Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Image classification using evolving fuzzy inference systems

Evolving fuzzy systems change by online updating of their parameters and structure; the number of fuzzy rules changes as long as there is new data. In literature, an evolving fuzzy system is mainly considered to be an unsupervised approach that builds and updates its clusters online as long as new data is available. In our previous works, we introduced a new supervised evolving fuzzy approach for segmenting medical images. In this paper, we demonstrate that this supervised evolving fuzzy approach can classify images. As an example we attempt to classify medical images based on their modalities. A set of features extracted from the image is used to train the fuzzy system with the modality class of the image as the fuzzy output. The proposed algorithm is applied to both ultrasound scans and magnetic reasoning images (MRI). The proposed algorithm is compared with the support vector machines (SVMs) and the K-nearest neighbour algorithm (KNN). The results show that evolving fuzzy systems can compete with well-establish clustering algorithms (and even surpass them) by delivering high classification rates.
Design of a Multilevel Cooperative Heuristic for the Graph Coloring Problem

Graph coloring is a well-known NP-hard problem with a number of practical applications including timetabling problems. Graph coloring is also difficult to solve because the natural expression of the cost function for this problem is characterized by large plateaus in which solutions "close" to each other have same cost (same number of colors). Plateaus are problematic to local search heuristics because of the lack of effective gradient in solutions neighborhood. The present work seeks to address this difficulty by adapting the multilevel cooperative search heuristic to solve the graph coloring problem. Multilevel cooperative search is a meta-heuristic based on information shared among concurrently executing search algorithms and different representation levels of the solution space. Information sharing and the multilevel representation combined with frequent re-starts of the local search algorithms can be used to compensate for the lack of gradient in cost functions. In the present work, re-starts are based of graph coloring solutions projected from a high level representation of the solution space to a lower level.
The Modifled Tempered Stable Distribution, GARCH Models and Option Pricing

We introduce a new variant of the tempered stable distribu- tion, named the modified tempered stable (MTS) distribution and we de- velop a GARCH option pricing model with MTS innovations. This model allows the description of some stylized empirical facts observed in financial markets, such as volatility clustering, skewness, and heavy tails of stock returns. To demonstrate the advantages of the MTS-GARCH model, we present the results of the parameter estimation. 2000 AMS Mathematics Subject Classification: 60E07, 91B84.
Open Microphone Speech Understanding: Correct Discrimination of in Domain Speech

An ideal spoken dialogue system listens continually and determines which utterances were spoken to it, understands them and responds appropriately while ignoring the rest. This paper outlines a simple method for achieving this goal which involves trading a slightly higher false rejection rate of in domain utterances for a higher correct rejection rate of out of domain (OOD) utterances. The system recognizes semantic entities specified by a unification grammar which is specialized by explanation based learning (EBL), so that it only uses rules which are seen in the training data. The resulting grammar has probabilities assigned to each construct so that overgeneralizations are not a problem. The resulting system only recognizes utterances which reduce to a valid logical form which has meaning for the system and rejects the rest. A class N-gram grammar has been trained on the same training data. This system gives good recognition performance and offers good out of domain discrimination when combined with the semantic analysis. The resulting systems were tested on a space station robot dialogue speech database and a subset of the OGI conversational speech database. Both systems run in real time on a PC laptop and the present performance allows continuous listening with an acceptably low false acceptance rate. This type of open microphone system has been used in the Clarissa procedure reading and navigation spoken dialogue system which is being tested on the International Space Station
Physically Valid Shape Parameterization for Monocular 3-D Deformable Surface Tracking

We develop a low-dimensional approximation of the set of possible deformations of smoothly deforming objects of planar topology. To this end, we propose a novel parameterization of inextensible surfaces that allows us first to effectively sample the space of all possible deformations, which is a priori very large, and then to derive the low-dimensional model using a simple dimensionality reduction technique. We incorporate the resulting models into a monocular tracking system that we use to capture complex deformations of objects such as sheets of paper or more flexible material. We also show that, even though the model was built by sampling the set of possible deformations of inextensible surfaces, it can also handle extensible ones.
Review of A Clinical Introduction to Freud by Bruce Fink. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2017. 384 pp.

