Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vision-Based Robot Positioning by an Exact Distance Between Hi

Most vision-based robot positioning techniques rely on analytical formulations of the relationship between the robot pose and the projected image coordinates of several geometric features of the observed scene. This usually requires that several simple features such as points, lines or circles are visible in the image and be properly extracted. In this paper, we present a method to compare images (scenes that the robot has learned) based on a fast and exact distance between histograms. In contrast to the methods described before, our method is faster and with less storage space do to the images do not need to be segmented and only a lossless description of the histograms are stored in the data base
Gradient Histogram-Based Anisotropic Diffusion

The well-known anisotropic diffusion (a.k.a. PeronaMalik equation, nonlinear diffusion, or diffusion partial differential equation – PDE) is widely used in image segmentation, filtering and edge detection. The behavior of the diffusion depends highly on the appropriate choice of the gradient thresholding scale parameter K. However, it seems that no clear relationship between the parameter K and the output image has ever been established, and hence the choice ofK is a guesswork. This paper proposes the Histogram Gradient-Based Anisotropic Diffusion (GHAD). In GHAD, the user specifies the desired number ν of edgeelements (edgels) of the filtered image. Let us define that the frontier between two neighboring pixels (p, q) is an edgel if |I(p) − I(q)| > τ , whereI(p) is the image intensity at p and τ is a constant. From the specified ν, an appropriate parameterK is automatically computed in every diffusion iteration, so that the final filtered image has almost exactly ν edgels. Using this approach, the diffusion converges to a nontrivial piecewise constant image, whenever a feasible parameterν is specified.
Associations among attitudes, perceived difficulty of learning science, gender, parents’ occupation and students’ scientific competencies

ABSTRACT This study investigated the associations among students’ attitudes towards science, students’ perceived difficulty of learning science, gender, parents’ occupations and their scientific competencies. A sample of 1591 (720 males and 871 females) ninth-grade students from 29 junior high schools in Shanghai completed a scientific competency test and a Likert scale questionnaire. Multiple regression analysis revealed that students’ general interest of science, their parents’ occupations and perceived difficulty of science significantly associated with their scientific competencies. However, there was no gender gap in terms of scientific competencies.
Eurographics/siggraph Symposium on Computer Animation (2003) Footsee: an Interactive Animation System

We present an intuitive animation interface that uses a foot pressure sensor pad to interactively control avatars for video games, virtual reality, and low-cost performance-driven animation. During an offline training phase, we capture full body motions with a motion capture system, as well as the corresponding foot-ground pressure distributions with a pressure sensor pad, into a database. At run time, the user acts out the animation desired on the pressure sensor pad. The system then tries to " see " the motion only through the foot-ground interactions measured, and the most appropriate motions from the database are selected, and edited online to drive the avatar. We describe our motion recognition, motion blending, and inverse kinematics algorithms in detail. They are easy to implement, and cheap to compute. FootSee can control a virtual avatar in a fixed latency of 1 second with reasonable accuracy. Our system thus makes it possible to create interactive animations without the cost or inconveniences of a full body motion capture system.
Learning a Lexicalized Grammar for German

In syntax, the trend nowadays is towards lexicalized grammar formalisms. It is now widely accepted that dividing words into wordclasses may serve as a labor-saving mechanism - but at the same time, it discards all detailed information on the idiosyncratic behavior of words. And that is exactly the type of information that may be necessary in order to parse a sentence. For learning approaches, however, lexicalized grammars represent a challenge for the very reason that they include so much detailed and specific information, which is difficult to learn. This paper will present an algorithm for learning a link grammar of German. The problem of data sparseness is tackled by using all the available information from partial parses as well as from an existing grammar fragment and a tagger. This is a report about work in progress so there are no representative results available yet.
Mitogen-Activated Protein (MAP) Kinase Scaffolding Proteins: A Recount

The mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway is the canonical signaling pathway for many receptor tyrosine kinases, such as the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor. Downstream of the receptors, this pathway involves the activation of a kinase cascade that culminates in a transcriptional response and affects processes, such as cell migration and adhesion. In addition, the strength and duration of the upstream signal also influence the mode of the cellular response that is switched on. Thus, the same components can in principle coordinate opposite responses, such as proliferation and differentiation. In recent years, it has become evident that MAPK signaling is regulated and fine-tuned by proteins that can bind to several MAPK signaling proteins simultaneously and, thereby, affect their function. These so-called MAPK scaffolding proteins are, thus, important coordinators of the signaling response in cells. In this review, we summarize the recent advances in the research on MAPK/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) pathway scaffolders. We will not only review the well-known members of the family, such as kinase suppressor of Ras (KSR), but also put a special focus on the function of the recently identified or less studied scaffolders, such as fibroblast growth factor receptor substrate 2, flotillin-1 and mitogen-activated protein kinase organizer 1.
Factors Influencing Aster Leafhopper (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) Abundance and Aster Yellows Phytoplasma Infectivity in Wisconsin Carrot Fields

ABSTRACT In Wisconsin, vegetable crops are threatened annually by infection of the aster yellows phytoplasma (AYp), the causal agent of aster yellows (AY) disease, vectored by the aster leafhopper, Macrosteles quadrilineatus Forbes. Aster leafhopper abundance and infectivity are influenced by processes operating across different temporal and spatial scales. We applied a multilevel modeling approach to partition variance in multifield, multiyear, pest scouting data sets containing temporal and spatial covariates associated with aster leafhopper abundance and infectivity. Our intent was to evaluate the relative importance of temporal and spatial covariates to infer the relevant scale at which ecological processes are driving AY epidemics and identify periods of elevated risk for AYp spread. The relative amount of aster leafhopper variability among and within years (39%) exceeded estimates of variation among farm locations and fields (7%). Similarly, time covariates explained the largest amount of variation of aster leafhopper infectivity (50%). Leafhopper abundance has been decreasing since 2001 and reached its minimum in 2010. The average seasonal pattern indicated that periods of above average abundance occurred between 11 June and 1 August. Annual infectivity appears to oscillate around an average value of 2% and seasonal periods of above average infectivity occur between 19 May and 15 July. The coincidence of the expected periods of high leafhopper abundance and infectivity increases our knowledge of when the insect moves into susceptible crop fields and when it spreads the pathogen to susceptible crops, representing a seasonal interval during which management of the insect can be focused.
GROWTH IN CHILDREN WITH 45 XO TURNER'S SYNDROME

Growth records of 64 patients with chromosome constitution 45×0 have been analyzed. The extremely short stature of adults with this condition (142.5 cm) appears to be due to the cumulative effects of intrauterine growth failure, a gradual decline in height velocity during childhood and to the absence of a pubertal height spurt. Pubic hair appeared in 68% of the patients but was delayed both in relation to chronological age and to bone age. There was no evidence of a pubartal height spurt eycn in those children in whom cubic hair appeared.Treatment with oestrogens in 18 patients caused development of secondary sex characteristics but did not effect final stature. The age of the patient when treatment was given was not of significance in affecting the final height of the patient.The adult heights of 17 patients ware compared with those of their parents; a regression coefficient was found which was identical to that found in 51 normal girls, a roughly constant amount of height being lost through the chromosomal abnormality. This suggests that the genes whose action underlies the variation in adult height amongst the normal population must be located for the most part on the autosomes.
Vision based surveillance system

