Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Obstacle Detection from Disparity Analysis using an A-contrario Approach

This study focuses on object detection problem considering data acquired by an on-board stereo pai r of cameras. The disparity maps are analyzed in order t o detect events salient relative to a disparity model. This model is minimal in the sense that it describes the absence of any object on the road. It is included in the information of t he observed disparity image (and thus automatically deduced). T hen, the a-contrario modeling allows detecting the regions ‘ amazingly’ coherent with this minimal model. The used a-contra rio model has two-levels, namely pixel and window so that the obj cts are detected as exceptional realizations of cluster s of exceptional significantly high pixel values in the image representing the difference with the disparity mode l image. The ‘exceptional’ feature is quantified via a Numbe r of False Alarms (NFA). We show that such an approach is succ essful both on simulated and actual data.
Mobile Page Scanner

In this study, we develop an Android application for scanning text documents to produce output with decent resolution and clarity. Image alignment and stitching techniques commonly used in panoramic mosaic applications are adapted and combined with other image processing methods to stitchtogether closely captured images of portions of a page. After initial pre-processing, the images are passed into an imagestitching pipeline which extracts and matches the features in the images, performs bundle adjustment and warps the images together. Some post-processing steps used to reduce noticeable seams in joints include exposure-difference compensation and multi-band blending. The application achieved a high level of resolution in the stitched output image. The results were evaluated using OCR analysis to assess the quality of the output compared to a one-time full capture of the entire page and this revealed that the approach is only marginal better than a carefully captured full-image. Keywords—image features, warping, bundle adjustment, ransac, image-stitching
A New Approach for Automatic Chinese Spelling CorrectionChao-Huang ChangE

This article presents a new approach for automatic Chinese spelling error detection and correction. Existing Chinese spelling checking systems have two problems: (1) low precision rate, and (2) lack of correction capability. The proposed Chinese spelling correction method is composed of two mechanisms (1) composite confusing character substitution, and (2) advanced word class bigram language model. The characters in the input sentence are rst substituted by their corresponding composite confusing character sets one by one. A composite confusing set is the collection of similar characters to a Chinese character from multiple views of shape, pronunciation, meaning , and input keystroke sequence. The substitution step produces several sentence hypotheses for the input sentence. Then, an advanced word class bigram language model, such as inter-word character bigram (IWCB) or SA-class bigram can be used for scoring each sentence hypothesis. Finally, the best scored sentence hypothesis is compared with the input sentence to determine the typos and their corrections. Experiments show that the proposed approach is very eeec-tive for dealing with the two mentioned problems.
Prokaryotic whole‐transcriptome analysis: deep sequencing and tiling arrays

Hybridization to microarrays has been the standard for genome‐wide transcriptome analyses of prokaryotes in the past 10 years. Microarrays have several limitations, however, among which are a small dynamic range for detection of transcript levels due to problems with saturation, background noise, spot density and spot quality. Moreover, comparing different experiments requires complex normalization methods (Hinton et al., 2004) and comparing different strains requires designing pangenome arrays based on multiple sequenced genomes, leading to further problems in non‐specific or cross‐hybridization and complicated data analysis (Bayjanov et al., 2009). Most microarrays have a biased genome coverage, as they only contain a limited number of short probes for known or expected genes in sequenced genomes, and they rarely probe intergenic regions. Technological advances in array production and dropping costs have recently led to the design and use of high‐density tiling arrays based on overlapping short oligonucleotides covering both strands of entire genomes (Selinger et al., 2000; Mcgrath et al., 2007; Rasmussen et al., 2009; Toledo‐Arana et al., 2009). Tiling array and other studies have provided a first insight into far more complex transcriptomes than previously envisioned, including an ever‐expanding range of regulatory RNAs (Waters and Storz, 2009). To overcome the remaining limitations of microarrays, a totally new approach to whole‐transcriptome analysis was needed – and a much‐awaited breakthrough in DNA sequencing came to the rescue. Here, we describe the first whole‐transcriptome applications in prokaryotes and discover that a new treasure chest of regulation in prokaryotes is being opened.
Some observations on individual TCP flows behavior in network traffic traces

We propose a modified Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) flow classification method and Round Trip Time (RTT) computation method which is more precise and more dynamic than the traditional fixed timeout method, especially for long, sparse TCP flows and long RTTs. Then we present passive measurement results for TCP RTT and RTT variation in network traffic traces. Analysis shows several interesting behavior patterns in individual flows. We observe TCP flows with regular patterns of RTT distribution. Individual TCP flows may also apparently have self-similar RTT distributions. Most long-active but sparse TCP flows use port 80 with a relatively short RTT. Lastly, we show and discuss plots of TCP flows with very long RTT values.
Progress towards a system for the automatic recognition of pollen using light microscope images

