Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Complex wavelet based moving object segmentation using approximate median filter based method for video surveillance

This paper proposes complex wavelet-based moving object segmentation using approximate median filter based method. The proposed method is well capable of dealing with the drawbacks such as ghosts, shadows and noise present in other spatial domain methods available in literature. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated and compared with other standard spatial domain methods. The various performance measures used for comparison include RFAM (relative foreground area measure), MP (misclassification penalty), RPM (relative position based measure), NCC (normalized cross correlation) and the various methods are tested on standard Pets dataset. Finally, based on performance analysis it is observed that the proposed method in complex wavelet domain is performing better in comparison to other methods as presented in the paper.
Organisms associated with bacterial vaginosis in Nigerian women as determined by PCR-DGGE and 16S rRNA gene sequence.

BACKGROUND Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is a condition with diverse etiology. This condition predisposes women to increased susceptibility to sexually transmitted diseases, including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections and preterm birth. The diagnostic methods currently adopted in the evaluation of patient samples for BV are arguably Amsel criteria, and Nugent score that require microscopy and expert interpretation. These two methods are still subjective. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to determine the organisms present in the vagina of 34 HIV negative Nigerian women diagnosed as having bacterial vaginosis by using molecular techniques. METHODS The vaginal samples were subjected to DNA extraction, and amplified with eubacterial primers via PCR. The PCR products were separated using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). Bands were excised, re-amplified, purified and sequenced. Sequence identification was performed using the BLAST algorithm and Genbank data base. RESULTS Mycoplasma hominis (12/34; 35%) was the most common isolate and 9 (26%) contained one of two clones of an unusual Rainbow Trout intestinal bacterium, while unculturable Streptococcus sp, and other bacteria made up the remaining isolates. CONCLUSIONS The findings indicate further diversity in the etiological agents associated with BV, and raise the question as to whether diagnosis and management of this condition needs to be re-evaluated in countries like Nigeria. There is some controversy over the clinical importance of BV, as it was once regarded as a disease caused by Gardnerella and presenting as an odourous discharge condition, but is now diagnosed without necessarily the presence of these organisms or signs. With the incidence of BV aligned to an increased risk of HIV in a country ravaged by this virus, the effective eradication of BV can only be achieved if appropriate therapies are delivered.
Optimal Guaranteed Cost Control of Uncertain Discrete Systems with Both State and Input Delays: New LMI-Based Characterization and Methods

This paper addresses the guaranteed cost control for a class of uncertain discrete-time systems with both state and input delays. New linear matrix inequalities (LMI) characterizations are proposed for the existence of a state feedback controller which guarantees not only the asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system, but also an adequate performance bound over all the possible parameter uncertainties. A procedure is given to select a suitable state feedback controller that minimizes a bound on a quadratic performance index. The result exhibits some favorable features in computation which is shown by a numerical example
2012 International Conference on Information Management, Innovation Management and Industrial Engineering the Influence on Smes Entrepreneurial Process within a Cluster Business Network

Through the research on business network under cluster environment, the paper determines to explore the influence on SMEs entrepreneurial process within a cluster business network in order to make better use of network resources for entrepreneurial business to achieve great success. Firstly taking the cluster as the background, we describe the concept and composition of a cluster business network, then we analyze chances and resources for SMEs entrepreneurial process as well as the team concept and characteristics based on Timmons' entrepreneurial process model. Also through analyzing the influence of three main factors and processes of SMEs entrepreneurial process under different dimensions of a cluster business network, we propose the function model, expecting it can provide a reference for the SMEs entrepreneurial activities.
Dynamic Load Carrying Capacity of Flexible Manipulators Using Finite Element Method and Pontryagin’s Minimum Principle

In this paper, finding Dynamic Load Carrying Capacity (DLCC) of flexible link manipulators in point to-point motion was formulated as an optimal control problem. The finite element method was employed for modelling and deriving the dynamic equations of the system. The study employed indirect solution of optimal control for system motion planning. Due to offline nature of the method, many difficulties such system nonlinearities and all types of constraints can be catered for and implemented easily. The application of Pontryagin’s minimum principle to this problem was resulted in a standard two-point boundary value problem (TPBVP), solved numerically. Then, the formulation was developed to find the maximum payload and corresponding optimal path. The main advantage of the proposed method is that the various optimal trajectories can be obtained with different characteristics and different maximum payloads. Therefore, the designer can select a suitable path among the numerous optimal paths. In order to verify the effectiveness of the method, a simulation study considering a two-link flexible manipulator was presented in details.
Measuring and Analyzing the Liquidity of the Italian Treasury Security Wholesale Secondary Market