Due to the numerous amounts of surveillance cameras available, security guards seem to be ubiquitously watching over. However, the number of existing cameras exceeds the number of humans to monitor them and the supervision of all the sensors' output is costly. Thus, video footage from cameras is most often only used as a forensic tool. This suggests the need of an intelligent video surveillance system providing continuous 24-hour monitoring, replacing the traditional ineffective systems. This paper presents an automated vision based surveillance system which is capable to detect and track humans and vehicles from a video footage. Simulation results have shown that the Object Classification module manages to achieve an accuracy of 97.31% and 97.14% for the person and vehicle classification respectively. Furthermore, the system manages to successfully track the objects 97% of the time under no occlusion and 94.14% in presence of occlusion.
Coherence Cube and beyond

Coherence Cube technology was released to the world geophysical community by Amoco Production Research in 195 (Bahorich & Farmer 1995). The Coherence Cube is essentially a cube of coherence coefficients generated from the input 3D seismic data volume, that portays faults and other stratigraphic anomalies clearly, on time of horizon slices.
Respiratory symptoms and ventilatory function tests in Nigerians with HIV infection.

BACKGROUND The impact of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection on the respiratory system of Africans has been little studied. This study aimed to determine the pattern of respiratory symptoms and ventilatory functions in HIV infected Nigerians. METHODS In this cross sectional study, Respiratory symptoms frequency, Forced vital capacity (FVC), Forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV(1)), FEV(1)/FVC ratio, Forced expiratory flow between 25% and 75% of FVC, were determined in 100 HIV positive subjects and compared with values in 100 HIV negative controls. RESULTS HIV positive patients had significantly more respiratory symptoms and lower ventilatory function tests values compared to the matched controls (p<0.05). HIV patients with at least one respiratory symptom and those with CD4 count less than 200 cells/µl had lower ventilatory function values than their counterparts. 32% of the HIV patients had restrictive ventilatory functional impairment. (p<0.05). Using regression analysis, factors like HIV status, CD4 count and presence of respiratory symptoms were found to be associated with impairment in ventilatory functions. CONCLUSIONS HIV infected patients had more frequent respiratory symptoms and lower ventilatory function values. Further lung function studies and CT scanning in HIV positive patients especially in those with respiratory symptoms are indicated.
A real-time eyebrow segmentation and tracking technique to support an electric wheelchair interface

This paper presents an eyebrow tracking method to support an interface for an electric wheelchair. This interface aims to drive a wheelchair by interpreting the movement of the head and the facial features as well, without hand generated commands. Hardware for the control interface is composed by the helmet with a webcam attached to it: the camera is pointed to the face of the user and the image sequence is acquired and processed in real-time. This paper focuses on the interpretation of commands given by the eyebrows movements. Following the detection of the eyes regions, eyebrows are segmented by a composition of the CIELab colorspace L and b bands, binarized by the classical Otsu thresholding. Tracking is done by computation and analysis of the vertical bit signature, extracted from the segmented eyebrow. The generation of move and stop commands have produced satisfactory results. The eyebrow tracking demonstrated to be accurate and robust in trepidation and different light conditions and users skin tones.
Utility Analysis and Gap Analysis ( 1 . 1 ) Modeling Customer Demand using Gap Analysis

Conventional utility theory models customer preferences in terms of actual performance and does not use benchmarks. But empirical work in gap analysis shows that customer preferences clearly depend upon the disparity between performance and some benchmark. To resolve this apparent discrepancy between theory and experiment, this paper shows that a simple reinterpretation of utility makes utility a function of the uncertainty-discounted gap between actual performance and a benchmark. We interpret the benchmark as reflecting customer product expectations. The resulting formulation is used to derive a consumer choice model where customer choice depends upon how perceived performance compares to expectations and upon customer uncertainty about performance and expectations. In this model, increasing information on a product or service `tends' to increase its sales if its performance is above customer expectations and to decrease its sales if its performance is below customer expectations.
Smart Environment for Ubiquitous Indoor Navigation