Bruce Fink’s new book, A Clinical Introduction to Freud is a wellwritten, often insightful, yet ultimately frustrating book. When Fink is at his best, he is a clear, imaginative writer. His discussions of the unconscious, dreams, symptoms, and especially of two of Freud’s cases, Dora and the Rat Man, are excellent, supple, and informative. Fink shows how unconscious wishes are disguised and presents dreams as the royal road to uncovering the unconscious, as Freud did. Fink’s discussion of dreams is straightforward and imaginative and would be useful for early clinicians. His critiques of Freud’s technique, especially Freud’s reliance on authority, often transmitted through “interpretive blitzkrieg” (p. 194), are apt and to the point. Fink describes how symptom relief comes from tracing a symptom to its unconscious origin. He writes beautifully that “. I would venture to liken the contents of the unconscious to a computer virus . progressively corrupting one bit of data after another. In other words, the memory we push out of mind begins infecting other closely related memories, drawing them out of mind as well” (p. 9). The analyst’s job is to make these unconscious memories, wishes, and ideas conscious and accessible through “reverse engineering,” the goal of which is to “reverse the effects of the application known as repression” (p. 8). The analyst does this through working with slips of the tongue, dreams, and other such pathways into the unconscious. Here, I think, we have a snapshot of what Fink believes makes someone neurotic and what the therapist’s optimal role is in treatment. Fink wants to explicate, “. the myriad techniques he (Freud) devised with which to get at the unconscious and thereby undo many of the ill-effects of repression” (p. xiii). Fink writes that these “most basic methods Freud developed for accessing the unconscious are no
Probing the Nanosecond Dynamics of a Designed Three-Stranded Beta-Sheet with a Massively Parallel Molecular Dynamics Simulation

Recently a temperature-jump FTIR study of a designed three-stranded sheet showing a fast relaxation time of ~140 ± 20 ns was published. We performed massively parallel molecular dynamics simulations in explicit solvent to probe the structural events involved in this relaxation. While our simulations produce similar relaxation rates, the structural ensemble is broad. We observe the formation of turn structure, but only very weak interaction in the strand regions, which is consistent with the lack of strong backbone-backbone NOEs in previous structural NMR studies. These results suggest that either DPDP-II folds at time scales longer than 240 ns, or that DPDP-II is not a well-defined three-stranded β-sheet. This work also provides an opportunity to compare the performance of several popular forcefield models against one another.
Eye-Head Coordination for Visual Cognitive Processing

We investigated coordinated movements between the eyes and head (“eye-head coordination”) in relation to vision for action. Several studies have measured eye and head movements during a single gaze shift, focusing on the mechanisms of motor control during eye-head coordination. However, in everyday life, gaze shifts occur sequentially and are accompanied by movements of the head and body. Under such conditions, visual cognitive processing influences eye movements and might also influence eye-head coordination because sequential gaze shifts include cycles of visual processing (fixation) and data acquisition (gaze shifts). In the present study, we examined how the eyes and head move in coordination during visual search in a large visual field. Subjects moved their eyes, head, and body without restriction inside a 360° visual display system. We found patterns of eye-head coordination that differed those observed in single gaze-shift studies. First, we frequently observed multiple saccades during one continuous head movement, and the contribution of head movement to gaze shifts increased as the number of saccades increased. This relationship between head movements and sequential gaze shifts suggests eye-head coordination over several saccade-fixation sequences; this could be related to cognitive processing because saccade-fixation cycles are the result of visual cognitive processing. Second, distribution bias of eye position during gaze fixation was highly correlated with head orientation. The distribution peak of eye position was biased in the same direction as head orientation. This influence of head orientation suggests that eye-head coordination is involved in gaze fixation, when the visual system processes retinal information. This further supports the role of eye-head coordination in visual cognitive processing.
Safety Margins for Systematic Biometric and Financial Risk in a Semi-Markov Life Insurance Framework