This paper is a progress report on a continuing project aimed at the eventual realization of low-cost, automatic systems for the recognition and counting of both ancient and live pollen. A previous paper has reported on the classification of optical microscope images of pollen grains using Gabor transforms and shape described by moment invariants. This work has since been extended by the introduction of a range of additional texture measures including grey-level cooccurrence matrices (GLCM), laws features and a wavelet decomposition. The additional texture measures have improved the pollen recognition rate of the system. This paper primarily reports on the development and evaluation of image capture and segmentation schemes. Further system developments in progress are briefly reported.
M ay 2 00 3 GRBs versus Quasars : Lyman-α Signatures of Reionization versus Cosmological Infall

Lyman-α absorption is a prominent cosmological tool for probing both galactic halos and the intergalactic medium at high redshift. We consider a variety of sources that can be used as the Lyman-α emitters for this purpose. Among these sources, we argue that quasars are the best probes of the evolution of massive halos, while γ-ray bursts represent the cleanest sources for studying the reionization of the intergalactic medium.
Learning Collaboration in Reactive Agents Ensembles

In this paper we present an empirical study on using reinforcement learning techniques in reactive multi-agent systems where agents have local perception of the environment and limited communication capabilities. Agents have no a priori information about the task to be solved in the environment and no interpreted representation of the sensory input. We investigate a scenario in which agents receive a higher reward if they coordinate to solve the proposed task. We show that using a variant of Q-Learning agents can learn to value collaboration and self-organize to get higher rewards. The results are promising, but better techniques are suggested to solve the problems that arise from state space explosion.
A factorization approach to structure from motion with shape priors

This paper presents an approach for including 3D prior models into a factorization framework for structure from motion. The proposed method computes a closed-form affine fit which mixes the information from the data and the 3D prior on the shape structure. Moreover, it is general in regards to different classes of objects treated: rigid, articulated and deformable. The inclusion of the shape prior may aid the inference of camera motion and 3D structure components whenever the data is degenerate (i.e. nearly planar motion of the projected shape). A final non-linear optimization stage, which includes the shape priors as a quadratic cost, upgrades the affine fit to metric. Results on real and synthetic image sequences, which present predominant degenerate motion, make clear the improvements over the 3D reconstruction.
Focal Length Affects Depicted Shape and Perception of Facial Images

Static photographs are currently the most often employed stimuli in research on social perception. The method of photograph acquisition might affect the depicted subject’s facial appearance and thus also the impression of such stimuli. An important factor influencing the resulting photograph is focal length, as different focal lengths produce various levels of image distortion. Here we tested whether different focal lengths (50, 85, 105 mm) affect depicted shape and perception of female and male faces. We collected three portrait photographs of 45 (22 females, 23 males) participants under standardized conditions and camera setting varying only in the focal length. Subsequently, the three photographs from each individual were shown on screen in a randomized order using a 3-alternative forced-choice paradigm. The images were judged for attractiveness, dominance, and femininity/masculinity by 369 raters (193 females, 176 males). Facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) was measured from each photograph and overall facial shape was analysed employing geometric morphometric methods (GMM). Our results showed that photographs taken with 50 mm focal length were rated as significantly less feminine/masculine, attractive, and dominant compared to the images taken with longer focal lengths. Further, shorter focal lengths produced faces with smaller fWHR. Subsequent GMM revealed focal length significantly affected overall facial shape of the photographed subjects. Thus methodology of photograph acquisition, focal length in this case, can significantly affect results of studies using photographic stimuli perhaps due to different levels of perspective distortion that influence shapes and proportions of morphological traits.
A Neurophysiological Perspective on a Preventive Treatment against Schizophrenia Using Transcranial Electric Stimulation of the Corticothalamic Pathway

Schizophrenia patients are waiting for a treatment free of detrimental effects. Psychotic disorders are devastating mental illnesses associated with dysfunctional brain networks. Ongoing brain network gamma frequency (30–80 Hz) oscillations, naturally implicated in integrative function, are excessively amplified during hallucinations, in at-risk mental states for psychosis and first-episode psychosis. So, gamma oscillations represent a bioelectrical marker for cerebral network disorders with prognostic and therapeutic potential. They accompany sensorimotor and cognitive deficits already present in prodromal schizophrenia. Abnormally amplified gamma oscillations are reproduced in the corticothalamic systems of healthy humans and rodents after a single systemic administration, at a psychotomimetic dose, of the glutamate N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor antagonist ketamine. These translational ketamine models of prodromal schizophrenia are thus promising to work out a preventive noninvasive treatment against first-episode psychosis and chronic schizophrenia. In the present essay, transcranial electric stimulation (TES) is considered an appropriate preventive therapeutic modality because it can influence cognitive performance and neural oscillations. Here, I highlight clinical and experimental findings showing that, together, the corticothalamic pathway, the thalamus, and the glutamatergic synaptic transmission form an etiopathophysiological backbone for schizophrenia and represent a potential therapeutic target for preventive TES of dysfunctional brain networks in at-risk mental state patients against psychotic disorders.
Software Ingredients: Detection of Third-Party Component Reuse in Java Software Release

