Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A CT Reconstruction Algorithm Based on Non-Aliasing Contourlet Transform and Compressive Sensing

Compressive sensing (CS) theory has great potential for reconstructing CT images from sparse-views projection data. Currently, total variation (TV-) based CT reconstruction method is a hot research point in medical CT field, which uses the gradient operator as the sparse representation approach during the iteration process. However, the images reconstructed by this method often suffer the smoothing problem; to improve the quality of reconstructed images, this paper proposed a hybrid reconstruction method combining TV and non-aliasing Contourlet transform (NACT) and using the Split-Bregman method to solve the optimization problem. Finally, the simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can reconstruct high-quality CT images from few-views projection using less iteration numbers, which is more effective in suppressing noise and artefacts than algebraic reconstruction technique (ART) and TV-based reconstruction method.
M-CHAT Mexican Version Validity and Reliability and Some Cultural Considerations

The Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT) questionnaire is a brief measure available in Spanish which needs to be validated for the Mexican population. Parents of children from (1) community with typical development (TD) and (2) psychiatric outpatient unit completed the CBCL/1.5–5 and the Mexican/MM-CHAT-version. The study sample consisted of 456 children (age M = 4.46, SD = 1.12), 74.34% TD children and 26.65% with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The MM-CHAT mean score for failed key items was higher for the ASD group compared with the TD group. Internal consistency for the Mexican/M-CHAT version was . 76 for total score and . 70 for the 6 critical items. Correlations between the MM-CHAT and the CBCL/1.5: PDD and Withdrawn subscales and with ADI-R dimensions: B non verbal) and A were high, and were moderate with ADI-R dimensions B1 (verbal) and C The failure rate of the MM-CHAT between the groups did not reproduce all the critical items found in other studies. Although the instrument has good psychometric properties and can be used for screening purposes in primary settings or busy specialized psychiatric clinics, these results support evidence for cultural differences in item responses, making it difficult to compare M-CHAT results internationally.
An energy aware self-configured wireless sensor network

Recent years have shown that wireless communication are becoming more popular in professional, academic and every day applications. A wireless sensor node is usually autonomous, advanced device with limited power source. This limited power source makes the topology control a crucial technique, which allow the network to obtain energy efficiency without affecting the network's connectivity and sensing coverage. The article demonstrates the energy efficient topology control mechanism, which allow a majority of network nodes stay in sleeping mode and do not affect the connectivity and sensing coverage. The result in energy consumption of the nodes and network lifetime are exposed and compared to different approaches.
Trends in pertussis among infants in the United States, 1980-1999.

CONTEXT Reported cases of pertussis among adolescents and adults have increased since the 1980s, despite increasingly high rates of vaccination among infants and children. However, severe pertussis morbidity and mortality occur primarily among infants. OBJECTIVE To describe the trends and characteristics of reported cases of pertussis among infants younger than 12 months in the United States from 1980 to 1999. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Cases of pertussis in infants younger than 12 months in the United States reported to the National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention between 1980 and 1999, and detailed case data from the Supplementary Pertussis Surveillance System. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Incidence and demographic and clinical characteristics of cases. RESULTS The incidence of reported cases of pertussis among infants increased 49% in the 1990s compared with the incidence in the 1980s (19 798 vs 12 550 cases reported; 51.1 cases vs 34.2 cases per 100 000 infant population, respectively). Increases in the incidence of cases and the number of deaths among infants during the 1990s primarily were among those aged 4 months or younger, contrasting with a stable incidence of cases among infants aged 5 months or older. The proportion of cases confirmed by bacterial culture was higher in the 1990s than in the 1980s (50% and 33%, respectively); the proportion of hospitalized cases was unchanged (67% vs 68%, respectively). Receipt of fewer doses of vaccine was associated with hospitalization, when cases were stratified by age in months. CONCLUSIONS The incidence of reported cases of pertussis among infants increased in the 1990s compared with the 1980s. The limited age group affected, the increased rate of bacteriologic confirmation, and the unchanged severity of illness suggest that an increase in infant pertussis has occurred apart from any change in reporting. Strategies are needed to prevent the morbidity and mortality from pertussis among infants too young to be fully vaccinated, according to the current recommended schedules of vaccination in the United States.
Dual-objective scheduling for workflow grid applications