Insurance companies use conservative first order valuation bases to calculate insurance premiums and reserves. These valuation bases have a significant impact on the insurer’s solvency and on the premiums of the insurance products. Safety margins for systematic biometric and financial risk are in practice typically chosen as time-constant percentages on top of the best estimate transition intensities. We develop a risk-oriented method for the allocation of a total safety margin to the single safety margins at each point in time and each state. In a case study, we demonstrate the suitability of the proposed method in different frameworks. The results show that the traditional method yields an unwanted variability of the safety level with respect to time, whereas the variability can be significantly reduced by the new method. Furthermore, the case study supports the German 60 percent rule for the technical interest rate.
Weekly cycle of NO 2 by GOME measurements: a signature of anthropogenic sources

Abstract. Nitrogen oxides (NO+NO 2 =NO x and reservoir species) are important trace gases in the troposphere with impact on human health, atmospheric chemistry and climate. Besides natural sources (lightning, soil emissions) and biomass burning, fossil fuel combustion is estimated to be responsible for about 50% of the total production of NO x . Since human activity in industrialized countries largely follows a seven-day cycle, fossil fuel combustion is expected to be reduced during weekends. This "weekend effect" is well known from local, ground based measurements, but has never been analysed on a global scale before. The Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) on board the ESA-satellite ERS-2 allows measurements of NO 2 column densities. By estimating and subtracting the stratospheric column, and considering radiative transfer, vertical column densities (VCD) of tropospheric NO 2 can be determined (e.g. Leue et al., 2001). We demonstrate the statistical analysis of weekly cycles of tropospheric NO 2 VCDs for different regions of the world. In the cycles of the industrialized regions and cities in the US, Europe and Japan a clear Sunday minimum of tropospheric NO 2 VCD can be seen. Sunday NO 2 VCDs are about 25-50% lower than working day levels. Metropolitan areas with other religious and cultural backgrounds (Jerusalem, Mecca) show different weekly patterns corresponding to different days of rest. In China, no weekly pattern can be found. The presence of a weekly cycle in the measured tropospheric NO 2 VCD may help to identify the different anthropogenic source categories. Furthermore, we estimated the lifetime of tropospheric NO 2 by analysing the mean weekly cycle exemplarily over Germany, obtaining a value of about 6 h in summer and 18-24 h in winter.
First detection of Zeeman absorption lines in the polar VV Puppis - Observations of low activity states

Aims. We investigated the low state of the polar VV Pup by collecting high S/N time series spectra. Methods. We monitored VV Pup with VLT+FORS1 and analyzed the evolution of its spectroscopic features across two orbits. Results. We report the first detection of photospheric Zeeman lines in VV Puppis. We argue that the photospheric field structure is inconsistent with the assumption that the accretion shocks are located close to the foot points of a closed field line in a dipolar field distribution. A more complex field structure and coupling process is implied making VV Puppis similar to other well studied AM Herculis type systems.
Selection of variables and dimension reduction in high-dimensional non-parametric regression

We consider a l1-penalization procedure in the non-parametric Gaussian regression model. In many concrete examples, the dimension d of the input variable X is very large (sometimes depending on the number of observations). Estimation of a �-regular regression function f cannot be faster than the slow rate n 2�/(2�+d) . Hopefully, in some situations, f depends only on a few numbers of the coordinates of X. In this paper, we construct two procedures. The first one selects, with high probability, these coordinates. Then, using this subset selection method, we run a local polynomial estimator (on the set of interesting coordinates)to estimate the regression function at the rate n 2�/(2�+d � ) , where d � , the "real" dimen- sion of the problem (exact number of variables whom f depends on), has replaced the dimension d of the design. To achieve this result, we used a l1 penalization method in this non-parametric setup. AMS 2000 subject classifications: Primary 62G08.
Stability Robustness of a Feedback Interconnection of Systems With Negative Imaginary Frequency Response