A software product is often dependent on a large number of third-party components.To assess potential risks, such as security vulnerabilities and license violations, a list of components and their versions in a product is important for release engineers and security analysts.Since such a list is not always available, a code comparison technique named Software Bertillonage has been proposed to test whether a product likely includes a copy of a particular component or not.Although the technique can extract candidates of reused components, a user still has to manually identify the original components among the candidates.In this paper, we propose a method to automatically select the most likely origin of components reused in a product, based on an assumption that a product tends to include an entire copy of a component rather than a partial copy.More concretely, given a Java product and a repository of jar files of existing components, our method selects jar files that can provide Java classes to the product in a greedy manner.To compare the method with the existing technique, we have conducted an evaluation using randomly created jar files including up to 1,000 components.The Software Bertillonage technique reports many candidates; the precision and recall are 0.357 and 0.993, respectively.Our method reports a list of original components whose precision and recall are 0.998 and 0.997.
A relative-change-based hierarchical taxonomy for cantilever-snap assembly verification

Snap assembly automation remains a challenging task. While progress is being made in localization of parts, force controllers, and control strategies, little work has been done to help the robot reason about its current state, such that if necessary, the robot can assume corrective actions to accomplish the task. Error prone situations caused by the unexpected motion of parts, localization errors, jamming or wedging, cannot be solved by force controllers alone. For this reason we propose a snap assemblies verification system for cantilever-snap fasteners. The verification works in concert with a control strategy that makes use of constraint designs embedded in the snap parts' physical design. The constrained assembly motion generates similar sensory-signal patterns across trials that facilitates force signal discrimination into higher level abstractions of intuitive behavior. This work's contribution is the design of a hierarchical taxonomy for cantilever-snap verification based on increasingly abstract layers that encode relative-change in the task's force signatures. A five-layered taxonomy is built on the concept that relative-change patterns can be classified through a small category set and aided by contextual information. The verification system yielded human apropos intuitive categorizations of task behavior for every state and effectively determined the assembly result. This simple yet effective approach will be expanded to perform probabilistic online system verification to aid in fault tolerance and the automation of cantilever-based snap assemblies.
Localization and topography of antigenic domains within the heavy chain of smooth muscle myosin

We have produced and characterized monoclonal antibodies that label antigenic determinants distributed among three distinct, nonoverlapping peptide domains of the 200-kD heavy chain of avian smooth muscle myosin. Mice were immunized with a partially phosphorylated chymotryptic digest of adult turkey gizzard myosin. Hybridoma antibody specificities were determined by solid-phase indirect radioimmunoassay and immunoreplica techniques. Electron microscopy of rotary-shadowed samples was used to directly visualize the topography of individual [antibody.antigen] complexes. Antibody TGM-1 bound to a 50-kD peptide of subfragment-1 (S-1) previously found to be associated with actin binding and was localized by immunoelectron microscopy to the distal aspect of the myosin head. However, there was no antibody-dependent inhibition of the actin-activated heavy meromyosin ATPase, nor was antibody TGM-1 binding to actin-S-1 complexes inhibited. Antibody TGM-2 detected an epitope of the subfragment-2 (S-2) domain of heavy meromyosin but not the S-2 domain of intact myosin or rod, consistent with recognition of a site exposed by chymotryptic cleavage of the S- 2:light meromyosin junction. Localization of TGM-2 to the carboxy- terminus of S-2 was substantiated by immunoelectron microscopy. Antibody TGM-3 recognized an epitope found in the light meromyosin portion of myosin. All three antibodies were specific for avian smooth muscle myosin. Of particular interest is that antibody TGM-1, unlike TGM-3, bound poorly to homogenates of 19-d embryonic smooth muscles. This indicates the expression of different myosin heavy chain epitopes during smooth muscle development.
Aberrant Expression of Breast Development-Related MicroRNAs, miR-22, miR-132, and miR-212, in Breast Tumor Tissues

