Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reflective SIFT for improving the detection of copy-move image forgery

Due to technology advancement the digital images are losing authenticity. Because of this different detection techniques are put forward. They check for the Genuinity of the images. We need to take care of image forgery. The images can be scaled, rotated, and flipped (mirror reflected). SIFT (Scale invariant feature transform) is mostly used to match images. But it fails for flipped images. A framework, mirror-reflection invariant feature transform (MIFT) is presented. Here, we will learn how MIFT improvise SIFT. The performance evaluation is demonstrated on various databases such as MICC-F2000 and CASIA V2.0.
Characterizing failure-causing parameter interactions by adaptive testing

Combinatorial testing is a widely used black-box testing technique, which is used to detect failures caused by parameter interactions (we call them faulty interactions). Traditional combinatorial testing techniques provide fault detection, but most of them provide weak fault diagnosis. In this paper, we propose a new fault characterization method called faulty interaction characterization (FIC) and its binary search alternative FIC_BS to locate one failure-causing interaction in a single failing test case. In addition, we provide a tradeoff strategy of locating multiple faulty interactions in one test case. Our methods are based on adaptive black-box testing, in which test cases are generated based on outcomes of previous tests. For locating a t-way faulty interaction, the number of test cases used is at most k (for FIC) or t(dlog2 k] + 1) + 1 (for FIC_BS), where k is the number of parameters. Simulation experiments show that our method needs smaller number of adaptive test cases than most existing methods for locating randomly-generated faulty interactions. Yet it has stronger or equivalent ability of locating faulty interactions.
Evaluation of Atlas-Based Attenuation Correction for Integrated PET/MR in Human Brain: Application of a Head Atlas and Comparison to True CT-Based Attenuation Correction

Attenuation correction (AC) for integrated PET/MR imaging in the human brain is still an open problem. In this study, we evaluated a simplified atlas-based AC (Atlas-AC) by comparing 18F-FDG PET data corrected using either Atlas-AC or true CT data (CT-AC). Methods: We enrolled 8 patients (median age, 63 y). All patients underwent clinically indicated whole-body 18F-FDG PET/CT for staging, restaging, or follow-up of malignant disease. All patients volunteered for an additional PET/MR of the head (additional tracer was not injected). For each patient, 2 AC maps were generated: an Atlas-AC map registered to a patient-specific liver accelerated volume acquisition-Flex MR sequence and using a vendor-provided head atlas generated from multiple CT head images and a CT-based AC map. For comparative AC, the CT-AC map generated from PET/CT was superimposed on the Atlas-AC map. PET images were reconstructed from the list-mode raw data from the PET/MR imaging scanner using each AC map. All PET images were normalized to the SPM5 PET template, and 18F-FDG accumulation was quantified in 67 volumes of interest (VOIs; automated anatomic labeling atlas). Relative difference (%diff) between images based on Atlas-AC and CT-AC was calculated, and averaged difference images were generated. 18F-FDG uptake in all VOIs was compared using Bland–Altman analysis. Results: The range of error in all 536 VOIs was −3.0%–7.3%. Whole-brain 18F-FDG uptake based on Atlas-AC was slightly underestimated (%diff = 2.19% ± 1.40%). The underestimation was most pronounced in the regions below the anterior/posterior commissure line, such as the cerebellum, temporal lobe, and central structures (%diff = 3.69% ± 1.43%, 3.25% ± 1.42%, and 3.05% ± 1.18%), suggesting that Atlas-AC tends to underestimate the attenuation values of the skull base bone. Conclusion: When compared with the gold-standard CT-AC, errors introduced using Atlas-AC did not exceed 8% in any brain region investigated. Underestimation of 18F-FDG uptake was minor (<4%) but significant in regions near the skull base.
Are We 'Persons' Yet?: Law and Sexuality in Canada

