Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SEGMENTATION-BASED CLASSIFICATION OF LASER SCANNING DATA

Over the past few years, laser scanning has been established as a leading technology for the acquisition of high density 3D spatial information. Digital Terrain Models (DTMs), which can be used for different engineering applications, are obtained by classification of laser data and removing the points that do not belong to terrain surface. The commonly used methods for the classification of laser scanning data are point-based. The major drawback of these methods is focusing on the discontinuities between neighbouring points regardless of the nature of the objects they belong to, which might lead to unreliable classification results. A segmentation-based approach for the classification of both airborne and terrestrial point clouds is presented in this paper. This approach is designed to overcome the drawbacks of point-based classification methods. As the first step, the laser point cloud is segmented by clustering the points with common attributes. To compute precise attributes, an adaptive neighbourhood of each point is firstly defined while considering the proximity of the points in 3D space, surface trend, and noise level in datasets. Then, the coordinates of the origin’s projection on the best fitted plane to each point’s neighbourhood are computed and used as segmentation attributes. Finally, the laser points with similar attributes are aggregated in the attribute space using a new clustering approach. After segmentation, a heuristic approach is used to classify the segmentation results. The boundaries of segmented surfaces are utilized to determine the adjacency relationship among derived segments. Then, different measures such as the slope and area of each segment, the height difference, and planimetric distance between adjacent segments are checked to classify them into terrain and off-terrain surfaces. The classification of non-segmented points is carried out by comparing the height difference between them and their nearest classified terrain-segments. Experimental results from real data have demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed approach for the classification of airborne and terrestrial laser data.
Coaching and recovery : an exploration of coaching employed professionals in recovery from alcohol misuse

Recovery coaching is described as one service within a group known as non-clinical recovery support services. Its purpose is the pursuit of recovery from substance dependency, and takes a developmental, individualistic view on what recovery means. However, little is known about the perspectives and processes employed by recovery coaches in pursuit of that goal. The aim of the research was to address the following question: What can we learn about coaching through exploring the experiences of coaches working with employed professionals in recovery from alcohol misuse? This research was a qualitative study. A narrative inquiry research methodology was chosen to explore the experiences of recovery coaches. A purposive sampling approach was used to select seven credentialed recovery coaches with at least a year’s experience of coaching employed professionals in recovery from alcohol misuse. Data was collected using seven narrative interviews that were digitally recorded and transcribed, and the data was analysed using a specific narrative analysis model in order to generate the findings. The key findings revealed that recovery coaches worked in the field of recovery, not addiction. They were primarily credentialed by their skills as a coach, coupled with an understanding of recovery. An understanding of recovery might have come through their own recovery journey, or from working in the recovery support services industry. All coaches agreed that recovery was a developmental journey grounded in the assets, resources and choices of the individual who sought coaching for recovery. However, it was found that the deployment of coaching models, and the effective use of coaching skills and techniques were the foundation of a recovery coaching service. These core coaching competencies, suggestive of the need for professional training, were concerned with relationship building between coach and client, managing relationships with clients and interested parties, and adopting a forward-focused client-centric approach in which the client sets the agenda. It was found that this approach was well received by professionals who came from an organisational background and who identified with its forward-focused and goal-centred approach. In this respect, the purpose of recovery coaching was recovery by any means through the effective use of an appropriate coaching process. Recovery coaches identified their work as only one of a multi-disciplinary set of recovery support services. These findings were limited by the lack of a prolonged engagement with each coach, and the fact that the author was the researcher, the interviewer, a credentialed recovery coach, and himself a professional in recovery. The results might be useful to other coaches, to other recovery support services, and to business leaders and managers. The findings position recovery coaching as a valuable service within non-clinical recovery support services, and may be of particular interest to employed professionals who seek recovery. Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za
Imitation of a Pedagogical Agent’s Gestures Enhances Memory for Words in Second Language

Pedagogical agents (PAs) are virtual characters in computer-based learning environments. PAs can train humans in various domains. Here, a PA cues subjects to learn vocabulary items through enactment, i.e., to perform an illustrative gesture while learning a word. It is well known that enactment impacts memory. Also, imitation is a natural mechanism driving learning. Combining both enactment and imitation could improve memory even more. In a within-subjects study, 44 school children learned 45 vocabulary items according to three conditions: an audio-visual baseline, an observation condition (participants watched the PA during enactment) and an imitation condition (participants imitated the PA’s gestures). We documented learning progress by cued recall tests. Over four days, we found that, compared to the baseline and to mere observation, imitation of enactment significantly enhanced memory for words in the foreign language.
Awareness of driving while sleepy and road traffic accidents: prospective study in GAZEL cohort

