, P < .001) changes. Receiver operating characteristic curves identified an EQ-VAS change cutoff of 8 as the best discriminating value to identify the MCID for TDI (0.78 sensitivity and 0.81 specificity; area under curve: 0.845, P < .001). CONCLUSIONS: Our study shows that, in in-patients with stable moderate-to-severe COPD, EQ-VAS is a valid and reliable tool to assess the responsiveness to PR, with an estimated MCID of 8 points. The EQ-VAS can be a practical alternative to more time-consuming measures of health-related quality of life.
Czechoslovak Mathematical Journal Shift-automorphism Methods for Inherently Nonfinitely Based Varieties of Algebras Shift-automorphism Methods for Inherently Nonflnltely Based Varieties of Algebras

Institute of Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic provides access to digitized documents strictly for personal use. Each copy of any part of this document must contain these Terms of use. This paper has been digitized, optimized for electronic delivery and stamped with digital signature within the project DML-CZ: The Czech Digital Mathematics Library
Draft : do not circulate Technological Interventions in Everyday Interaction ( draft )

The works in Act/React create an impression of sociability through interactivity. In our encounters with other people, we take for granted the premise that social interaction involves autonomous beings who are aware of each other. Yet when the other is a machine, this autonomy and awareness exist primarily in the mind of the human: the sociability is subjective and the transparency or opaqueness of this illusion is a central element in the machine’s design. This essay concerns the nature of this form of sociability in relation to art, public space, and technology.
Tomato Yield Heterosis Is Triggered by a Dosage Sensitivity of the Florigen Pathway That Fine-Tunes Shoot Architecture

The superiority of hybrids has long been exploited in agriculture, and although many models explaining “heterosis” have been put forth, direct empirical support is limited. Particularly elusive have been cases of heterozygosity for single gene mutations causing heterosis under a genetic model known as overdominance. In tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), plants carrying mutations in SINGLE FLOWER TRUSS (SFT) encoding the flowering hormone florigen are severely delayed in flowering, become extremely large, and produce few flowers and fruits, but when heterozygous, yields are dramatically increased. Curiously, this overdominance is evident only in the background of “determinate” plants, in which the continuous production of side shoots and inflorescences gradually halts due to a defect in the flowering repressor SELF PRUNING (SP). How sp facilitates sft overdominance is unclear, but is thought to relate to the opposing functions these genes have on flowering time and shoot architecture. We show that sft mutant heterozygosity (sft/+) causes weak semi-dominant delays in flowering of both primary and side shoots. Using transcriptome sequencing of shoot meristems, we demonstrate that this delay begins before seedling meristems become reproductive, followed by delays in subsequent side shoot meristems that, in turn, postpone the arrest of shoot and inflorescence production. Reducing SFT levels in sp plants by artificial microRNAs recapitulates the dose-dependent modification of shoot and inflorescence production of sft/+ heterozygotes, confirming that fine-tuning levels of functional SFT transcripts provides a foundation for higher yields. Finally, we show that although flowering delays by florigen mutant heterozygosity are conserved in Arabidopsis, increased yield is not, likely because cyclical flowering is absent. We suggest sft heterozygosity triggers a yield improvement by optimizing plant architecture via its dosage response in the florigen pathway. Exploiting dosage sensitivity of florigen and its family members therefore provides a path to enhance productivity in other crops, but species-specific tuning will be required.
March 1 , 2010 DRAFT Learning Structured Classifiers with Dual Coordinate Descent

We present a unified framework for online learning of structured classifiers. This framework handles a wide family of convex loss functions that includes as particular cases CRFs, structured SVMs, and the structured perceptron. We introduce a new aggressive online algorithm that optimizes any loss in this family; for the structured hinge loss, this algorithm reduces to 1-best MIRA; in general, it can be regarded as a dual coordinate ascent algorithm. No learning rate parameter is required. Our experiments show that the technique is faster to converge to an accurate model than stochastic gradient descent, on two NLP problems, at least when inference is exact.
The complete mitochondrial genome and phylogenetic analysis of Chasmagnathus convexus (Crustacea: Grapsidae)

