Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Equality and Efficiency: Policy for Globalisation

Policy responses to increasing wage inequality in advanced countries are considered. Protection is argued to be a means of diverting resources to appease particular interest groups at net cost to society. A social security system is shown to damp the effects of increased inequality at the cost of aggravated unemployment. Reforms linking benefits more firmly to work are shown to reduce unemployment and, in the presence of learning from experience, to raise productivity and reduce overall inequality.
Modeling the blow-blow forming process in glass container manufacturing : a comparison between computations and experiments

The blow-blow forming process is a widely used technique in glass container manufacturing (e.g., production of glass bottles and jars). This process typically takes few seconds and is characterized by large deformations and temperature gradients. In the work of Giannopapa (2008, "Development of a Computer Simulation Model for Blowing Glass Containers, " ASME J. Manuf. Sci. Eng., 130, p. 041003), the development of a computer simulation model for glass blowing was presented and demonstrated on dummy problems with an initially uniform glass temperature. The objective of this paper is to extend and further develop the simulation model to be used for industrial purposes. To achieve this, both steps of the blow-blow forming process of glass containers are simulated and tested against real industrial problems. In this paper, a nonuniform temperature distribution is considered for the blowing of the preform, which is reconstructed from temperature data provided by the industry. The model is validated by means of several examples regarding conservation properties, behavior of the flow, and comparison of the glass thickness with experimental measurements. Furthermore, by means of these examples, the sensitivity of the glass thickness to inaccuracies in the measurement and reconstruction of the initial temperature distribution is verified.
Performance of alternate routing methods in all-optical switching networks

We study routing methods in all-optical switching networks. In all-optical switching networks, the connection with more hops encounters more call blocking, and it is especially true in optical networks with no wavelength conversions. We therefore consider an alternate routing method with limited trunk reservation in which connections with more hops are prepared more alternate routes. Through developing an approximate analytic approach, we show that our method keeps good performance when compared with the existing alternate routing methods, and also that the fairness among connections can be improved. Further performance improvement is investigated by introducing a wavelength assignment policy and a dynamic routing method. An effectiveness of the proposed method is investigated through simulation.
Enhancement of textural features in normal & diseased ultra sonogram of liver by Gaussian smoothing

Texture analysis is a very powerful tool to analyze a given image. Texture analysis based on spatial gray-level dependence (SGLD) matrix computation was carried out over the input ultrasound images of livers to extract features, namely, maximum probability, uniformity, entropy, element difference moment of order 2, inverse element difference moment of order 2, homogeneity, correlation and contrast. In this work seventy-six ultrasound scan images of human normal livers and twelve ultrasound images of fatty livers as identified by the physician were collected from hospital. From each filtered image (by Gaussian filter) portion of the liver five sub-images were suitably cropped and taken as an input image for analysis. An unsupervised neural network learning technique, namely, Self Organizing Map (SOM) was employed to examine various cluster formations based on certain combination of textural features extracted from normal as well as fatty livers. The findings establish a fact that textural features in normal and diseased ultra sonogram of liver have been enhanced by Gaussian smoothing.
Compact color features with bitwise quantization and reduced resolution for mobile processing

Color features for recognition are often extracted from 8-bit images. However, some studies recommended the use of an arbitrary number of colors, often less than 256 colors. Because the use of less colors can led to a lower computational cost and less power consumption, this paper investigates the extraction of features using images with different pixel depth, i.e., number of colors, and using two resolution settings. We show that it is possible to obtain compact and effective descriptors, by extracting features with images of lower quantization and resolution parameters. Also, we propose a bitwise quantization algorithm that codifies the most significant color features. While it reduces the number of colors, the distances between the feature vectors are kept similar, benefiting mobile image applications.
Convex Optimization for Parallel Energy Minimization

Energy minimization has been an intensely studied core problem in computer vision. With growing image sizes (2D and 3D), it is now highly desirable to run energy minimization algorithms in parallel. But many existing algorithms, in particular, some efficient combinatorial algorithms, are difficult to par-allelize. By exploiting results from convex and submodular theory, we reformulate the quadratic energy minimization problem as a total variation denoising problem, which, when viewed geometrically, enables the use of projection and reflection based convex methods. The resulting min-cut algorithm (and code) is conceptually very simple, and solves a sequence of TV denoising problems. We perform an extensive empirical evaluation comparing state-of-the-art combinatorial algorithms and convex optimization techniques. On small problems the iterative convex methods match the combinatorial max-flow algorithms, while on larger problems they offer other flexibility and important gains: (a) their memory footprint is small; (b) their straightforward parallelizability fits multi-core platforms; (c) they can easily be warm-started; and (d) they quickly reach approximately good solutions, thereby enabling faster " inexact " solutions. A key consequence of our approach based on submodularity and convexity is that it is allows to combine any arbitrary combinatorial or convex methods as subroutines, which allows one to obtain hybrid combinatorial and convex optimization algorithms that benefit from the strengths of both.
Performance comparison of wavelet filters against signal processing attacks