Abstract Objectives To examine the association between self assessed driving while sleepy and the risk of serious road traffic accidents (RTAs). Design Prospective cohort study. Setting France. Participants 13 299 of the 19 894 living members of the GAZEL cohort, workers and recent retirees of a French national utility company followed up since 1989. Main outcome measures Frequency of driving while sleepy in the previous 12 months, reported in 2001; rate ratios for serious RTAs in 2001-3, estimated by using generalised linear Poisson regression models with time dependent covariates. Results The risk of serious RTAs increased proportionally with the frequency of self reported driving while sleepy. After adjustment for sociodemographic characteristics, driving behaviour variables, work conditions, retirement, medical conditions and treatments, depressive symptoms, and sleep disorders, the adjusted rate ratios of serious RTAs for participants who reported driving while sleepy in the previous 12 months “a few times” or “once a month or more often” were 1.5 (95% confidence interval 1.2 to 2.0) and 2.9 (1.3 to 6.3) respectively compared with those who reported not driving while sleepy over the same period. These associations were not explained by any reported sleep disorders. Conclusions Self assessed driving while sleepy was a powerful predictor of serious RTAs, suggesting that drivers' awareness of their sleepiness while driving is not sufficient to prevent them from having RTAs. Messages on prevention should therefore focus on convincing sleepy drivers to stop driving and sleep before resuming their journey.
Presynaptic Long-Term Potentiation in Corticothalamic Synapses

The thalamus and neocortex are two highly organized and complex brain structures that work in concert with each other. The largest synaptic input to the thalamus arrives from the neocortex via corticothalamic fibers. Using brain slices, we describe long-term potentiation (LTP) in corticothalamic fibers contacting the ventrobasal thalamus. Corticothalamic LTP is input-specific, NMDA receptor-independent, and reversible. The induction of corticothalamic LTP is entirely presynaptic and Ca2+-dependent. The expression of corticothalamic LTP is associated with a decrease in paired-pulse facilitation (PPF) and blocked by an inhibitor of the cAMP-dependent protein kinase A (PKA). Consistent with an involvement of cAMP and PKA, activation of adenylyl cyclase induced a synaptic enhancement that was associated with a decrease in PPF and occluded LTP. Corticothalamic LTP may serve to enhance the efficacy of cortico-cortical communication via the thalamus and/or to mediate experience-dependent long-term modifications of thalamocortical receptive fields.
The Impact of Cyber-Experience on Action Verb Processing

Two major different approaches have been held when researchers study higher level cognitive processes. The classic symbolic approach suggested that our higher level cognitive processing belongs to an independent system from that of lower level cognitive processes; whereas embodied cognition theory proposed that our conceptual knowledge is grounded in our sensorimotor systems and shares common neural systems with them. Up till now, a growing number of behavioral and neurological data have provided supporting evidence for embodied cognition theory. In this study, we explored whether different degree of cyber-experience would affect higher level of cognitive processing. Three experiments were designed to investigate the impacts of cyber-experience on the processing of facial expression verbs, body action verbs and action schema verbs. In Experiment 1, two experimental groups of participants were presented with facial expression verbs while their facial positive expressive capability was either facilitated or inhibited. Results showed that participants who had excessive cyber experiences showed no different performance under two different facial muscle controlling conditions, while the participants with less cyber experience recognized positive facial verbs more quickly under facilitated condition than that under inhibited condition. In Experiment 2, the switching costs paradigm was used to explore the impact of cyber-experience on body action verb processing. Results showed that the participants with excessive cyber experience did not show any cost while they switched between verbs and nouns, but the participants with less cyber experience showed significant cognitive cost while switching. In Experiment 3, the serial recall experimental paradigm was applied to explore the impact of cyber-experience on action schema verb processing. Results showed that the excessive cyber-experience participants’ recall performance of the action schemas verbs was no different between logic sequence and random sequence conditions, whereas those with less cyber-experience showed significantly worse performance in random sequence condition than that in logic sequence condition. In summary, current findings suggested that excessive cyber behaviors may hurt individuals’ higher level of cognitive processing, in that their verb processing may be weakened or delayed as a result of less normal conceptual representations. Our study also provided supportive evidence for the close relationship between the sensorimotor systems and the higher level of conceptual processing.
The comparative psychology of social learning.

