Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phuket: tsunami and tourism: a preliminary investigation

This chapter examines the 2004 tsunami disaster in southern Thailand, its impact on tourism, and the management of the crisis. Based on this preliminary analysis, the following issues that have direct relevance to the design and application of a generic crisis management framework are discussed: (1) risk management with an 'all-hazards' approach; (2) pro-active network and resource development; (3) warnings, awareness and education; (4) communication and media relations; and (5) resilience and vulnerability reduction.
An improved rotation-invariant thinning algorithm

Ahmed and Ward [Sept. 1995] have recently presented an elegant, rule-based rotation-invariant thinning algorithm to produce a single-pixel wide skeleton from a binary image. We show examples where this algorithm fails on two-pixel wide lines and propose a modified method which corrects this shortcoming based on graph connectivity.
A distribution-matching approach to MRI brain tumor segmentation

This study investigates a fast distribution-matching algorithm for brain tumor segmentation. From a very simple user input, we learn a non-parametric model distribution which contains all the statistical information about the normal regions in the current brain image. We state the problem as the optimization of a cost function containing (1) an intensity distribution matching prior which measures a global similarity between non-parametric distributions, and (2) a smoothness prior to avoid the occurrence of small, isolated regions in the solution. Obtained following recent bound-relaxation results, the optimum of the cost function yields the complement of the tumor region in nearly real-time. Based on global rather than pixelwise information, the proposed algorithm does not require a complex learning from a large training set, as is the case in existing methods. Therefore, the ensuing results are independent of the choice of a training set. Quantitative evaluations and comparisons with several existing methods over publicly available data demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can yield a competitive performance.
Within-Subject Blood Pressure Level—Not Variability—Predicts Fatal and Nonfatal Outcomes in a General Population

To assess the prognostic significance of blood pressure (BP) variability, we followed health outcomes in a family-based random population sample representative of the general population (n=2944; mean age: 44.9 years; 50.7% women). At baseline, BP was measured 5 times consecutively at each of 2 home visits 2 to 4 weeks apart. We assessed within-subject overall (10 readings), within- and between-visit systolic BP variability from variability independent of the mean, the difference between maximum and minimum BP, and average real variability. Over a median follow-up of 12 years, 401 deaths occurred and 311 participants experienced a fatal or nonfatal cardiovascular event. Overall systolic BP variability averaged (SD) 5.45 (2.82) units, 15.87 (8.36) mmHg, and 4.08 (2.05) mmHg for variability independent of the mean, difference between maximum and minimum BP, and average real variability, respectively. Female sex, older age, higher-mean systolic BP, lower body mass index, a history of peripheral arterial disease, and use of &bgr;-blockers were the main correlates of systolic BP variability. In multivariable-adjusted analyses, overall and within- and between-visit BP variability did not predict total or cardiovascular mortality or the composite of any fatal plus nonfatal cardiovascular end point. For instance, the hazard ratios for all cardiovascular events combined in relation to overall variability independent of the mean, difference between maximum and minimum BP, and average real variability were 1.05 (0.96–1.15), 1.06 (0.96–1.16), and 1.08 (0.98–1.19), respectively. By contrast, mean systolic BP was a significant predictor of all end points under study, independent of BP variability. In conclusion, in an unbiased population sample, BP variability did not contribute to risk stratification over and beyond mean systolic BP.
A 3D discrete curvelet based method for segmenting dynamic textures

This paper presents a new approach for segmenting a video sequence containing dynamic textures. The proposed method is based on a 2D+T curvelet transform and an octree hierarchical representation. The curvelet transform enables to outline spatio-temporal structures of a given scale and orientation. The octree structure based on motion coherence enables a better spatio-temporal segmentation than a direct application of the 2D+T curvelet transform. Our segmentation method is successfully applied on video sequences of dynamic textures. Future prospects are finally exposed.
Ozone loss rates calculated along ER-2 flight tracks

Local ozone loss rates due to the ClO+ClO and BrO+ClO cycles are calculated using ClO, pressure, and temperature from in-situ aircraft measurements and representative BrO mixing ratios. Ozone loss during the vertical profiles executed by the ER-2 near 72°S usually extended over a deep altitude range rather than reaching a maximum at the top of the profiles. This is due to the strong pressure dependence of the rate determining steps. In the Antarctic, very high ozone loss rates (>5·106 cm−3 s−1) were observed at altitudes with potential temperatures below 400 K, where advective exchange is likely to be much more rapid than at higher altitudes. On September 22, 1987, the ER-2 measured an ozone loss rate of about 2.8 Dobson units (DU) per 12 sunlit hours in the 350–400 K range and 2.0 DU in the 400–450 K range near 72°S. Rapid ozone loss in the Arctic did not extend below 400 K in the available data. The calculated average loss rate, which is nonlinear, in general depends on the order in which the terms are averaged. Loss rates calculated by averaging the ClO, pressure and temperature for up to 2400 s (about 500 km) generally agree with the average of the local loss rate to within one percent except at the edge of the vortex, where the difference can be up to 30%. Adiabatic temperature changes of up to 10 K change the ozone loss rate by less than 10% because the temperature and pressure effects nearly cancel. Thermal decomposition of Cl2O2 was not important along sunlit portions of ER-2 flight tracks if equilibrium is assumed between ClO and Cl2O2. The effect of recalibration of the ClO data on the calculated loss rates is discussed.
A model of sea-foam thickness distribution for passive microwave remote sensing applications