Although its importance, only recently the issue of liquidity in Treasury markets has received greater attention. We survey the literature about market liquidity and liquidity measures, and we put forward new measures. The aim is to provide a description of the liquidity of the Italian wholesale secondary market, which we describe thoroughly. We apply a large set of measures on a unique dataset, which gives us a complete view of the market. Even though the market provides an amount of liquidity that fits the market needs, the quality of the order book is low, and despite the presence of a large number of market makers, the degree of competition among them is not very high. Moreover, no clear and general relationship emerges between trading and order book measures. Indeed, even though trading activity is higher for on-the-run securities with respect to the off-the-run securities, there is not a sharp difference in terms of liquidity of the order book between them. In this case market regulation plays an important role. Finally, we investigate how long it takes for a new issue to become the benchmark for its segment. Our evidence shows that some modifications of the issuance policy in order to have a larger outstanding since the first auction could help securities in gaining earlier their benchmark status, especially in case of 10-year BTPs.
The price elasticity of external demand of Portuguese exports: a comparison with other euro area countries

We compute the price elasticity of external demand of Portuguese exports in the period 1995-2009, comparing it with other euro area countries. This proxy of the export price elasticity is calculated as a weighted average of the import demand elasticities in each individual country-product destination market, using the elasticities of substitution across imported varieties of Broda et al. (2006). Overall, Portugal tends to export to individual markets that have, on average, a lower price elasticity than the markets where other euro area countries export to. Therefore, the product and geographical composition of Portuguese exports reduces their exposure to relative price fl uctuations.
Analysis of demand paging policies with swapped working sets

The performance improvements brought by demand paging policies with swapped working-sets depend on several factors, among which the scheduling policy, the behaviour of the programs running in the system and the secondary memory latency characteristics are the more noticeable. We present in this paper a modelling approach to quantify the effects of these factors on the performance of a system running with a swapped working-sets policy. A preliminary analysis, conducted in the virtual time of the programs, shows their influence on the paging behaviour of programs. The results of this analysis are then used within a detailed queueing network of a multiprogrammed system. Computationnaly simple expressions for the CPU time spent in user state and in supervisor state are obtained for a class of paging policies ranging from pure demand paging to demand paging with swapped working-sets. Numerical examples illustrate the analysis, and these results are compared with measurements made on a real system running with swapped working-sets policies.
Optimum Forging Preform Shape Design by Interpolation of Boundary Nodes

In the present paper, a new method for forging preform design has been developed based on linear interpolation technique. The use of preform shapes obtained by this technique would result in enhancement of the geometrical and mechanical quality of final part. It was found that among the obtained preform shapes there exists one preform that gives more uniform accumulated equivalent plastic strain. Using plasticine as an ideal material to validate the findings it is shown that by the use of this optimum preform shape, the geometrical defects such as under filling and fold over defects may be eliminated in the final product. In addition, a more uniform strain distribution through final part is achievable. Therefore its metallurgical and mechanical properties are improved.
Collabio : Extracting Latent Information in Social Networks to Tag People

Applications such as personalization, ad targeting, and online expert matching benefit from having a rich understanding of a user’s history, opinions, personality, interests, and expertise. While current techniques rely on behavioral observation, automated document mining, or even selflabeling, we assert that social networks contain vast amounts of latent information about people that could be leveraged for this purpose. In this paper, we present Collabio, an application embedded in a social network that extracts this latent information by encouraging friends to tag each other with descriptive terms. Collabio is a simple game that leverages properties of the social network such as competition and social accountability in order to elicit a wide range of useful tags. To evaluate the efficacy of the approach, we examine usage statistics, ask users to verify the quality of their tags, and explore how Collabio tags augment ones that could have been generated through traditional online scraping techniques. Author
EMU Enlargement and Central Bank Independence: Which Concept of Convergence to Apply?

EMU enlargement not only depends on the individual state of convergence of the accession candidates, but also on their political situation. Therefore, we argue that institutional convergence, in particular monetary policy binding, is equally - if not more - important for successful monetary policy in Euroland than nominal and real convergence. Based on a constitutional political economy framework, we assess the degree of central bank independence (CBI) in CEE using different measures. It can be shown that the degree of central bank independence in CEE countries is considerably high; however, there is a (decreasing) gap to the ECB's independence with respect to external aspects of CBI.
SUPER SOC : PUTTING THE WHOLE ( AUTONOMOUS ) SYSTEM ON THE CHIP ( ASOC

With dramatic advances in transistor density, it’s time to look ahead to the completely autonomous system on a single die (ASOC). This represents a convergence of RFID type technology with SOC silicon technology coupled with silicon transducers, sensor controllers and battery, all on the same die. The major architectural implication is design for extremely low power (1 microwatt or less) and strict energy budget. This requires a rethinking of clocking, memory organization, and processor organization. The use of deposited thin film batteries, extremely efficient RF, digital sensors and MEMS complete the ASOC plan.
Progress in thermal comfort research over the last twenty years.