The rapidly growing field of digital contents (image, audio, and video) has incited the need of copyright protection and content authentication, which can be used to verify against any unlawful attempt to either reproduce or juggle them in order to change their identity. Digital watermarking is a method providing a best result to the trouble of copyright protection and content authentication of digital contents. However, the digital contents can be easily obtained or facsimiled, misrepresented, distributed and stored. In this paper, we present the image watermarking method depends on the two most popular transform methods such as discrete wavelet transforms (DWT) and singular value decomposition (SVD). Based on observations, this algorithm combines the advantages and removes the disadvantages of these two transforms techniques. Also, we compare the results obtained from different wavelet filters against the number of signal processing attacks. This scheme is provides robust watermark without degradation of image quality.
Identifying Disease-Related Genes by Topological Features of Protein-Protein Interaction Network

To help the biomedical scientist pre-confirm the disease-related genes, we considered these gene as a whole research set and analyzed the topological features of their interaction network. Two strategies had been proposed to construct the disease-related gene network from the OMIM database. Using these two constructed sets, we trained two support vector machine prediction models, the accuracy of which are 75.09% and 83.63%. As a result, we gained 27 and 2873 potential disease-related genes respectively. The intersection of the two predicted sets contains 19 genes. In addition, gene locus’s with high appearance frequency were listed for further research.
History of the neurovascular concept of hypothalamo-hypophysial control.

It is indeed a great honor to be selected by the Society to receive the Hartman Award and I am most grateful. 1 was an ardent admirer of Carl Hartman from the time I first met him in the early ‘40’s at Stanford University. He was a personal friend of Joe Markee with whom I worked and whom 1 accompanied to Duke University and I had the benefit of numerous discussions while Hartman was visiting Markee’s laboratories in California and North Carolina. Hartman chaired a session in the Zoology meetings in Washington in the summer of 1948 in which I was presenting a short paper and I remember thinking how remarkable it was that this 70-year-old gentleman kept up so well with the literature and could stimulate such a lively discussion. Well, ten years later, in 1958, Chuck Lloyd organized a symposium in Syracuse, New York, and Carl Hartman was there, now close to 80, dynamically chairing the session in which Geoffrey Harris and I were the speakers. By that time, I was prepared for another repeat in 1968, but although Carl was active in the ‘60’s and published a book at the age of 84, he departed shortly before his 89th birthday in March, 1968. Many of the discussions with Hartman in Markee’s laboratories in the 1940’s concerned nervous control of pituitary-gonad function and the role of the pituitary portal system in transmitting information from the brain to the adenohypophysis. Those were exciting days and I thought it might be of interest to you to recall some of the events in the historical development of the neurovascular concept of hypothalamo-hypophysial control.
Evidence for both prelysosomal and lysosomal intermediates in endocytic pathways

Horseradish peroxidase (HRP), an enzyme internalized by fluid phase pinocytosis, has been used to study the process by which pinosome contents are delivered to lysosomes in Chinese hamster ovary cells. Pinosome contents were labeled by allowing cells to internalize HRP for 3-5 min. Following various chase times, cells were either processed for HRP and acid phosphatase (AcPase) cytochemistry or homogenized and fractionated in Percoll gradients. In Percoll gradients, pinosomes labeled by a 3-5 min HRP pulse behaved as a vesicle population more dense than plasma membrane and less dense than lysosomes. In pulse- chase experiments, internalized HRP was chased rapidly (3-6 min chase) to a density position intermediate between the "initial" pinocytic vesicle population and lysosomes. With longer chase periods, a progressive accumulation of HRP in more dense vesicles was observed. Correspondence between the HRP distribution and lysosomal marker distribution was reached after a approximately 1-h chase. By electron microscope cytochemistry of intact cells, the predominant class of HRP- positive vesicles after pulse uptakes or a 3-min chase period was characterized by a peripheral rim of reaction product and was AcPase negative. After 10-120-min chase periods, the predominant class of HRP- positive vesicles was characterized by luminal deposits and HRP activity was frequently observed in multivesicular bodies. HRP-positive vesicles after a 10- or 30-min chase were AcPase-positive. No HRP activity was detected in Golgi apparatus. Together these observations indicate that progressive processing of vesicular components of the vacuolar apparatus occurs at both a prelysosomal and lysosomal stage.
Campylobacter jejuni biofilms contain extracellular DNA and are sensitive to DNase I treatment