Mobile navigation service is one of the most important Location Based Services. With the rapid advances in enabling technologies for ubiquitous computing, more and more active or passive devices/sensors are augmented in the indoor environment, indoor environment has become smarter. This paper proposes that by introducing the notions of Smart Environment and Ambient Intelligent, a ubiquitous indoor navigation service can be built to provide an adaptive smart wayfinding support and enhance users with a new experience during indoor navigation. In this paper, we set up a smart environment with a positioning module and a wireless module. Based on this smart environment, we design a ubiquitous indoor navigation system with interaction and annotation module (for user generated content), user tracking module (for collaborative filtering) and context-aware adaptation to illustrate some potential benefits of combining indoor navigation and Smart Environment.
25 Discretization of a Random Field – a Multiobjective Algorithm Approach

Discretization of a random field by the generalized polynomial chaos (GPC) begins with selecting a specific type of orthogonal polynomial (e.g. Legendre and Hermite polynomials) (e.g. Ghanem and Spanos, 1991). This selection of a type of orthogonal polynomial can be performed based on the reported experiences (e.g. Xiu and Karniadakis, 2003) or data revealing the distribution of a random field to be discretized. If such data or reported experiences are unavailable, a third way may be generating some pilot tests to study the performance of a specific type of orthogonal polynomial in discretizing this random field. This study tries to develop an evolutionary algorithm-based auxiliary tool for the implementation of such pilot tests. A similar tool (Allaix and Carbone, 2009), which is based on the singleobjective evolutionary algorithm, had been developed for constructing the Karhunen-Loève (KL) representation of a random field. Both KL and GPC expansions are two of the popular random field discretization methods (Ghanem and Spanos, 1991). But, the KL expansion should be applied under a prerequisite of knowing the covariance matrix of a random field to be discretized (e.g. Ghanem and Spanos, 1991); while, the GPC expansions can be applied without similar prerequisites (e.g. Xiu and Karniadakis, 2003). Therefore, the development of an auxiliary tool for constructing a GPC representation of a random field would be necessary. The succeeding research considers the derivation of an GPC representation of a random field as a multi-objective (MO) problem having two goals: (a) limiting the computational efforts spent in applying the resulting GPC representation; and (b) keeping the resulting GPC representation satisfying all accuracy standards (e.g. getting the sufficiently accurate prediction of statistical parameters of a random field). The former goal will be attained by limiting the highest order of polynomial term and total number of uncorrelated random variables used to construct a GPC representation; while the latter goal will be attained by minimizing multiple error estimators. Since there are multiple goals to be attained, a multiple objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA) is required. Among all available MOEAs, the strength Pareto evolutionary algorithm II (SPEA 2) (Zitzler, et al., 2001) is chosen. The highest order of polynomial term and total number of uncorrelated random variables used to construct an GPC representation are considered as two parameters to be identified. The remainder of this study is organized into four sections. In Sec. 2, the theoretical backgrounds of GPC expansions (e.g. Xiu and Karniadakis, 2003) are briefly reviewed. In Sec. 3, the SPEA 2 (Zitzler, et al., 2001) is used to construct a parameter identification procedure to identify the aforementioned highest order of orthogonal polynomial and total
Accelerometer responsiveness to change between structured and unstructured physical activity in children and adolescents

ABSTRACT This study examined if accelerometer-based assessments of physical activity were responsive to changes in physical activity level commensurate with performing structured versus unstructured activity in youth. Youth (6–16 years; N = 206) participated in a simulated after-school program that included structured and unstructured games on four occasions over a 3-year period. Recruitment occurred in 2007/2008 and data collection ended in 2011. Participants wore an Actigraph GT1M accelerometer on the hip. The Evenson cut-points were used to determine the time spent in each physical activity intensity, and standardized response means (SRM) were calculated and converted to standard effect sizes to be interpreted according to Cohen’s guidelines. SRMs ranged from trivial (0.16) to high (2.07), with the majority (75%) being classified as moderate or high. Our findings suggest that accelerometry was sensitive to differences in physical activity associated with structured compared to unstructured play, supporting the utility of accelerometry in evaluating activity-promoting interventions.
H110α recombination-line emission and 4.8-GHz continuum emission in the Carina nebula

