Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Image Color Constancy Using EM and Cached Statistics

Cached statistics are a means of extending the reach of traditional statistical machine learning algorithms into application areas where computational complexity is a limiting factor. Recent work has shown that cached statistics greatly reduce the computational requirements of building a mixture model of a distribution using Expectation-Maximization for a small trade oo in model error. This paper describes a method whereby a mixture model built using cached statistics is used as a means of improving the color normal-ization performance of two standard color constancy algorithms. Color constancy algorithms factor out illumination eeects such that normalized pixel color values become an invariant representation of surface reeectance properties. This can improve the performance of machine vision and image database algorithms which use color as a feature. This processing is also important in digital camera and scanning applications where a preferred rendition of a scene is to be realized independently of the lighting conditions at the time of image capture. The details and experimental evaluation of two modiied color constancy algorithms which utilize a parametric mixture model are described.
Charge-voltage relation of the corona discharge in point-to-plane and coaxial electrode configurations

On the one hand, an empirical quadratic relationship between the charge Qi of the first impulse corona and the associated inception voltage Ui has been recently proposed for a 1m point-plane airgap submitted to impulse voltages. On the other hand, different models have been proposed to evaluate that relation for coaxial geometries also submitted to impulse voltages. The aim of this paper is to compare the two charge-voltage relations and to discuss how the assumptions made for one configuration can be exported to the other electrode geometry.
Problems on q-Analogs in Coding Theory

The interest in q-analogs of codes and designs has been increased in the last few years as a consequence of their new application in error-correction for random network coding. There are many interesting theoretical, algebraic, and combinatorial coding problems concerning these q-analogs which remained unsolved. The first goal of this paper is to make a short summary of the large amount of research which was done in the area mainly in the last few years and to provide most of the relevant references. The second goal of this paper is to present one hundred open questions and problems for future research, whose solution will advance the knowledge in this area. The third goal of this paper is to present and start some directions in solving some of these problems.
Multi-Level Standardization and Business Models for Cognitive Radio: The Case of the Cognitive Pilot Channel

This paper examines the international, inter- organizational collaboration processes for the development of cognitive radio, which will be at the basis of potentially profound changes in the telecommunications value network, as well as its functional architecture, cost and value structure and the eventual value proposition of any services deployed in such a value network. The paper will analyze the transition in telecommunications from linear standardization taking place mainly in the domain of formal Standardization Organizations, to a highly complex and multi-layered process simultaneously involving formal organizations, informal bodies and industrial consortia. Subsequently, the paper discusses the development of a Cognitive Pilot Channel to show how innovation in telecommunications markets is determined by this complex interplay. It also explores how the collaborative process between research, regulation and standardization of a Cognitive Pilot Channel in different standardization platforms (viz. IEEE SCC41 and ETSI TC RRS) might influence the eventual deployment of such a cognitive radio technology and networks and services enabled by it, as well as the business models for it. For doing this, an exploratory business model scorecard analysis is performed on some of the different revenue sharing models coming out of diverging design choices of the CPC.
Targeting Glutathione-S Transferase Enzymes in Musculoskeletal Sarcomas: A Promising Therapeutic Strategy

Recent studies have indicated that targeting glutathione-S-transferase (GST) isoenzymes may be a promising novel strategy to improve the efficacy of conventional chemotherapy in the three most common musculoskeletal tumours: osteosarcoma, Ewing's sarcoma, and rhabdomyosarcoma. By using a panel of 15 drug-sensitive and drug-resistant human osteosarcoma, Ewing's sarcoma, and rhabdomyosarcoma cell lines, the efficay of the GST-targeting agent 6-(7-nitro-2,1,3-benzoxadiazol-4-ylthio)hexanol (NBDHEX) has been assessed and related to GST isoenzymes expression (namely GSTP1, GSTA1, GSTM1, and MGST). NBDHEX showed a relevant in vitro activity on all cell lines, including the drug-resistant ones and those with higher GSTs levels. The in vitro activity of NBDHEX was mostly related to cytostatic effects, with a less evident apoptotic induction. NBDHEX positively interacted with doxorubicin, vincristine, cisplatin but showed antagonistic effects with methotrexate. In vivo studies confirmed the cytostatic efficay of NBDHEX and its positive interaction with vincristine in Ewing's sarcoma cells, and also indicated a positive effect against the metastatisation of osteosarcoma cells. The whole body of evidence found in this study indicated that targeting GSTs in osteosarcoma, Ewing's sarcoma and rhabdomyosarcoma may be an interesting new therapeutic option, which can be considered for patients who are scarcely responsive to conventional regimens.
A Real-Time Approach to Process Control