1 http://dx.doi. org/10.1037/XXXXX-XXX APA Handbook of Comparative Psychology: Vol. 2. Evolution, Development, and Neural Substrate, J. Call (Editor-in-Chief) Copyright © 2017 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved. The last 3 decades have seen an extraordinary increase in studies of social learning in nonhuman animals and humans. The relevant literature is unusual in the range of backgrounds of authors making substantial empirical or theoretical contributions to our understanding of social influences on the acquisition of behavior. However, despite the diversity in the academic disciplines of those studying social learning, there has been general agreement as to the subject matter of the field. Indeed, we know of no one working in the area who would take exception to defining social learning as “learning that is influenced by observation of, or interaction with, a conspecific or its products” (Heyes, 1994, p. 207). As might be expected given the breadth of interests of those studying social learning in animals and the resultant scatter of relevant publications across specialized journals in many disciplines, the need for reviews of work in the area was recognized early in its history, and assessments of progress in social learning in general and in subareas of the field have been frequent (see Appendix 19.1). The present discussion builds on its predecessors, but differs in that, consistent with the topic of this handbook, we explicitly consider the study of social learning as a branch of comparative psychology. The first challenge to such an approach results from the considerable diversity of opinion concerning the defining features of this field of inquiry (reviewed in Demarest, 1980). Historically, the term comparative psychology has often been used in a rather general way to refer to the scientific study of behavior and cognition in nonhuman animals. This usage, however, led Konrad Lorenz to opine “I strongly resent it . when an American journal [the Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology] masquerades under the title of ‘comparative’ psychology, although to the best of my knowledge, no really comparative paper ever has been published in it” (Lorenz, 1950, pp. 239–240). Lorenz and other more biologically oriented researchers (e.g., Hodos & Campbell, 1969) advocated a comparative psychology focused on studies of similarities and dissimilarities in homologous behavioral traits of closely related species. Indeed, when Romanes (1884), Darwin’s protégé in matters behavioral, introduced the term comparative psychology into the modern scientific literature, he used the term in Lorenz’s sense, proposing that comparative psychology should be modeled on comparative anatomy, focused on comparisons between closely related species and tracing the evolution of morphological traits:
Discovery of Absorption Features in the X-Ray Spectrum of an Isolated Neutron Star

We observed 1E 1207.4-5209, a neutron star in the center of the supernova remnant PKS 1209-51/52, with the ACIS detector aboard the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and detected two absorption features in the source spectrum. The features are centered near 0.7 and 1.4 keV; their equivalent widths are about 0.1 keV. We discuss various possible interpretations of the absorption features and exclude some of them. A likely interpretation is that the features are associated with atomic transitions of once-ionized helium in the neutron star atmosphere with a strong magnetic field. The first clear detection of absorption features in the spectrum of an isolated neutron star provides an opportunity to measure the mass-to-radius ratio and to constrain the equation of state of the superdense matter.
On the guidance of a UAV under unknown wind disturbances

We examine the path-following guidance of a UAV in three-dimensions and in the presence of quasi-constant but unknown wind disturbances. The analysis and control design are based only on a kinematic model. A first contribution is an alternative description of the dynamics that simplifies the design. A second contribution is the derivation of a guidance law that ensures the global asymptotic convergence to the desired path in spite of wind perturbations. To achieve our objective a simple estimator based on the Immersion and Invariance (I&I) approach is used for the estimation of the wind velocities and tools from robustness analysis for the stability proof.
Cross Correlation Mitigation Techniques for Software GPS C/A Code Receivers

ABSTRACT The cross correlation properties of the 1023 chip Gold (C/A) codes can cause difficulties in scenarios where both strong and weak GPS signals need to be processed. Such cases are increasingly likely given the new applications of GPS, with examples being the processing of GPS signals in E911 cellular phone applications and the use of bistatic GPS as a remote sensing tool. This coupled with the increasing use of software-defined radio (software correlation) for either cost-saving or flexibility enhancing reasons have resulted in a need to mitigate cross correlations within such systems. This paper provides details on two techniques developed by the authors for the mitigation of GPS cross correlations, both of which have been tested and implemented within a software correlator that has been written in the C programming language. Details on the software correlator are also provided as the table lookup requirements for the correlator are smaller than those previously reported. Test results indicating the effectiveness of the algorithms are presented, with a comparison between the two methods being performed. , The datasets containing cross correlations were obtained by capturing the output of a GPS radio front end chip attached to a hardware GPS simulator.
Suicidal ideation in medical students

Suicidal ideation in young adults is an increasingly burdensome issue worldwide. Further, previous research has shown a very high prevalence of suicidal ideation in medical students, ranging from 9.1% to 48.2%. Many factors have been identified as likely contributors to the development of suicidal tendencies in this specific population including certain behavioral and personality traits, co-existing mental health problems, and stressful personal or academic events. In addition, female medical students have been found to have significantly higher rates of suicidal ideation than the general population.
The association between osteopontin and survival in non-small-cell lung cancer patients: a meta-analysis of 13 cohorts