Abstract The complete mitochondrial genome of the Chasmagnathus convexus has been determined in this study. The complete genome (mtDNA) was 15,107 bp in length and contained 13 protein-coding genes, 1 rRNA genes, and 22 tRNA genes. The overall base composition of the genome in descending order was 34.2% T, 32.8% A, 20.9% C, and 12.1% G. In 13 protein-coding genes, most of the protein-coding genes start with ATG (COX1, COX2, COX3 and ATP8) and ATT (NAD5, NAD4, NAD4L, NAD6, ATP6 and NAD2), only CYTB, NAD3, and NAD1 genes start with ATA. For the stop codon, only NAD2 end with TAG, the other 12 genes end with TAA. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that C. convexus is closely related to Hemigrapsus penicillatus family. It would be a supplement for the genetic analysis of C. convexus and promote the phylogenesis of Grapsidae.
Constrained diameter Steiner trees for multicast conferences in overlay networks

We consider a variation of a constrained Steiner minimal tree problem that is applicable for multicast conferencing. We assume a network having a cost and delay values associated with each edge. Then, we find an optimal shared tree with minimal cost subject to the constraint that the delay between any two nodes of the tree must be bounded by some maximal value. Such a constraint on the delay is appropriate for an application such as a multicast conference that uses a shared tree. We consider a new heuristic algorithm for solving this problem. Our approach is inspired by Lagrangian relaxation techniques. We first develop a novel distance metric on trees, termed delta diameter. Using this metric, our algorithm then uses a Prim-like labeling algorithm coupled with the Takahashi Matsuyama Steiner tree algorithm. Simulation results show how cost and delay can be traded off smoothly. Using simulation, we also compare our heuristic with the optimal achievable. We believe that our approach is practical for dynamically building shared trees to support applications such as real-time video conferencing with delay constraints.
Body shape variation in cichlid fishes of the Amphilophus citrinellus species complex.

Cichlid fishes are known for their adaptive radiations with prolific speciation, but also for their substantial intraspecific polymorphism and phenotypic plasticity. The Amphilophus citrinellus species complex from lakes of Nicaragua has been studied extensively as an example of trophic and colour polymorphism and possible sympatric speciation. We use the methods of geometric morphometrics to investigate variation in body shape in this species complex. There is significant shape variation between the widespread A. citrinellus and the more locally distributed A. labiatus and A. zaliosus, which shows patterns that are consistent with the taxonomic descriptions of those taxa. Contrary to the expectations from models of adaptive character divergence, the shape differences between species in analyses restricted to populations occurring syntopically are smaller than the corresponding differences computed from samples pooled over all locations. Within A. citrinellus, there is considerable variation among lakes as well as between the alternative colour and trophic morphs, suggesting local differentiation based on genetic and ecophenotypic mechanisms. © 2003 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2003, 80, 397–408.
Cartel Pricing Dynamics in the Presence of an Antitrust Authority

Price-fixing is characterized when firms are concerned about creating suspicions that a cartel has formed. Antitrust laws have a complex effect on pricing as they interact with the conditions determining the internal stability of the cartel. Dynamics are driven by two forces - the sensitivity of detection to price movements causes a cartel to gradually raise price while the sensitivity of penalties to the price level induces the cartel to lower price over time in order to maintain the stability of the cartel. While antitrust laws can lower collusive prices, they can also raise them by making it easier for firms to collude.
Implementing Interdisciplinary Curricula: Some Philosophical and Practical Remarks

This paper looks in detail at the educational side of interdisciplinarity and recounts the philosophy and some practicalities of the implementation of University College London’s successful Bachelor of Arts and Sciences (BASc) degree. In particular, we consider ‘framing’ and ‘the ladder of abstraction’ as notions that are useful in the philosophy of education. It is hoped that some of the ideas, challenges and successes described here will be helpful to others wishing to implement interdisciplinary curricula in their own institutions.