A necessary and sufficient condition, expressed simply as the dc loop gain (i.e., the loop gain at zero frequency) being less than unity, is given in this note to guarantee the internal stability of a feedback interconnection of linear time-invariant (LTI) multiple-input multiple-output systems with negative imaginary frequency response. Systems with negative imaginary frequency response arise, for example, when considering transfer functions from force actuators to colocated position sensors, and are commonly important in, for example, lightly damped structures. The key result presented here has similar application to the small-gain theorem, which refers to the stability of feedback interconnections of contractive gain systems, and the passivity theorem, which refers to the stability of feedback interconnections of positive real (or passive) systems. A complete state-space characterization of systems with negative imaginary frequency response is also given in this note and also an example that demonstrates the application of the key result is provided.
GROUNDED THEORY: UMA ANÁLISE DA PRODUÇÃO CIENTÍFICA BRASILEIRA EM ADMINISTRAÇÃO NO PERÍODO DE 2000 A 2014

Grounded Theory emerged as a way of generating theories; of developing a unique style that was able to fill the can fill the gap between "theoretically disinterested empirical research" and "empirically disinterested theories", proposing a way that would be solve this question. After about 50 years of use in the social sciences, what have been the results of research carried out using grounded theory in Brazil? The research uses a qualitative, descriptive approach, based on bibliographic research and on the construction of the theoretical framework and a literature review of 20 articles (with classification of between A1 and B1) published in national scientific journals and in the Annals of congresses of the National Association for Postgraduation and Research in Administration (ANPAD) published between 2000 and 2014, that indicated the use of this method in the development of empirical Disponível em: www.univali. br/periodicos ISSN: 1983-716X Revista Alcance – Eletrônica – vol. 24 – n. 2 – abr. /jun. 2017 259 research published to generate new theories. Among the main results, it is concluded that grounded theory, as a research method in the articles analyzed, is not applied uniformly, though the authors have used the steps and basic principles that have maintained the essence of the method. It was observed that most of the articles were planned and executed based on methodological procedures proposed by the method; although the authors have failed to consider some basic principles in the construction of these articles. All the articles analyzed in this study have not produced an actual theory, but rather, theoretical approaches.
RelB-Dependent Differential Radiosensitization Effect of STI571 on Prostate Cancer Cells

Radiation therapy is an effective treatment for localized prostate cancer. However, when high-risk factors are present, such as increased prostate-specific antigen, elevated Gleason scores and advanced T stage, undetected spreading of the cancer, and development of radiation-resistant cancer cells are concerns. Thus, additional therapeutic agents that can selectively sensitize advanced prostate cancer to radiation therapy are needed. Imatinib mesylate (Gleevec, STI571), a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, was evaluated for its potential to enhance the efficacy of ionizing radiation (IR) against aggressive prostate cancer cells. STI571 significantly enhances the IR-induced cytotoxicity of androgen-independent prostate cancer cells but not of androgen-responsive prostate cancer cells. The differential cytotoxic effects due to STI571 are associated with the nuclear level of RelB in prostate cancer cells. STI571 inhibits IR-induced RelB nuclear translocation, leading to increased radiosensitivity in aggressive androgen-independent PC-3 and DU-145 cells. In contrast, STI571 enhances RelB nuclear translocation in androgen-responsive LNCaP cells. The different effects of STI571 on RelB nuclear translocation are consistent with RelB DNA binding activity and related target gene expression. STI571 inhibits the phosphoinositide 3-kinase-AKT-IκB kinase-α pathway in PC-3 cells by decreasing the phosphorylation levels of phosphoinositide 3-kinase (Tyr458) and AKT (Ser473), whereas STI571 increases NF-κB inducible kinase (Thr559) phosphorylation, leading to activation of IκB kinase-α in LNCaP cells. These results reveal that STI571 exhibits differential effects on the upstream kinases leading to different downstream effects on the NF-κB alternative pathway in prostate cancer cells and suggest that STI571 is effective for the treatment of androgen-independent prostate cancer in the context of high constitutive levels of RelB. Mol Cancer Ther; 9(4); 803–12. ©2010 AACR.
Privacy-preserving nearest neighbor methods: comparing signals without revealing them