PURPOSE MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a major class of small endogenous RNA molecules that posttranscriptionally regulate the expression of most genes in the human genome. miRNAs are often located in chromosomal fragile sites, which are suscept-ible to amplification or deletion. Chromosomal deletions are frequent events in breast cancer cells. Deletion and loss of heterozygosity at 17p13.3 have been reported in 49% of breast cancers. The aim of the current study was to evaluate potential expression alterations of miR-22, miR-132, and miR-212, which are located on the 17p13.3 locus and are required for mammary gland development. METHODS A matched case-control study was conducted, which included 36 pairs of tumor and matched nontumor surgical specimens from patients diagnosed with breast invasive ductal carcinoma. Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded samples from archival collections at the pathology department of Shariati Hospital were prepared for RNA extraction using the xylene-ethanol method before total RNA was isolated with TRIzol Reagent. Specific primers were designed for cDNA synthesis and miRNA amplification. The expression of miRNAs was then evaluated by real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). RESULTS According to our RT-PCR data, the miR-212/miR-132 family was downregulated in breast cancer (0.328-fold, p<0.001), and this reduced expression was the most prominent in high-grade tumors. In contrast, miR-22 exhibited a significant upregulation in breast tumor samples (2.183-fold, p=0.040). CONCLUSION Consistent with the frequent deletion of the 17p13.3 locus in breast tumor cells, our gene expression data demonstrated a significant downregulation of miR-212 and miR-132 in breast cancer tissues. In contrast, we observed a significant upregulation of miR-22 in breast tumor samples. The latter conflicting result may have been due to the upregulation of miR-22 in stromal/cancer-associated fibroblasts, rather than in the tumor cells.
An Investigation of the Factors Influencing the Adoption of E-Health Services : The Case for Selected Hospitals in Lagos State , Nigeria

According to the World Health Organization [WHO, 2010], Nigeria is estimated to have a total population of 151,212,000 with life expectancy at birth given as 49 for both males and females, healthy life expectancy at birth given as 42, and a maternal mortality ratio of 1100 per 100,000 live births. This is irrespective of the fact that Nigeria already has some of its health institutions working with one or more forms of eHealth services. It therefore becomes imperative to determine the lead causes of these poor statistics and take steps in changing the situation by testing the actual extent to which technology has been adopted and then to the level of acceptance in further studies. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is an information systems theory that models how users come to accept and use a technology. It was first created by Fred Davis in 1989. TAM has proven to be a theoretical model in helping to explain and predict userbehavior towards information technology [Legris et al., 2003]. TAM is considered an influential extension of theory of reasoned action (TRA), according to Ajzen and Fishbein (1980). TAM provides a basis with which one traces how external variables influence belief, attitude, and intention to use. Two cognitive beliefs are posited by TAM: perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. SUMMARY
Significance of Nano- and Microtopography for Cell-Surface Interactions in Orthopaedic Implants

Cell-surface interactions play a crucial role for biomaterial application in orthopaedics. It is evident that not only the chemical composition of solid substances influence cellular adherence, migration, proliferation and differentiation but also the surface topography of a biomaterial. The progressive application of nanostructured surfaces in medicine has gained increasing interest to improve the cytocompatibility and osteointegration of orthopaedic implants. Therefore, the understanding of cell-surface interactions is of major interest for these substances. In this review, we elucidate the principle mechanisms of nano- and microscale cell-surface interactions in vitro for different cell types onto typical orthopaedic biomaterials such as titanium (Ti), cobalt-chrome-molybdenum (CoCrMo) alloys, stainless steel (SS), as well as synthetic polymers (UHMWPE, XLPE, PEEK, PLLA). In addition, effects of nano- and microscaled particles and their significance in orthopaedics were reviewed. The significance for the cytocompatibility of nanobiomaterials is discussed critically.
Strategy of China's Telecommunication Transformation

This paper first suggests a revision on the definition of telecommunication transformation strategies in literature, and then uses it to investigate China’s experiences of telecommunication reform. The authors conclude that a strategy of telecommunication market transformation must be formed based on the economic and political environment, telecommunication development situation, the characteristics of technology advance, and market requirement.
A Resolving of Word Sense Ambiguity Using Two-level Document Ranking Method in Information Retrieval

The resolving of word sense ambiguity is one of important problem in information retrieval. Words can have several meanings or senses, and a use of the word out of context is ambiguous between these senses. Mutual information is a relation measure which represents relation between a word and another word. To disambiguate the lexical ambiguity in the retrieved documents, we re-evaluate relation between terms of retrieved document and terms of query. In this paper, we discuss a resolving of word sense ambiguity of information retrieval that is two-level document ranking method using mutual information. At the first level, we retrieve documents based on an automatically constructed keyword index. At the second-level, we reorder the retrieved documents using mutual information. We show that our method provides a resolving of word sense ambiguity in the retrieved documents. Also, we analyze several formulas and found a formula which to disambiguate the word sense ambiguity in the retrieved documents.