From the Publisher: A hands-on teaching and reference text for chemical engineers In writing this book the authors' have focused exclusively on the vast majority of chemical engineering students who need a basic understanding of practical process control for their industrial careers. Traditionally process control has been taught using non-intuitive and highly mathematical techniques (Laplace and frequency-domain techniques). Aside from being difficult to master in a one-semester course, the traditional approach is of limited use for more complex process control problems encountered in the chemical processing industries. When designing and analyzing multi-loop control systems today, industry practitioners employ both steady-state and dynamic simulation-based methodologies. These 'real time' methods have now all but replaced the traditional approach. A Real Time Approach to Process Control provides the student with both a theoretical and practical introduction to this increasingly important approach. Assuming no prior knowledge of the subject, this text introduces all of the applied fundamentals of process control from instrumentation to process dynamics, PID loops and tuning, to distillation, multi-loop and plant-wide control. In addition, students come away with a working knowledge of the three most popular dynamic simulation packages. The text carefully balances theory and practice by offering students readings and lecture materials along with hands-on workshops that provide a 'virtual' process on which to experiment and from which to learn modern, real time control strategy development. Features: * The first and only textbook to use a completely real time approach. * Gives students theopportunity to understand and use HYSYS software. * Carefully designed workshops (tutorials) have been included to allow students to practice and apply the theory. * Includes many worked examples and student problems.
Twinstar, the Drosophila homolog of cofilin/ADF, is required for planar cell polarity patterning

Planar cell polarity (PCP) is a level of tissue organization in which cells adopt a uniform orientation within the plane of an epithelium. The process of tissue polarization is likely to be initiated by an extracellular gradient. Thus, determining how cells decode and convert this graded information into subcellular asymmetries is key to determining how cells direct the reorganization of the cytoskeleton to produce uniformly oriented structures. Twinstar (Tsr), the Drosophila homolog of Cofilin/ADF (actin depolymerization factor), is a component of the cytoskeleton that regulates actin dynamics. We show here that various alleles of tsr produce PCP defects in the wing, eye and several other epithelia. In wings mutant for tsr, Frizzled (Fz) and Flamingo (Fmi) proteins do not properly localize to the proximodistal boundaries of cells. The correct asymmetric localization of these proteins instructs the actin cytoskeleton to produce one actin-rich wing hair at the distal-most vertex of each cell. These results argue that actin remodeling is not only required in the manufacture of wing hairs, but also in the PCP read-out that directs where a wing hair will be secreted.
Simulation of Two Dimensions in Unimodal Logics

In this paper, we prove undecidability and the lack of finite model property for a certain class of unimodal logics. To do this, we adapt the technique from [7], where products of transitive modal logics were investigated, for the unimodal case. As a particular corollary, we present an undecidable unimodal fragment of Halpern and Shoham’s Interval Temporal Logic.
Shrinkage methods for one-class classification

Over the last decades, machine learning techniques have been an important asset for detecting nonlinear relations in data. In particular, one-class classification has been very popular in many fields, specifically in applications where the available data refer to a unique class only. In this paper, we propose a sparse approach for one-class classification problems. We define the one-class by the hypersphere enclosing the samples in the Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space, where the center of this hypersphere depends only on a small fraction of the training dataset. The selection of the most relevant samples is achieved through shrinkage methods, namely Least Angle Regression, Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator, and Elastic Net. We modify these selection methods and adapt them for estimating the one-class center in the RKHS. We compare our algorithms to well-known one-class methods, and the experimental analysis are conducted on real datasets.
The role of pubertal timing and temperamental vulnerability in adolescents' internalizing symptoms

Abstract This longitudinal study examined the joint role of pubertal timing and temperament variables (emotional reactivity and self-regulation) in predicting adolescents' internalizing symptoms. The multiethnic sample included 1,025 adolescent girls and boys followed from age 11 to age 15 (M age = 11.03 years at Time 1). In structural equation models, age 11 measures of pubertal timing, emotional reactivity, and self-regulation and their interactions were used to predict adolescents' internalizing behavior concurrently and at age 15. Results indicated that, among girls, early pubertal timing, higher emotional reactivity, and lower self-regulation predicted increased internalizing behavior. In addition, self-regulation moderated the effect of pubertal timing such that effects of earlier timing on subsequent internalizing were seen primarily among girls with relatively poor self-regulation. Among boys, higher levels of emotional reactivity and lower self-regulation predicted increased internalizing, but there were no effects of pubertal timing. After controlling for Time 1 internalizing symptoms, only self-regulation predicted change in internalizing symptoms. Discussion focuses on the possible interplay of temperament and pubertal development in predicting internalizing problems during adolescence.
Scheduling MapReduce Jobs on Unrelated Processors