The Grid can be described as a distributed computing infrastructure for coordinated resource sharing and problem solving in dynamic, multi-institutional virtual organizations. Since most of the applications in grid computing field fall into interdependent task model called workflow applications and in order to utilize the available resources in grids efficiently and effectively, a lot of research have been made in resource management, especially in scheduling. The main objective of scheduling is the attenuation of application completion time with usage of redundant resources. In this paper, we propose a novel semi-dynamic scheduling algorithm called adaptive dual-objective scheduling (ADOS) algorithm which statically generates the initial schedule using an evolutionary technique and adapts it dynamically as the performance of resources changes. Scheduling is performed by the algorithm considering both completion time and resource usage with changes in performance of grid resources. We also evaluate the algorithm through set of experiments demonstrating that the proposed algorithm delivers promising performance in three respects: completion time, resource utilization, and robustness to resource-performance fluctuations. The performance of the proposed algorithm is measured by implementing it using a Grid simulator (Gridsim).
Aging and Vigilance: Who Has the Inhibition Deficit?

The present study compared 18 younger (M = 21.00 years) and 17 older adults (M = 64.29 years) in a modified vigilance task that required the inhibition of a routinized response. The task was a 50-min simulation of industrial inspection, wherein observers were presented with simple displays labeled “good” and “bad” parts. General linear modeling indicated that younger adults showed a doubling of inhibition failures over time (from 19% to 43%); older adults' inhibition failures held constant at approximately 17.5%. In both age groups, those who responded most quickly were also most error-prone. A control experiment, using the traditional vigilance task requiring a response to infrequent “bad” parts, found only small age differences in accuracy and these also favored older adults. This research suggests that younger adults may demonstrate larger inhibition failures when the routinized responses on simple tasks must be suppressed. There are several implications for theory, industrial design, and cognitive assessment.
How Much Will China Save? Projecting China's National Savings Through 2040*

This paper projects China's national savings through 2040 based on China's national account data, demographic data, and data on rural and urban life-cycle income and consumption. Our baseline projections show that China's national saving in 2040 will be 16 times the current national saving. The annual growth rate of wealth will decline from 16.3 percent in 2012 to 9.5 percent in 2040. Lowering the growth rate of wealth accumulation to the current rate of return to wealth increases consumption through 2040; lowering the growth rate of wealth further may increase consumption more in the short run, but less in the long run.
A Microbiologist ’ s View on Improving Nutrient Utilization in Ruminants

The rumen is an open fermentation chamber, inhabited by microorganisms that anaerobically digest complex components of feedstuffs and generate fermentation products (mainly acids) and microbial cell mass for utilization by the host. The absorption of fermentation products, mainly VFA, from the rumen into the blood, and outflow of microbial cells to the abomasum and small intestine provide the animal energy and protein, respectively. The microbial ecosystem of the rumen is probably the most extensively described gut microbial ecosystem because of the importance of ruminants as a source of meat and milk. The rumen environment, created by interactions between the animal and the microbes, operates as an efficient continuous culture system with optimal physical and chemical conditions for microbial growth and activities, more or less continuous availability of substrate (at least in grazing cattle), removal of end products (by absorption, eructation or passage), and passage of undigested feed (Figure 1).
Incremental Recurrent Neural Network Dependency Parser with Search-based Discriminative Training

We propose a discriminatively trained recurrent neural network (RNN) that predicts the actions for a fast and accurate shift-reduce dependency parser. The RNN uses its output-dependent model structure to compute hidden vectors that encode the preceding partial parse, and uses them to estimate probabilities of parser actions. Unlike a similar previous generative model (Henderson and Titov, 2010), the RNN is trained discriminatively to optimize a fast beam search. This beam search prunes after each shift action, so we add a correctness probability to each shift action and train this score to discriminate between correct and incorrect sequences of parser actions. We also speed up parsing time by caching computations for frequent feature combinations, including during training, giving us both faster training and a form of backoff smoothing. The resulting parser is over 35 times faster than its generative counterpart with nearly the same accuracy, producing state-of-art dependency parsing results while requiring minimal feature engineering.
Learning hatching for pen-and-ink illustration of surfaces

This article presents an algorithm for learning hatching styles from line drawings. An artist draws a single hatching illustration of a 3D object. Her strokes are analyzed to extract the following per-pixel properties: hatching level (hatching, cross-hatching, or no strokes), stroke orientation, spacing, intensity, length, and thickness. A mapping is learned from input geometric, contextual, and shading features of the 3D object to these hatching properties, using classification, regression, and clustering techniques. Then, a new illustration can be generated in the artist's style, as follows. First, given a new view of a 3D object, the learned mapping is applied to synthesize target stroke properties for each pixel. A new illustration is then generated by synthesizing hatching strokes according to the target properties.
Incremental Novelty Learning in Adaptive Topic Tracking