Comparing two signals is one of the most essential and prevalent tasks in signal processing. A large number of applications fundamentally rely on determining the answers to the following two questions: 1) How should two signals be compared? 2) Given a set of signals and a query signal, which signals are the nearest neighbors (NNs) of the query signal, i.e., which signals in the database are most similar to the query signal? The NN search problem is defined as follows: Given a set S containing points in a metric space M, and a query point x ! M, find the point in S that is closest to x. The problem can be extended to K-NN, i.e., determining the K signals nearest to x. In this context, the points in question are signals, such as images, videos, or other waveforms. The qualifier closest refers to a distance metric, such as the Euclidean distance or Manhattan distance between pairs of points in S. Finding the NN of the query point should be at most linear in the database size and is a well-studied problem in conventional NN settings.
Fast Image Search with Locality-Sensitive Hashing and Homogeneous Kernels Map

Fast image search with efficient additive kernels and kernel locality-sensitive hashing has been proposed. As to hold the kernel functions, recent work has probed methods to create locality-sensitive hashing, which guarantee our approach's linear time; however existing methods still do not solve the problem of locality-sensitive hashing (LSH) algorithm and indirectly sacrifice the loss in accuracy of search results in order to allow fast queries. To improve the search accuracy, we show how to apply explicit feature maps into the homogeneous kernels, which help in feature transformation and combine it with kernel locality-sensitive hashing. We prove our method on several large datasets and illustrate that it improves the accuracy relative to commonly used methods and make the task of object classification and, content-based retrieval more fast and accurate.
Optic pathway glioma: correlation of imaging findings with the presence of neurofibromatosis.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Despite the benign histology of optic pathway glioma (OPG) (low-grade astrocytoma), its biological behavior is unpredictable, and it is unclear whether specific morphologic or anatomic patterns may be predictive of prognosis. It is also unclear whether OPG associated with neurofibromatosis (NF) is a distinct entity from non-NF-OPG. Our purpose was to describe the MR imaging features of OPG, compare the findings between patients with and those without NF, and identify prognostic imaging signs. METHODS MR examinations of 91 patients with OPG (47 with NF and 44 without) were reviewed at presentation and during follow-up. The images were evaluated for size and extension of tumor, and imaging parameters. Statistical bivariate analysis was used to compare the patients with and those without NF, and Pearson correlation was used to evaluate the correlation between the different imaging parameters and prognosis. Kappa values were calculated to determine intraobserver and interobserver variability. RESULTS The most common site of involvement in the NF group was the orbital nerve (66%), followed by the chiasm (62%). In the non-NF group, the chiasm was the most common site of involvement (91%); the orbital nerves were involved in only 32%. Extension beyond the optic pathway at diagnosis was uncommon in the NF group (2%) but frequent in the non-NF group (68%). In the NF group, the tumor was smaller and the original shape of the optic pathways was preserved (91% vs. 27% in the non-NF group). The presence of cystic components was significantly more common in the non-NF patients (66% vs. 9% in the NF group). During follow-up, half the NF patients remained stable, in contrast to 5% of the non-NF group. No statistical correlation was found between imaging features and biological behavior of the tumor. CONCLUSION NF-OPG is a separate entity from non-NF-OPG, with different imaging features and prognosis, thereby warranting a specific diagnostic, clinical, and therapeutic approach.