Climate change and the urgency of decarbonizing the built environment are driving technological innovation in the way we deliver thermal comfort to occupants. These changes, in turn, seem to be setting the directions for contemporary thermal comfort research. This article presents a literature review of major changes, developments, and trends in the field of thermal comfort research over the last 20 years. One of the main paradigm shift was the fundamental conceptual reorientation that has taken place in thermal comfort thinking over the last 20 years; a shift away from the physically based determinism of Fanger's comfort model toward the mainstream and acceptance of the adaptive comfort model. Another noticeable shift has been from the undesirable toward the desirable qualities of air movement. Additionally, sophisticated models covering the physics and physiology of the human body were developed, driven by the continuous challenge to model thermal comfort at the same anatomical resolution and to combine these localized signals into a coherent, global thermal perception. Finally, the demand for ever increasing building energy efficiency is pushing technological innovation in the way we deliver comfortable indoor environments. These trends, in turn, continue setting the directions for contemporary thermal comfort research for the next decades.
Democracy, decentralisation and deficits in Latin America

Within the 1990s, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, and other Latin American countries have experimented with one form or another of political decentralization. This book considers the problems raised by these activities in Latin America and identifies the challenges yet to be encountered. Because political decentralization devolves financial responsibility to regional and local governments, it can potentially destabilize centrally established fiscal and budgetary goals. The problem, then, is how to reconcile greater institutional democratization with the fiscal rigor and responsibility demanded by the international marketplace. This book brings together papers presented at the eighth annual meeting of the International Forum on Latin American Perspectives sponsored by the OECD Development Centre and the Inter-American Development Bank. The analyses of economists are confronted with the experiences of practitioners from Latin American countries, providing an examination of the risks and benefits decentralization holds for economic development.
Unsupervised Generation of Context-Relevant Training-Sets for Visual Object Recognition Employing Multilinguality

Image based object classification requires clean training data sets. Gathering such sets is usually done manually by humans, which is time-consuming and laborious. On the other hand, directly using images from search engines creates very noisy data due to ambiguous noun-focused indexing. However, in daily speech nouns and verbs are always coupled. We use this for the automatic generation of clean data sets by the here-presented TRANSCLEAN algorithm, which through the use of multiple languages also solves the problem of polyesters (a single spelling with multiple meanings). Thus, we use the implicit knowledge contained in verbs, e.g. in an imperative such as "hit the nail", implicating a metal nail and not the fingernail. One type of reference application where this method can automatically operate is human-robot collaboration based on discourse. A second is the generation of clean image data sets, where tedious manual cleaning can be replaced by the much simpler manual generation of a single relevant verb-noun tuple. Here we show the impact of our improved training sets for several widely used and state-of-the-art classifiers including Multipath Hierarchical Matching Pursuit. All tested classifiers show a substantial boost of about +20% in recognition performance.
Ice core record of rising lead pollution in the North Pacific atmosphere

A high‐resolution, 8000 year‐long ice core record from the Mt. Logan summit plateau (5300 m asl) reveals the initiation of trans‐Pacific lead (Pb) pollution by ca. 1730, and a >10‐fold increase in Pb concentration (1981–1998 mean = 68.9 ng/l) above natural background (5.6 ng/l) attributed to rising anthropogenic Pb emissions from Asia. The largest rise in North Pacific Pb pollution from 1970–1998 (end of record) is contemporaneous with a decrease in Eurasian and North American Pb pollution as documented in ice core records from Greenland, Devon Island, and the European Alps. The distinct Pb pollution history in the North Pacific is interpreted to result from the later industrialization and less stringent abatement measures in Asia compared to North America and Eurasia. The Mt. Logan record shows evidence for both a rising Pb emissions signal from Asia and a trans‐Pacific transport efficiency signal related to the strength of the Aleutian Low.
Latent membrane protein 1 of Epstein–Barr virus mimics a constitutively active receptor molecule