We present results from observations of H110α recombination-line emission at 4.874 GHz and the related 4.8-GHz continuum emission towards the Carina nebula using the Australia Telescope Compact Array. These data provide information on the velocity, morphology and excitation parameters of the ionized gas associated with the two bright H ii regions within the nebula, Car I and Car II. They are consistent with both Car I and Car II being expanding ionization fronts arising from the massive star clusters Trumpler 14 and Trumpler 16, respectively. The overall continuum emission distribution at 4.8 GHz is similar to that at lower frequencies. For Car I, two compact sources are revealed that are likely to be young H ii regions associated with triggered star formation. These results provide the first evidence of ongoing star formation in the northern region of the nebula. A close association between Car I and the molecular gas is consistent with a scenario in which Car I is currently carving out a cavity within the northern molecular cloud. The complicated kinematics associated with Car II point to expansion from at least two different centres. All that is left of the molecular cloud in this region are clumps of dense gas and dust which are likely to be responsible for shaping the striking morphology of the Car II components.
Research article EFFECT OF TRADITIONAL SUN-DRYING ON PHENOLIC ANTIOXIDANTS OF AVERRHOA BILIMBI L.

Averrhoa bilimbi L. has various beneficial properties including antidiabetic and antioxidant activity. The effect of traditional sun drying on the stability of fresh A. bilimbi fruits was investigated by using different methanol/water extracts, and their total phenolic content (TPC) and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) compared. The TAC was evaluated using established in vitro models such as 1,1,diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazyl radical scavenging activity, 2,2´-azino-bis-(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) scavenging assay, total reducing power, phosphomolybdenum assay and metal chelating activity. All the extracts of the dried fruit showed lower TPC compared to the fresh bilimbi extracts by 23-88%, TAC of which corresponded accordingly. The investigation revealed that A. bilimbi was a good source of antioxidants; however, the drying process of the fruit significantly affected the bioactive compounds.
Percentiles for left ventricular rotation: comparison of reference values to paediatric patients with pacemaker-induced dyssynchrony.

AIM Left ventricular rotation is an interesting mechanism to investigate patients with heart disease. In children, reference values have to be defined prior to assess pathology. METHODS AND RESULTS One hundred and seventy-four healthy individuals (0-20 years) were investigated by two-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography, percentiles were created addressing the amount and time-to-peak values (TTP) of rotational parameters normalized to percentage of cardiac cycle (cc). Patients with right ventricular (RV) pacemaker stimulation were integrated into percentiles describing their rotational delay. Feasibility was 87.4% in healthy individuals (8.5 ± 6.2 years), 42 patients (13.0 ± 6.6 years, mean RV-stimulation time: 6.1 ± 4.3 years) were enrolled. Apical rotation (Rot(ap)) varied and was higher than basal rotation (Rot(bas)) throughout all ages. Peak torsion (Tor(max)) normalized to left ventricle (LV) length (Tor(maxi)) was elevated in early childhood and decreased until adulthood. TTP values revealed greater dispersion between apical and basal rotation at younger age and a decrease during maturation. Patients with RV pacing had decreased Tor(max) (10.0 ± 6.0 vs. 13.7 ± 6.6°, P < 0.05), Rot(ap) (6.7 ± 4.8 vs. 9.3 ± 5.7°, P < 0.05) and Rot(bas) (-3.3 ± 2.6 vs. -4.5 ± 2.7°, P < 0.05). Patients with impaired ejection fraction (EF) had abnormal delays between Rot(ap) and Rot(bas). CONCLUSIONS Percentile illustrations of LV rotation reveal a high amount and dispersion of Rot(ap) and Tor(maxi) in young children as well as a higher rotational delay compared with older ages. Abnormal delays in RV pacing are associated with reduced EF.