In 1929, the Privy Council of Canada declared that women were . persons. under the British North America Act. Seventy years later, a similar move is afoot to establish 'constitutional personhood' for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, and transgendered people. In Are We . Persons. Yet? , Kathleen A. Lahey documents the minimal extent to which human rights laws have improved the legal status of sexual minorities in Canada. She argues that, despite the significant legal progress made with the adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the traditional legal definition of . persons. continues to limit the legal, social, economic, and political freedom of queer people. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Lahey presents a historical analysis of litigation relating to sexuality and of the most recent constitutional decisions on sexuality in Canada and the United States. Further discussion concerns immigration law, inheritance law, and same-sex marriage, as well as the widespread exclusion of queers from government census and other statistical surveys. Are We . Persons. Yet? provides an excellent model for the analysis of discrimination on the basis of sex, race, sexuality, and marital status and a valuable reference for academics and activists alike.
A handwriting image texture characteristics extraction algorithm based on integer-to-integer wavelet transform

A texture analysis method for handwriting image based on integer-to-integer wavelet transform is proposed. As the main features of texture image are present in the details and the WT coefficients of the high-frequency part denotes the details of the image, the features deduced from WT coefficients can be used to retrieve the texture image, and this method is not sensitive to luminance, these virtues cannot be found in the traditional literature. Adopting the features extracted of such texture images employed this method as main basis, it can not only simplify the computation, and also do not lose main characteristics of handwriting images.
Stereochemical Correlation between 10-Hydroperoxyoctadecadienoic Acid and 1-Octen-3-ol in Lentinula edodes and Tricholoma matsutake Mushrooms

Linoleic acid (LA) incubated with a homogenate of Lentinula edodes or Tricholoma matsutake mushroom significantly increased the amount of (R)-1-octen-3-ol. The alcohol was identified as (S)-10-HODE with 90–87% and >99% enantiomeric excess (ee), respectively. During the incubation of LA with these homogenates in the presence of glutathione–glutathione peroxidase (GSH–GPx), which can reduce hydroperoxy fatty acids to the corresponding hydroxy acids, the formation of (R)-1-octen-3-ol was significantly inhibited, whereas the amount of 10-hydroxy-(8E,12Z)-8,12-octadecadienoic acid (10-HODE) was significantly increased. The acid was identified as (S)-10-HODE with 92–88% ee and >99% ee, respectively. The decrease in the amount of alcohol was approximately the same as the increase in amount of HODE in both mushrooms. These results indicate a stereochemical correlation between (R)-1-octen-3-ol and (S)-10-hydroperoxy-(8E,12Z)-8,12-octadecadienoic acid [(S)-10-HPODE] in both mushrooms.
Association Studies in Populus tomentosa Reveal the Genetic Interactions of Pto-MIR156c and Its Targets in Wood Formation

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate gene expression in many biological processes, but the significance of the interaction between a miRNA and its targets in perennial trees remains largely unknown. Here, we employed transcript profiling and association studies in Populus tomentosa (Pto) to decipher the effect of genetic variation and interactions between Pto-miR156c and its potential targets (Pto-SPL15, Pto-SPL20, and Pto-SPL25) in 435 unrelated individuals from a natural population of P. tomentosa. Single-SNP (single-nucleotide polymorphism) based association studies with analysis of the underlying additive and dominant effects identified 69 significant associations (P < 0.01), representing 51 common SNPs (minor allele frequency > 0.05) from Pto-MIR156c and its three potential targets, with six wood and growth traits, revealing their common roles in wood formation. Epistasis analysis uncovered 129 significant SNP-SNP associations with ten traits, indicating the potential genetic interactions of Pto-MIR156c and its three putative targets. Interestingly, expression analysis in stem (phloem, cambium, and xylem) revealed that Pto-miR156c expression showed strong negative correlations with Pto-SPL20 (r = −0.90, P < 0.01) and Pto-SPL25 (r = −0.65, P < 0.01), and a positive correlation with Pto-SPL15 (r = 0.40, P < 0.01), which also indicated the putative interactions of Pto-miR156c and its potential targets and their common roles in wood formation. Thus, our study provided an alternative approach to decipher the interaction between miRNAs and their targets and to dissect the genetic architecture of complex traits in trees.
Land, Power, and Economics on the Frontier of Upper Canada