MapReduce framework is established as the standard approach for parallel processing of massive amounts of data. In this work, we extend the model of MapReduce scheduling on unrelated processors (Moseley et al., SPAA 2011) and deal with the practically important case of jobs with any number of Map and Reduce tasks. We present a polynomial-time (32 + ✏)-approximation algorithm for minimizing the total weighted completion time in this setting. To the best of our knowledge, this is the most general setting of MapReduce scheduling for which an approximation guarantee is known. Moreover, this is the first time that a constant approximation ratio is obtained for minimizing the total weighted completion time on unrelated processors under a nontrivial class of precedence constraints.
Comparison of Oral Acetaminophen Versus Ibuprofen in Premature Infants With Patent Ductus Arteriosus

Background Patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) is a common cause of morbidity. The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of oral Acetaminophen and oral Ibuprofen for the closure of patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) in preterm infants. Objectives This study demonstrated that, there was no significant difference between treatment of PDA with either oral Acetaminophen or oral Ibuprofen in preterm neonates. Patients and Methods This clinical trial, randomized study, enrolled 120 infants, with a gestational age of < 37 weeks, who were admitted in neonatal intensive care unit of Afzalipour hospital, Kerman, Iran, in 2014. PDA was confirmed echocardiographically. The trial was registered in Iranian registry of clinical trials (Reg. No. 25542). Sixty-seven infants received oral Acetaminophen (15mg/kg every six hours for three days) and 62 infants received Ibuprofen (an initial dose of 20 mg/kg, followed by 10 mg/kg at 24 and 48 hours). To evaluate the efficacy of the treatment, a second echocardiography was done after completing the treatment. Results After the first course of the treatment, PDA closed in 55 (82.1 %) patients who received oral Acetaminophen vs. 47 (75.8 %) of those given oral Ibuprofen (P = 0.38). After the second course of treatment, PDA closed in 50 % of oral Acetaminophen group and 73.3% of oral Ibuprofen group (P = 0.21). Conclusions This study demonstrated that, there was no significant difference between treatment of PDA with either oral Acetaminophen or oral Ibuprofen in preterm neonates. Oral Ibuprofen can effectively close PDA but is unfortunately associated with some adverse effects limiting its utility thus we studied an alternative drug with similar efficacy and less adverse effects. This study has recommends Acetaminophen with minimal complications for the treatment of PDA in preterm neonates instead of Ibuprofen.
Diabetes Mellitus and Hypertension State of the Art Lecture

In rats with streptozotocln-induced diabetes an increase in arterial blood pressure was observed as early as the first week after the drug was injected. Blood pressure reached maximal values around the fourth week and remained stable for a long period of follow-up. The responsiveness of these rats to the three major vasopressor hormones, angiotensin II, norepinephrine, and vasopressin, was decreased in the early phase of diabetes and returned to normal in the late phase. Acute treatment at the third, sixth, and twelfth weeks with blockers of these vasopressor hormones resulted in a significant fall in blood pressure at the third week with captopril and at the twelfth week with propranolol plus phentolamine. No significant fall was observed when a specific vasopressin inhibitor was administered. Good control of the blood pressure was obtained when these rats were treated chronically with captopril or prazosin, and partial control was achieved when they were fed a low salt diet. An attenuation in arterial blood pressure levels was observed hi rats with two-kidney, one clip hypertension when diabetes was induced by streptozotocin. Plasma creatinlne levels hi diabetic rats were significantly higher than those in control rats only in the sixth and twelfth weeks. Electron microscopy revealed some minor glomerular lesions only at the twelfth week.
When in Rome …?: Human resource management and the performance of foreign firms operating in India

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to examine the kind of HRM practices being implemented by overseas firms in their Indian subsidiaries and also to analyze the linkage between HRM practices and organizational performance. Design/methodology/approach: The paper utilizes a mixture of both quantitative and qualitative techniques via personal interviews in 76 subsidiaries. Findings: The results show that while the introduction of HRM practices from the foreign parent organization is negatively associated with performance, local adaption of HRM practices is positively related with the performance of foreign firms operating in India. Research limitations/implications: The main limitations include data being collected by only one respondent from each firm, and the relatively small sample size. Practical implications: The key message for practitioners is that HRM systems do improve organizational performance in the Indian subsidiaries of foreign firms, and an emphasis on the localization of HRM practices can further contribute in this regard. Originality/value: This is perhaps the very first investigation of its kind in the Indian context. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Enterprise Knowledge Based Software Requirements Elicitation