Biofilms make an important contribution to survival and transmission of bacterial pathogens in the food chain. The human pathogen Campylobacter jejuni is known to form biofilms in vitro in food chain-relevant conditions, but the exact roles and composition of the extracellular matrix are still not clear. Extracellular DNA has been found in many bacterial biofilms and can be a major component of the extracellular matrix. Here we show that extracellular DNA is also an important component of the C. jejuni biofilm when attached to stainless steel surfaces, in aerobic conditions and on conditioned surfaces. Degradation of extracellular DNA by exogenous addition of DNase I led to rapid biofilm removal, without loss of C. jejuni viability. Following treatment of a surface with DNase I, C. jejuni was unable to re-establish a biofilm population within 48 h. Similar results were obtained by digesting extracellular DNA with restriction enzymes, suggesting the need for high molecular weight DNA. Addition of C. jejuni genomic DNA containing an antibiotic resistance marker resulted in transfer of the antibiotic resistance marker to susceptible cells in the biofilm, presumably by natural transformation. Taken together, this suggest that eDNA is not only an important component of C. jejuni biofilms and subsequent food chain survival of C. jejuni, but may also contribute to the spread of antimicrobial resistance in C. jejuni. The degradation of extracellular DNA with enzymes such as DNase I is a rapid method to remove C. jejuni biofilms, and is likely to potentiate the activity of antimicrobial treatments and thus synergistically aid disinfection treatments.
PABTEC: Passivity-Preserving Balanced Truncation for Electrical Circuits

We present a passivity-preserving balanced truncation model reduction method for differential-algebraic equations arising in circuit simulation. This method is based on balancing the solutions of projected Lur'e equations. By making use of the special structure of circuit equations, we can reduce the numerical effort for balanced truncation significantly. It is shown that the property of reciprocity is also preserved in the reduced-order model. Network topological interpretations of certain circuit effects are given. The presented model reduction method is illustrated by numerical examples.
Bit error analysis of new generation wireless transceivers

There has been a spurt of activity in the development of digital wireless transceivers especially those operating in the ISM (industry scientific medical) bands. This is attributed to the fact that wireless systems have become more reliable, compact and easy to develop than ever before, leading to a well-perceived ubiquity. Most manufacturers do not document the error related performance and characteristics of their devices, thus entailing a detailed analysis by the developer or the user. We highlight tests to measure the bit error related performance of these new generation transceivers, with special emphasis on the TRF 6900A transceiver from Texas Instruments, a popular binary FSK (frequency shift keying) device. The test bed consists of a wireless modem based on the transceiver, and a personal computer executing a 'C' language code for baseband control and data source-sink, in order to test the device in various configurations and conditions. Our test analyses bit error rate and tries to highlight its relationship to various parameters such as attenuation, interference, occlusions, and modulation index, which in turn helps to evaluate the performance of a wireless device. This method can be easily extended to evaluate various other similar wireless transceivers offered in the market.
Autonomous navigation and exploration in a rescue environment

We present an approach Io autonomous exploration of a rescue environment. Exploration is based on unexplored frontiers and navigation on a two-level approach to the robot motion problem. Our method makes use of a motion planner capable of negotiating with very fine representations of the environment, that is used to move in a cluttered scenario. A topological path-planner "guides" the lower level and reduces the search space. The two algorithms are derived from two widely-used probabilistic algorithms, currently successfully deployed in many robot applications, the probabilistic roadmap and the rapid-exploring random trees. However, their adaptation to the rescue scenario requires significant extensions.
Feature Selection with the CLOP Package

We used the datasets of the NIPS 2003 challenge on feature selection as part of the practical work of an undergraduate course on feature extraction. The students were provided with a toolkit implemented in Matlab. Part of the course requirements was that they should outperform given baseline methods. The results were beyond expectations: the student matched or exceeded the performance of the best challenge entries and achieved very effective feature selection with simple methods. We make available to the community the results of this experiment and the corresponding teaching material: http://clopinet.com/isabelle/Projects/ ETH/Feature_Selection_w_CLOP. html.
Renal Physiology Distal Convoluted Tubule

The distal convoluted tubule is the nephron segment that lies immediately downstream of the macula densa. Although short in length, the distal convoluted tubule plays a critical role in sodium, potassium, and divalent cation homeostasis. Recent genetic and physiologic studies have greatly expanded our understanding of how the distal convoluted tubule regulates these processes at the molecular level. This article provides an update on the distal convoluted tubule, highlighting concepts and pathophysiology relevant to clinical
Movie2Comics: a feast of multimedia artwork