The prevailing ideology in Ontario at the time was a conservative culture that rejected everything American and attempted to preserve the best of the British world in the new Eden. Those building the state believed that a social and political hierarchy composed of those possessing a "natural virtue" would serve society best. In consequence, a few individuals at the top of the hierarchy, through their access to power, came to control the bulk of the land, the basis of the economy. At the other end of the spectrum from the elite were those transforming the land and themselves through their own labour. How did the physical environment and government land policy affect the pattern of settlement and the choice of land for a viable farm? What was the price of land, and how common was credit? Did the presence of reserved lands hinder or promote development? How extensive was land speculation and how did it operate? Clark brings these issues and more to the forefront, integrating concepts and substantive issues through a problem-oriented approach. Blending qualitative and quantitative approaches, he weaves together surveyors' records, personal and government correspondence, assessment rolls, and land records to measure the pulse of this pre-industrial society.
Learn-and-Adapt Stochastic Dual Gradients for Network Resource Allocation

Network resource allocation shows revived popularity in the era of data deluge and information explosion. Existing stochastic optimization approaches fall short in attaining a desirable cost-delay tradeoff. Recognizing the central role of Lagrange multipliers in a network resource allocation, a novel learn-and-adapt stochastic dual gradient (LA-SDG) method is developed in this paper to learn the sample-optimal Lagrange multiplier from historical data, and accordingly adapt the upcoming resource allocation strategy. Remarkably, an LA-SDG method only requires just an extra sample (gradient) evaluation relative to the celebrated stochastic dual gradient method. LA-SDG can be interpreted as a foresighted learning scheme with an eye on the future, or, a modified heavy-ball iteration from an optimization viewpoint. It has been established—both theoretically and empirically—that LA-SDG markedly improves the cost-delay tradeoff over state-of-the-art allocation schemes.
The statics and dynamics of income

My assistants at ETH have a wall calendar—not with the usual pictures of Swiss mountains, hills and lakes, but with "quotations for intelligent people". Recently, the quotation for the week read as follows: "Even the future is no longer what it used to be in the past". Observe that also in this supposedly intelligent approach it seems impossible to speak about the future without referring to the past. I shall not deviate from this rule. Of course, my task is greatly simplified by the fact that Paul Johansen has just entertained you in a charming way about the past 25 years of ASTIN and the earlier endeavors leading to the foundation of ASTIN. In the year 1693, Edmond Halley constructed the first mortality table based on mortality data from Breslau which he had obtained through the intervention of Leibniz. This can be regarded as the starting point of actuarial science. In my opinion it can however not be considered as the starting point of the actuarial profession. Why? Yes, Halley's table was used for some eighty years because subsequent information coincided with his estimate of mortality. Yes, De Moivre, in his classic textbook of 1725, performed ingenious calculations of annuities, based on the same table. Yes, Siissmilch published the first basic and substantial work of demography in 1741 but—here comes the big but—no government (and nobody else sold annuity insurance at that time) made use of the available scientific method to calculate annuities. Perhaps the first statistical results to be taken seriously were the Northampton tables of 1780, devised by Richard Price. Incidentally, this date coincides reasonably well with the first valuation by William Morgan in 1786. Hence, I think that either of these dates may be taken, at the earliest, as the start of the actuarial profession, a profession being by definition a dedicated group of people accepted by society for the performance of a particular skill. Let me make my point explicit: We have historical evidence of the existence of actuarial science about 90 years prior to the emergence of the actuarial profession. Had I gone back to Johan de Witt and Johannes Hudde instead of Edmond Halley, this span would even exceed 100 years!
Exploiting multi-way branching to boost superscalar processor performance