Latent membrane protein 1 (LMP1) of Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) is an integral membrane protein which has transforming potential and is necessary but not sufficient for B‐cell immortalization by EBV. LMP1 molecules aggregate in the plasma membrane and recruit tumour necrosis factor receptor (TNF‐R) ‐associated factors (TRAFs) which are presumably involved in the signalling cascade leading to NF‐κB activation by LMP1. Comparable activities are mediated by CD40 and other members of the TNF‐R family, which implies that LMP1 could function as a receptor. LMP1 lacks extended extracellular domains similar to β‐adrenergic receptors but, in contrast, it also lacks any motifs involved in ligand binding. By using LMP1 mutants which can be oligomerized at will, we show that the function of LMP1 in 293 cells and B cells is solely dependent on oligomerization of its carboxy‐terminus. Biochemically, oligomerization is an intrinsic property of the transmembrane domain of wild‐type LMP1 and causes a constitutive phenotype which can be conferred to the signalling domains of CD40 or the TNF‐2 receptor. In EBV, immortalized B cells cross‐linking in conjunction with membrane targeting of the carboxy‐terminal signalling domain of LMP1 is sufficient for its biological activities. Thus, LMP1 acts like a constitutively activated receptor whose biological activities are ligand‐independent.
Algorithms for robust signal subspace identification in hyperspectral images: A comparative analysis

In this work we present a comparative analysis of the performance of two recently proposed algorithms for signal subspace identification (SSI) and dimensionality reduction (DR) in hyperspectral data. Such SSI algorithms are robust to the presence of rare signal components and are particularly suitable when DR is adopted as a pre-processing step in small target detection applications.
Reprocessing of x-rays in agn. I. plane parallel geometry - test of pressure equilibrium

We present a model of the vertical stratication and the spectra of an irradiated medium under the assumption of constant pressure. Such a solution has properties intermediate between constant density models and hydrostatic equilibrium models, and it may represent a flattened conguration of gas clumps accreting onto the central black hole. Such a medium develops a hot skin, thicker than hydrostatic models, but thinner than constant density models, under comparable irradiation. The range of theoretical values of the ox index is comparable to those from hydrostatic models and both are close to the observed values for Seyfert galaxies but lower than in quasars. The amount of X-ray Compton reflection is consistent with the observed range. The characteristic property of the model is a frequently multicomponent iron K line.
A short review paper on Face detection using Machine learning

Detecting faces in images is the first step of any face application such as face recognition ,face localization and face expression. The performance of face detection systems directly affect on correct operating of mentioned applications. Because faces are non-rigid and have high variation in scale ,color ,pose and lighting condition ,designing an automatic system to overcome all mentioned problems is difficult. Machine learning has been shown that is one of the most successful tools to build high performance face detection systems. Due to huge number of studies in this area ,studying all works in this field is tedious. The purpose of this short review paper is to present ,categorize and evaluate some new face detection techniques using four conventional learning machine. The performance and the other evaluation parameters of these methods compare with each other in order to introduce significant techniques and also to state advantages and disadvantages of related works. Keywords—Face detection, Machine Learning, Feature Extraction
Player Remuneration in Professional Team Sports Leagues: Is there a Trade-off between Pay and Contract Length? ─ ─ Empirical Evidence from the NBA

Until recently, the transfer of professional teamplayers between European clubs placed limits on the operations of a free market in that there were rules restricting the terms placed on such transfers. However, the ruling of the European Court of Justice in December 1995 in the “Bosman case” declared that such arrangements were contrary to the provisions of article 48 of the EEC treaty. The effects of the ruling –a redistribution of property rights from the clubs to the players- induced an increase of average player salaries and longer contract duration. Using data from the National Basketball Association (NBA) the paper discusses a highly similar reallocation of property rights in North America and tests empirically the -so far- inconclusive question, if remuneration and contract-length are complementary or substitutes.
Adaptive allocation for usable frequency in FFR based femtocell network environment

Femto cell system is promising to provide costeffective strategy for high data traffic and high spectral efficient services in future wireless cellular system environment. However, the co-channel operation with current Macro networks occurs some severe interference between Macro and Femto cells. Hence, the interference cancellation or management schemes are imperative between Macro and Femto cells in order to avoid the decrease of total cell throughput. First, we briefly investigate the conventional resource allocation and interference cancellation scheme between Macro and Femto cells. Then, we propose an adaptive resource allocation scheme based on the distribution of Femtocell traffic in order to increase the cell throughput and also maximize the spectral efficiency over the FFR (Fractional Frequency Reuse) based conventional resource allocation schemes. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme attains a bit similar SINR (Signal to Interference Noise Ratio) distribution but achieves much higher total cell throughput performance distribution over the conventional resource allocation schemes for FFR and future IEEE 802.16m based Femtocell network environment.