One of the ways to capture enterprise knowledge is Enterprise Architecture (EA). EA allows indentifying the majority of software "to-be" requirements for information systems (IS) engineering. However, the transition between enterprise architecture model and IT resource design still lacks a clear approach and tools for implementing it in practice. The paper presents an approach for the enterprise knowledge based software requirements elicitation. The suggested approach is based on the Unified profile for Ministry of Defence Architecture Framework (MODAF) and Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF), System Modeling Language (SysML) requirements model, and a Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules (SBVR) standard as a formal background for elicited software requirements. A real world example is presented to validate the suitability of the approach. http://dx.doi. org/10.5755/j01.itc. 40.3. 626
Controlled human exposure to methyl tertiary butyl ether in gasoline: symptoms, psychophysiologic and neurobehavioral responses of self-reported sensitive persons.

The 1990 Clean Air Act mandated oxygenation of gasoline in regions where carbon monoxide standards were not met. To achieve this standard, methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) was increased to 15% by volume during winter months in many locations. Subsequent to the increase of MTBE in gasoline, commuters reported increases in symptoms such as headache, nausea, and eye, nose, and throat irritation. The present study compared 12 individuals selected based on self-report of symptoms (self-reported sensitives; SRSs) associated with MTBE to 19 controls without self-reported sensitivities. In a double-blind, repeated measures, controlled exposure, subjects were exposed for 15 min to clean air, gasoline, gasoline with 11% MTBE, and gasoline with 15% MTBE. Symptoms, odor ratings, neurobehavioral performance on a task of driving simulation, and psychophysiologic responses (heart and respiration rate, end-tidal CO(2), finger pulse volume, electromyograph, finger temperature) were measured before, during, and immediately after exposure. Relative to controls, SRSs reported significantly more total symptoms when exposed to gasoline with 15% MTBE than when exposed to gasoline with 11% MTBE or to clean air. However, these differences in symptoms were not accompanied by significant differences in neurobehavioral performance or psychophysiologic responses. No significant differences in symptoms or neurobehavioral or psychophysiologic responses were observed when exposure to gasoline with 11% MTBE was compared to clean air or to gasoline. Thus, the present study, although showing increased total symptoms among SRSs when exposed to gasoline with 15% MTBE, did not support a dose-response relationship for MTBE exposure nor the symptom specificity associated with MTBE in epidemiologic studies. ImagesFigure 1Figure 2
Competition Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements

Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) have grown dramatically in number and importance since the early 1990s and they increasingly include chapters and provisions encompassing competition issues. This study provides a taxonomy of the types of competition-related provisions contained in selected RTAs. It distinguishes different types of provisions addressing cooperation and coordination among competition agencies, as well as provisions directly addressing anticompetitive behaviour. It further contains information on dispute settlement, provisions concerning special and differential treatment and competition-specific clauses regarding non-discrimination, transparency, due-process, trade remedies and the exlusion of antidumping. The study also assesses the role and scope of competition provisions and distinguishes two families of agreements: those containing substantive provisions addressing anticompetitive behaviour and those focusing more on co-ordination and co-operation.
Design Framework to Overcome Aging Degradation of the 16 nm VLSI Technology Circuits

Intensive scaling for VLSI circuits is a key factor for gaining outstanding performance. However, this scaling has huge negative impact on the circuit reliability, as it increases the undesired effect of aging degradation on ultradeep submicrometer technologies. Nowadays, Bias Temperature Instability (BTI) aging process has a major negative impact on VLSI circuits reliability. This paper presents a comprehensive framework that assists in designing the fortified VLSI circuits against BTI aging degradation. The framework contains: 1) the novel circuit level techniques that eliminate the effect of BTI (these techniques successfully decrease the power dissipation by 36% and enhance the reliability of VLSI circuits); 2) the evaluation of the reliability of all circuit level techniques used to eliminate BTI aging degradation for 16 nm CMOS technology; and 3) the comparison between the efficiency of all circuit level techniques in terms of power consumption and area.
Using multiple windows to track concept drift

In this paper we present a multiple window incremental learning algorithm that distinguishes between virtual concept drift and real concept drift. The algorithm is unsupervised and uses a novel approach to tracking concept drift that involves the use of competing windows to interpret the data. Unlike previous methods which use a single window to determine the drift in the data, our algorithm uses three windows of different sizes to estimate the change in the data. The advantage of this approach is that it allows the system to progressively adapt and predict the change thus enabling it to deal more effectively with different types of drift. We give a detailed description of the algorithm and present the results obtained from its application to two real world problems: background image processing and sound recognition. We also compare its performance with FLORA, an existing concept drift tracking algorithm.