In the last decade, osteopontin (OPN) was identified as one of the important proteins that promote the metastasis of tumor. However, the association between OPN overexpression and clinical outcome of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) was unclear. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of OPN in NSCLC patients. A total of 13 studies are included to explore the relationship between the OPN elevation and the overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) in NSCLC patients. We searched for related articles in PubMed, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and Cochrane Library databases, which were published before January 31, 2015. Hazard ratio (HR), odds ratio (OR), and 95% confidence interval (CI) in the high OPN expression group compared with the low OPN expression group were calculated and analyzed. Primary results were summarized by using a fixed-effects model or a random-effects model. The stratified analyses in subgroups were also performed. Thirteen cohort studies, which involved 1,630 patients, were included. Subgroup analyses were performed by area and test method of OPN. We found that OPN was significantly associated with poor OS (HR =2.20, 95% CI 1.71–2.83, P<0.001) and DFS (HR =2.11, 95% CI 1.62–2.74, P<0.001) in NSCLC patients. OPN overexpression tended to be associated with the presence of advanced tumor TNM stage (III and IV) (OR =2.57, 95% CI 1.61–4.11, P<0.001). The Egger’s test suggested that there was no publication bias in OS studies (P=0.062) and DFS studies (P=0.740). These data indicate that OPN seems to have a significant predictive potential in estimating survival in NSCLC.
Differentiating mass participant sport event consumers: : Traditional versus non-traditional events

Mass participant sport events (MPSEs) have experienced substantial growth both in the amount and types of events offered. The endurance event industry has recently shifted towards non-traditional events, but an exploration of this new type of event is lacking. Accordingly, research is needed to assess the motives of non-traditional MPSE participants. This research was conducted to explore participant motivations to compete in two different MPSEs. Using an online questionnaire, event participants from two different event contexts (i.e., traditional and non-traditional) were examined (N=408). Through a multi-group CFA of the Motivations of Marathoners Scale (MOMS), a revised adaptation of a traditional participant motivation structure was identified. Participant motivations differed across event contexts on several factors, including health orientation, weight concern, personal goal achievement, affiliation, psychological coping, life meaning, and self-esteem. Suggestions for future research and practical implications for marketing and event management are discussed.
The Re-Establishment of Desiccation Tolerance in Germinated Arabidopsis thaliana Seeds and Its Associated Transcriptome

The combination of robust physiological models with “omics” studies holds promise for the discovery of genes and pathways linked to how organisms deal with drying. Here we used a transcriptomics approach in combination with an in vivo physiological model of re-establishment of desiccation tolerance (DT) in Arabidopsis thaliana seeds. We show that the incubation of desiccation sensitive (DS) germinated Arabidopsis seeds in a polyethylene glycol (PEG) solution re-induces the mechanisms necessary for expression of DT. Based on a SNP-tile array gene expression profile, our data indicates that the re-establishment of DT, in this system, is related to a programmed reversion from a metabolic active to a quiescent state similar to prior to germination. Our findings show that transcripts of germinated seeds after the PEG-treatment are dominated by those encoding LEA, seed storage and dormancy related proteins. On the other hand, a massive repression of genes belonging to many other classes such as photosynthesis, cell wall modification and energy metabolism occurs in parallel. Furthermore, comparison with a similar system for Medicago truncatula reveals a significant overlap between the two transcriptomes. Such overlap may highlight core mechanisms and key regulators of the trait DT. Taking into account the availability of the many genetic and molecular resources for Arabidopsis, the described system may prove useful for unraveling DT in higher plants.
The ‘problem’ of abuse in Ontario’s Social Inclusion Act: A critical exploration

Employing Carol Bacchi’s What’s the problem? approach, this article examines the abuse policy recently implemented through the Social Inclusion Act of Ontario, Canada’s developmental services sector (DSS), and how it constitutes sexual abuse of people with intellectual disabilities as a policy problem. Politically committed to preventing and addressing abuse, we examine how sexual abuse is ‘given shape’ in the policy and its compliance training materials, and how the policy’s mandatory police reporting requirement ‘subjectifies’ victims according to a taken-for-granted legal ‘worldview’ that presumes justice is achieved through criminalisation. We also demonstrate the everyday ‘deleterious effects’ of this policy in relation to how it leaves both support for sexuality and the long-standing crisis management approach of Ontario’s DSS unproblematised. This analysis calls into question the abuse policy of the Social Inclusion Act and demonstrates the pressing need to re-problematise abuse prevention and redress for people with intellectual disabilities.