As a type of artwork, comics are prevalent and popular around the world. However, although there are several assistive software and tools available, the creation of comics is still a tedious and labor intensive process. This paper proposes a scheme that is able to automatically turn a movie to comics with two principles: (1) optimizing the information reservation of movie; and (2) generating outputs following the rules and styles of comics. The scheme mainly contains three components: script-face mapping, key-scene extraction, and cartoonization. Script-face mapping utilizes face recognition and tracking techniques to accomplish the mapping between character's faces and their scripts. Key-scene extraction then combines the frames derived from subshots and the extracted index frames based on subtitle to select a sequence of frames for cartoonization. Finally, the cartoonization is accomplished via four steps: panel scale, stylization, word balloon placement and comics layout. Experiments conducted on a set of movie clips have demonstrates the usefulness and e®ectiveness of the scheme.
Accelerated aging system for prognostics of power semiconductor devices

Prognostics is an engineering discipline that focuses on estimation of the health state of a component and the prediction of its remaining useful life (RUL) before failure. Health state estimation is based on actual conditions and it is fundamental for the prediction of RUL under anticipated future usage. Failure of electronic devices is of great concern as future aircraft will see an increase of electronics to drive and control safety-critical equipment throughout the aircraft. Therefore, development of prognostics solutions for electronics is of key importance. This paper presents an accelerated aging system for gate-controlled power transistors. This system allows for the understanding of the effects of failure mechanisms, and the identification of leading indicators of failure which are essential in the development of physics-based degradation models and RUL prediction. In particular, this system isolates electrical overstress from thermal overstress. Also, this system allows for a precise control of internal temperatures, enabling the exploration of intrinsic failure mechanisms not related to the device packaging. By controlling the temperature within safe operation levels of the device, accelerated aging is induced by electrical overstress only, avoiding the generation of thermal cycles. The temperature is controlled by active thermal-electric units. Several electrical and thermal signals are measured in-situ and recorded for further analysis in the identification of leading indicators of failures. This system, therefore, provides a unique capability in the exploration of different failure mechanisms and the identification of precursors of failure that can be used to provide a health management solution for electronic devices.
The Danish National Database for Asthma: establishing clinical quality indicators

Asthma is one of the most common chronic diseases worldwide affecting more than 300 million people. Symptoms are often non-specific and include coughing, wheezing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath. Asthma may be highly variable within the same individual over time. Although asthma results in death only in extreme cases, the disease is associated with significant morbidity, reduced quality of life, increased absenteeism, and large costs for society. Asthma can be diagnosed based on report of characteristic symptoms and/or the use of several different diagnostic tests. However, there is currently no gold standard for making a diagnosis, and some degree of misclassification and inter-observer variation can be expected. This may lead to local and regional differences in the treatment, monitoring, and follow-up of the patients. The Danish National Database for Asthma (DNDA) is slated to be established with the overall aim of collecting data on all patients treated for asthma in Denmark and systematically monitoring the treatment quality and disease management in both primary and secondary care facilities across the country. The DNDA links information from population-based disease registers in Denmark, including the National Patient Register, the National Prescription Registry, and the National Health Insurance Services register, and potentially includes all asthma patients in Denmark. The following quality indicators have been selected to monitor trends: first, conduction of annual asthma control visits, appropriate pharmacological treatment, measurement of lung function, and asthma challenge testing; second, tools used for diagnosis in new cases; and third, annual assessment of smoking status, height, and weight measurements, and the proportion of patients with acute hospital treatment. The DNDA will be launched in 2016 and will initially include patients treated in secondary care facilities in Denmark. In the nearby future, the database aims to include asthma diagnosis codes and clinical data registered by general practitioners and specialised practitioners as well.
Convergence of Nonconvergent IRK Discretizations of Optimal Control Problems with State Inequality Constraints

It has been observed that optimization codes are sometimes able to solve inequality state constrained optimal control problems with discretizations which do not converge when used as integrators on the constrained dynamics. Understanding this phenomenon could lead to a more robust design for direct transcription codes as well as better test problems. This paper examines how this phenomenon can occur. The difference between solving index 3 differential algebraic equations (DAEs) using the trapezoid method in the context of direct transcription for optimal control problems and a straightforward implicit Runge--Kutta (IRK) formulation of the same trapezoidal discretization is analyzed. It is shown through numerical experience and theory that the two can differ as much as O(1/h3) in the control. The optimization can use a small sacrifice in the accuracy of the states in the early stages of the trapezoidal method to produce better accuracy in the control, whereas more precise solutions converge to an incorrect solution. Convergence independent of the index of the constraints is then proven for one class of problems. The theoretical results are used to explain computational observations.