As an important task in Topic Detection and Tracking (TDT), Topic tracking aims to monitor story stream arranged in temporal order and identify relevant stories to given topics. On this basis Adaptive Topic Tracking focuses on modifying topic descriptions by learning feedbacks in real time to improve the accuracy of tracking. Many researches have achieved substantial performances in this field, however most of them attempt to resolve the issues of tracking in use of existing techniques in Information Retrieval which often ignore the characteristics of TDT corpus such as timeliness, novelty and burst of news stories. In this paper we propose an incremental novelty learning algorithm (INL) which learns the evolution of topic based on the incremental distribution of novel terms and modifies the topic description by combining seminal terms with novel ones in real time. The algorithm focuses on increasing the efficiency of updating the kernel of topic description and improving the ability of tracking novel events suddenly occurred in story stream. We compare our method with some existing tracking systems on TDT4 corpus, which demonstrates INL can substantially improve the accuracy of adaptive topic tracking.
Automated Decomposition of Build Targets (Extended Version)

A (build) target specifies the information that is needed to automatically build a software artifact. This paper focuses on underutilized targets—an important dependency problem that we identified at Google. An underutilized target is one with files not needed by some of its dependents. Underutilized targets result in less modular code, overly large artifacts, slow builds, and unnecessary build and test triggers. To mitigate these problems, programmers decompose underutilized targets into smaller targets. However, manually decomposing a target is tedious and error-prone. Although we prove that finding the best target decomposition is NP-hard, we introduce a greedy algorithm that proposes a decomposition through iterative unification of the strongly connected components of the target. Our tool found that 19,994 of 40,000 Java library targets at Google can be decomposed to at least two targets. The results show that our tool is (1) efficient because it analyzes a target in two minutes on average and (2) effective because for each of 1,010 targets, it would save at least 50% of the total execution time of the tests triggered by the target.
Protein folding mediated by solvation: Water expulsion and formation of the hydrophobic core occur after the structural collapse

The interplay between structure-search of the native structure and desolvation in protein folding has been explored using a minimalist model. These results support a folding mechanism where most of the structural formation of the protein is achieved before water is expelled from the hydrophobic core. This view integrates water expulsion effects into the funnel energy landscape theory of protein folding. Comparisons to experimental results are shown for the SH3 protein. After the folding transition, a near-native intermediate with partially solvated hydrophobic core is found. This transition is followed by a final step that cooperatively squeezes out water molecules from the partially hydrated protein core.
Family Characteristics and the Returns to Schooling: Evidence on Gender Differences from a Sample of Australian Twins

Data from the Australian Twins Survey are analysed in order to compare the relative importance of the role of family background as a mediating influence on the relationship between schooling and income for males and females. The analysis reveals that family background is a considerably greater influence on males than on females. This finding is consistent with a greater screening role for education in the case of females and with a process of intergenerational transmission of inequality for males but not for females.
HIGH PRECISION TEXTURE RECONSTRUCTION FOR 3D SCULPTURE MODEL

High precision 3D sculpture model can take the accurate records of the shape, material and color on the surface of the sculpture. It is an important foundation work of digital documentation, preservation, archaeological research and analysis for the sculpture types of cultural heritage. Constructing high precision 3D sculpture model includes two aspects: geometry modeling and texture reconstruction. But, there are many urgent problems still existing in the method of high precision texture reconstruction. This paper discussed a method of high precision texture reconstruction based on non-rigid transformation for 3D sculpture model. First, coarse registration of texture image to geometrical model is conducted with direct linear transformation (DLT) method. Then, the registration is optimized with thin plane spline (TPS) function to reduce local matching errors between texture image and geometrical model. Finally, texture mapping is implemented with optimized registration result. The experiments based on the sculpture in Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes of China are conducted, and the efficiency and feasibility of the proposed methods are proved.
Satisfiability of word equations with constants is in PSPACE

We prove that the satisfiability problem for word equations is in PSPACE. The satisfiability problem for word equations has a simple formulation: find out whether or not an input word equation has a solution. The decidability of the problem was proved by G.S. Makanin (1977). His decision procedure is one of the most complicated algorithms existing in the literature. We propose an alternative algorithm. The full version of the algorithm requires only a proof of the upper bound for index of periodicity of a minimal solution (A. Koscielski and L. Pacholski, see Journal of ACM, vol.43, no.4. p.670-84). Our algorithm is the first one which is proved to work in polynomial space.
Evaluating Program Visualisation Systems : An Information-Based Methodology