This paper discusses exploiting multi-way branching to boost superscalar processor performance. The exploitation of multi-way branching contributes to a boost in superscalar processor performance through two effects: (1) increase of instruction-level parallelism and (2) reducing of the amount of branch penalty. The work presented in this paper comprises two conjunctive parts. The first part is a compiler technique called the SV (Shadow Variable) transformation. The second part is a new multi-way branching scheme developed in conjunction with the SV transformation. The SV transformation can transform program segments which multi-way branching is originally not applicable to into ones which multi-way branching is applicable to. The proposed multi-way branching scheme, meanwhile, is able to carry out multi-way branches efficiently, especially for those derived from applying the SV transformation, and requires no expensive hardware for implementation.
Planning for Stochastic Games with Co-Safe Objectives

We consider planning problems for stochastic games with objectives specified by a branching-time logic, called probabilistic computation tree logic (PCTL). This problem has been shown to be undecidable if strategies with perfect recall, i.e., history-dependent, are considered. In this paper, we show that, if restricted to co-safe properties, a subset of PCTL properties capable to specify a wide range of properties in practice including reachability ones, the problem turns to be decidable, even when the class of general strategies is considered. We also give an algorithm for solving robust stochastic planning, where a winning strategy is tolerant to some perturbations of probabilities in the model. Our result indicates that satisfiability of co-safe PCTL is decidable as well.
Simplified Occupancy Grid Indoor Mapping Optimized for Low-Cost Robots

This paper presents a mapping system that is suitable for small mobile robots. An ad hoc algorithm for mapping based on the Occupancy Grid method has been developed. The algorithm includes some simplifications in order to be used with low-cost hardware resources. The proposed mapping system has been built in order to be completely autonomous and unassisted. The proposal has been tested with a mobile robot that uses infrared sensors to measure distances to obstacles and uses an ultrasonic beacon system for localization, besides wheel encoders. Finally, experimental results are presented.
Integrin subunit expression by human osteoblasts and osteoclasts in situ and in culture.

The extracellular matrix may be considered as an insoluble local mediator which plays an important role in regulating cell function. Communication between the cell and its matrix occurs via the integrins, a family of transmembrane proteins composed of non-covalently linked alpha and beta subunits. The aim of this study was to establish which integrins are present on human bone cells in situ and in culture, using cryostat sections of undecalcified human bone, osteoclastoma tissue and cultured human osteoblasts. Integrin subunit expression was identified indirectly using alkaline phosphatase anti-alkaline phosphatase conjugates and FITC-labelled secondary antibodies. Subunits expressed by cultured human osteoblast-like cells were then quantified by FACS analysis. Staining patterns observed in situ show that osteoblasts and osteoclasts possess different integrin subunits. Osteoblasts primarily express alpha 1, alpha 3 and beta 1 and weakly express alpha 2. Osteoclasts express alpha 2, alpha V, beta 1 and beta 3. Subunits alpha 4, alpha 5, alpha 6, alpha L, alpha M and beta 2 were not expressed by either of these cell types. Expression of beta 1 by all cells of the osteoblastic lineage was constitutive, but alpha 1 and alpha 3 subunits were expressed by osteoblasts actively synthesizing bone and some of the osteoblast lining cells. All integrin subunits identified on osteoblasts in situ were maintained on culture but there was an increased expression of alpha 2 and alpha V subunits were weakly positive. Expression of alpha 2, alpha 3, alpha V and beta 1 subunits was independent of cell density but expression of alpha 1 was much greater in confluent cultures. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Labour market deregulation: does small business care?