A number of Program Visualisation (PV) systems have been developed to aid the debugging process by providing a detailed account of program execution. Despite their development, empirical claims for their efficacy are few. A review of related empirical evaluations identifies the lack of a principled and integrated approach as being a significant problem. This criticism combined with a description of SV within the context of the programming environment is used to develop a set of methodological criteria for future work. These requirements have motivated the implementation of the Prolog Program Visualization Laboratory (PPVL) which provides an integrated tracing environment comprising four Prolog tracers. An information-based methodology is then presented for evaluating Prolog tracers within the realistic programming environment provided by PPVL. Finally, a survey of PV design claims are used to focus future research.
Lighting difference based wrinkle mapping for expression synthesis

Nowadays, facial expression synthesis is widely used in expression simulation, recognition and animation. Texture feature (wrinkle) after face deformation largely reflects the genuineness of the synthesized expression, whose mapping is a critical step to the expression synthesis application. However, current lighting ratio based wrinkle mapping is sensitive to small source lighting and large lighting difference. In this work, a novel wrinkle mapping based on lighting difference fitting is proposed to improve the genuineness and robustness of mapped wrinkles. Experimental results on expression synthesis with large lighting difference show that the proposed algorithm is competitive on synthesizing visually genuine expressions.
A Deception Framework for Survivability Against Next Generation Cyber Attacks

— Over the years, malicious entities in cyber-space have grown smarter and resourceful. For defenders to stay abreast of the increasingly sophisticated attacks, the need is to understand these attacks. In this paper, we study the current trends in security attacks and present a threat model that encapsulates their sophistication. Survivability is difﬁcult to achieve because of its contra-dictory requirements. It requires that a critical system survives all attacks (including zero-day attacks), while still conserving the timeliness property of its mission. We recognize deception as an important tool to resolve this conﬂict. The proposed deception-based framework predicts an attacker’s intent in order to design a stronger and more effective recovery; hence strengthening system survivability. Each design choice is supported by evidence and a detailed review of existing literature. Finally, we discuss the challenges in implementing such a framework and the directions that can be taken to overcome them.
A Cav3.2 T-Type Calcium Channel Point Mutation Has Splice-Variant-Specific Effects on Function and Segregates with Seizure Expression in a Polygenic Rat Model of Absence Epilepsy

Low-voltage-activated, or T-type, calcium (Ca2+) channels are believed to play an essential role in the generation of absence seizures in the idiopathic generalized epilepsies (IGEs). We describe a homozygous, missense, single nucleotide (G to C) mutation in the Cav3.2 T-type Ca2+ channel gene (Cacna1h) in the genetic absence epilepsy rats from Strasbourg (GAERS) model of IGE. The GAERS Cav3.2 mutation (gcm) produces an arginine to proline (R1584P) substitution in exon 24 of Cacna1h, encoding a portion of the III–IV linker region in Cav3.2. gcm segregates codominantly with the number of seizures and time in seizure activity in progeny of an F1 intercross. We have further identified two major thalamic Cacna1h splice variants, either with or without exon 25. gcm introduced into the splice variants acts “epistatically,” requiring the presence of exon 25 to produce significantly faster recovery from channel inactivation and greater charge transference during high-frequency bursts. This gain-of-function mutation, the first reported in the GAERS polygenic animal model, has a novel mechanism of action, being dependent on exonic splicing for its functional consequences to be expressed.
The temperature of Europe during the Holocene reconstructed from pollen data

We present the first area-average time series reconstructions of warmest month, coldest month and mean annual surface air temperatures across Europe during the last 12,000 years. These series are based on quantitative pollen climate reconstructions from over 500 pollen sites assimilated using an innovative four-dimensional gridding procedure. This approach combines threedimensional spatial gridding with a fourth dimension represented by time, allowing data from irregular time series to be ‘focussed’ onto a regular time step. We provide six regional reconstructed temperature time series as well as summary time series for the whole of Europe. The results suggest major spatial and seasonal differences in Holocene temperature trends within a remarkably balanced regional and annual energy budget. The traditional mid-Holocene thermal maximum is observed only over Northern Europe and principally during the summer. This warming was balanced by a mid-Holocene cooling over Southern Europe, whilst Central Europe occupied an intermediary position. Changes in annual mean temperatures for Europe as a whole suggest an almost linear increase in thermal budget up to 7800 BP, followed by stable conditions for the remainder of the Holocene. This early Holocene warming and later equilibrium has been mainly modulated by increasing winter temperatures in the west, which have continued to rise at a progressively decreasing rate up to the present day. r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.