This article reports on a study undertaken to investigate the effect of the NSW Industrial Relations Act 1991 upon a sample of small business enterprises drawn from the North Coast region of NSW. Empirical data for the study was collected through a questionnaire distributed to eighty small business enterprises throughout the Lismore City Region. The data collected was used to establish which areas of flexibility small businesses valued and how awards and trade unions impacted on the ability of small businesses to achieve flexibility in these areas. This study provides an insight into industrial relations processes taking place within the small business sector.
Concordance between whole‐exome sequencing and clinical Sanger sequencing: implications for patient care

The clinical translation of next‐generation sequencing has created a paradigm shift in the diagnostic assessment of individuals with suspected rare genetic diseases. Whole‐exome sequencing (WES) simultaneously examines the majority of the coding portion of the genome and is rapidly becoming accepted as an efficient alternative to clinical Sanger sequencing for diagnosing genetically heterogeneous disorders. Among reports of the clinical and diagnostic utility of WES, few studies to date have directly compared its concordance to Sanger sequencing, which is considered the clinical “gold standard”. We performed a direct comparison of 391 coding and noncoding polymorphisms and variants of unknown significance identified by clinical Sanger sequencing to the WES results of 26 patients. Of the 150 well‐covered coding variants identified by Sanger sequencing, 146 (97.3%) were also reported by WES. Nine genes were excluded from the comparison due to consistently low coverage in WES, which might be attributed to the use of older exome capture kits. We performed confirmatory Sanger sequencing of discordant variants; including five variants with discordant bases and four with discordant zygosity. Confirmatory Sanger sequencing supported the original Sanger report for three of the five discordant bases, one was shown to be a false positive supporting the WES data, and one result differed from both the Sanger and WES data. Two of the discordant zygosity results supported Sanger and the other two supported WES data. We report high concordance for well‐covered coding variants, supporting the use of WES as a screening tool for heterogeneous disorders, and recommend the use of supplementary Sanger sequencing for poorly‐covered genes when the clinical suspicion is high. Importantly, despite remaining difficulties with achieving complete coverage of the whole exome, 10 (38.5%) of the 26 compared patients were diagnosed through WES.
Approximation ratio of RePair

In a seminal paper of Charikar et al.~on the smallest grammar problem, the authors derive upper and lower bounds on the approximation ratios for several grammar-based compressors. Here we improve the lower bound for the famous {\sf RePair} algorithm from $\Omega(\sqrt{\log n})$ to $\Omega(\log n/\log\log n)$. The family of words used in our proof is defined over a binary alphabet, while the lower bound from Charikar et al. needs an alphabet of logarithmic size in the length of the provided words.
Improving Security Using Refined 16 X 16 Playfair Cipher for Enhanced Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)

The conventional playfair cipher has lost its potency due to the sophistication of modern systems that can break it by brute force. This work proposes an improved playfair encryption and decryption that will be hard to break by brute force procedure. It uses a 16 X 16 arrays of ASCII characters ensuring relevance in all computing fields instead of the conventional 26 upper case alphabets substitution. An implementation of the cryptographic concept was realized using PHP programming language and embedded in the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm. We argue from the perspective of cryptanalysis that our proposed approach is stronger and will be more difficult to break. Keywords: Playfair, cryptanalysis, encryption, decryption, security, ASCII.
TERRAIN ESTIMATION USING INTERNAL SENSORS

The US Army designed Experimental Unmanned Vehicle (XUV) [1], shown in Figure 1, is a semi-autonomous unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) that uses high fidelity sensors for reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition. One of the goals of XUV research is to develop autonomous mobility that enables the vehicle to maneuver over rugged terrain as part of a mixed manned and unmanned vehicle group. As part of this goal, the XUV must be able to autonomously navigate over different terrains at high speeds. The performance of autonomous navigation improves when the vehicle’s control system takes into account the type of terrain on which the vehicle is traveling. For example, if the ground is covered with snow a reduction of acceleration is necessary to avoid wheel slip. Previous researchers have developed algorithms based on vision and digital signal processing to categorize the traversability of the terrain. Others have used classical terramechanics equations to identify key terrain parameters. This paper presents a novel algorithm that uses the vehicle’s internal sensors to qualitatively categorize the terrain type in real-time. The algorithm was successful in identifying gravel, packed dirt, and grass.