[1] Foam formations at the sea surface significantly contribute to microwave brightness temperature signatures over the ocean for moderate to high wind speeds. The thickness of foam layers generated by breaking waves follows a specific distribution due to unsteadiness of breaking and the large range of wave scales involved in the phenomenon. Although the effect of a distributed thickness-parameter on the foam-induced microwave brightness temperature may be comparable to or larger than the fractional whitecap coverage, it is not yet included in brightness models. To fill this gap, we develop a dynamical model for the conditional fraction of sea-surface covered by whitecaps with given thickness, as a function of wind speed. It is an integrated function of the foam-layer lifetime and of the distribution of the total length of breaking fronts at given scale. The depth at which air bubbles are injected into the water column is scaled with breaking front velocity using reported dynamical properties of unsteady breaking regions. For wind speed less than 20 m/s, the model predicts that two thirds of the fractional whitecap coverage is due to layers on average thinner than 60 cm and 35 cm for crest- and static-foam formations, respectively. In unstable atmospheric conditions, an increase in wind speed from 7 to 20 m/s corresponds to a coverage-weighted foam-layer thickening of about 1 cm and 3.5 cm, respectively. In neutral conditions, the thickening is approximately 2 times lower. Still, this will induce doubling of foam emissivity at Ku and C bands.
A review of the theory and empirical evidence

Although volatility clustering has a long history as a salient empirical regularity characterizing high-frequency speculative prices, it was not until recently that applied researchers in finance have recognized the importance of explicitly modeling time-varying second-order moments. Instrumental in most of these empirical studies has been the Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (ARCH) model introduced by Engle (1982). This paper contains an overview of some of the developments in the formulation of ARCH models and a survey of the numerous empirical applications using financial data. Several suggestions for future research, including the implementation and tests of competing asset pricing theories, market microstructure models, information transmission mechanisms, dynamic hedging strategies, and the pricing of derivative assets, are also discussed.
Adult-onset hypogonadism: evaluation and role of testosterone replacement therapy

Testosterone deficiency (TD) has become a growing concern in the field of men’s sexual health, with an increasing number of men presenting for evaluation of this condition. Given the increasing demand for testosterone replacement therapy (TRT), a panel of experts met in August of 2015 to discuss the treatment of men who present for evaluation in the setting of low or normal gonadotropin levels and the associated signs and symptoms of hypogonadism. This constellation of factors can be associated with elements of both primary and secondary hypogonadism. Because this syndrome commonly occurs in men who are middle-aged and older, it was termed adult-onset hypogonadism (AOH). AOH can be defined by the following elements: low levels of testosterone, associated signs and symptoms of hypogonadism, and low or normal gonadotropin levels. Although there are significant benefits of TRT for patients with AOH, candidates also need to understand the potential risks. Patients undergoing TRT will need to be monitored regularly because there are potential complications that can develop with long-term use. This review is aimed at providing a deeper understanding of AOH, discussing the benefits and risks of TRT, and outlining each modality of TRT in use for AOH.
Les politiques du logement en France

Les politiques du logement en France visent a satisfaire plusieurs objectifs. Il s’agit en premier lieu d’assurer a chacun un logement qui corresponde a ses besoins et a ses capacites financieres. Le logement social, les aides au logement, les dispositifs d’aide a l’investissement locatif et le mecanisme de garantie des risques locatifs sont mobilises pour atteindre cet objectif. Afin d’assurer a tous un logement decent, l’entretien regulier du parc de logements et son amelioration energetique sont en outre assures par des incitations fiscales et des aides directes. Au-dela de cet objectif premier, d’autres buts sont poursuivis. Ainsi, encourager la mixite sociale fait partie des priorites en reaction a la concentration de populations en difficulte dans les zones defavorisees. L’accession a la propriete demeure egalement un objectif sous-jacent des politiques du logement, comme en temoigne la reforme mise en oeuvre en 2011, qui a refondu les differents mecanismes favorisant l’accession. L’objectif plus recent du verdissement des aides au logement s’est affirme, en particulier depuis le Grenelle de l’environnement de 2009. Le logement est ainsi un bien etroitement controle et subventionne par l’Etat. Mais il est aussi une source de revenus pour ce dernier : les prelevements portant sur le logement representent pres de 7 % des recettes fiscales totales. Ce Document de travail se rapporte a l’Etude economique de l’OCDE de la France 2011 (www.oecd.org/eco/etudes/france). Housing policies in France Housing policies in France are designed to meet several objectives. They consist primarily in ensuring that all households have housing that corresponds to their needs and financial means. Social housing, housing subsidies, schemes for rental investment and the tenancy guarantee scheme are used to reach that objective. To ensure decent housing for all regular maintenance of the housing stock and its improvement are also encouraged through tax incentives and direct subsidies. Beyond this first objective, other goals are pursued. Thus, encouraging social diversity became a priority in response to the concentration of groups in difficulty located in disadvantaged areas. Home ownership also remains an underlying objective of housing policies, as evidenced by the reform implemented in 2011, which consolidated the various mechanisms involved. The latest target aims at greening housing support, particularly since the “Grenelle de l’environnement” in 2009. Housing is therefore a good that is tightly controlled and subsidised by the State. But it is also one of its sources of revenues: levies on housing represent about 7% of total tax revenues. This Working Paper relates to the 2011 OECD Economic Survey of France (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/france).
A Real-Time Procedure for Progressive Multiplet Relative Relocation at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory

A real-time procedure has been set up to select and relocate relatively similar events recorded by the U.S. Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO, Hawaii) seismic network at the Observatory. It allows the relocation of such similar events with an uncertainty whose order of magnitude is 50 m horizontally and 100 m vertically. As a first step, a systematic exploration of the volcano to find similar events within the seismicity recorded between years 1988 and 2000 has been undertaken and allows events to be gathered into large multiplets. A generalized relative relocation of these similar events has been performed, and a database has been built from the result of this relocation. Incoming earthquakes are routinely compared to this database and relocated, and the database is updated. Preliminary results are presented and discussed. Manuscript received 21 May 2001.
An Architectural Design for Secure Mobile Remote Macro-Payments

The high market penetrations of mobile personal devices including mobile phones, PDAs have paved a way for the development of new application models in Mobile Commerce. Mobile phones are well suited with mobile commerce to reach the customers anywhere and at any time. Mobile Payments are the natural evolution of e-payment schemes that facilitate mobile commerce. The mobile payment markets are categorized into a combination of micro/macro-payments and remote/local mobile payment environments. A study reveals that there are different initiatives have already been launched in mobile remote macro-payment areas such as PayPal Mobile or Google Checkout Mobile. However, those initiatives are focused on a limited number of m-payment opportunities. For example, PayPal focused on P2P payments and mobile shopping via SMS. Also, the existing systems are still suffering from security breaches. This paper proposes an architectural design for Secure Mobile Payment System that supports remote macro-payments. The main aim of this architecture is to achieve end-to-end security using symmetric operations. Since the development of secure mobile payment system for remote macro payments is a hot research topic in research community, this paper proposes an effective architecture to carry out the payment transactions between the customer and merchant. The proposed architecture ensures high level security in transactions and provides convenient payment mechanism.
A CMOS bandpass filter for low-IF bluetooth receivers

A CMOS fully integrated 12th-order bandpass filter for low interemdiate frequency Bluetooth receivers is presented. The design is optimized to meet the selectivity and dynamic range requirements of Bluetooth while consuming relatively low power. The filter is based on unity gain cells and utilizes linearized MOSFET resistors for tuning. It exhibits a bandwidth of 1 MHz and a programmable center frequency range of 2 to 4 MHz. Experimental results obtained from a standard 0.5-mum CMOS chip show that the filter exhibits an in-band dynamic range of 53.3 dB at gain of 0 dB, and 52 dB at gain of 15 dB, while consuming a total current of 1.32 mA. Attenuations of more than 10, 38, and 55 dB, are achieved for blockers one, two, and three, respectively
Improving Data Quality in Data Warehousing Applications

There is a growing awareness that high quality of data is a key to today’s business success and dirty data that exits within data sources is one of the reasons that cause poor data quality. To ensure high quality, enterprises need to have a process, methodologies and resources to monitor and analyze the quality of data, methodologies for preventing and/or detecting and repairing dirty data. However in practice, detecting and cleaning all the dirty data that exists in all data sources is quite expensive and unrealistic. The cost of cleaning dirty data needs to be considered for most of enterprises. Therefore conflicts may arise if an organization intends to clean their data warehouses in that how do they select the most important data to clean based on their business requirements. In this paper, business rules are used to classify dirty data types based on data quality dimensions. The proposed method will be able to help to solve this problem by allowing users to select the appropriate group of dirty data types based on the priority of their business requirements. It also provides guidelines for measuring the data quality with respect to different data quality dimensions and also will be helpful for the development of data cleaning tools.
Towards an Inclusive and Evidence-Based Definition of the Maternal Mortality Ratio: An Analysis of the Distribution of Time after Delivery of Maternal Deaths in Mexico, 2010-2013

Progress towards the Millennium Development Goal No. 5 was measured by an indicator that excluded women who died due to pregnancy and childbirth after 42 days from the date of delivery. These women suffered from what are defined as late deaths and sequelae-related deaths (O96 and O97 respectively, according to the International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision). Such deaths end up not being part of the numerator in the calculation of the Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR), the indicator that governments and international agencies use for reporting. The issue is not trivial since these deaths account for a sizeable fraction of all maternal deaths in the world and show an upward trend over time in many countries. The aim of this study was to analyze empirical data on maternal deaths that occurred between 2010 and 2013 in Mexico, linking databases of the Deliberate Search and Reclassification of Maternal Deaths (BIRMM) and the Birth Information Subsystem (SINAC) of the Ministry of Health. Data were analyzed by negative binomial regression, survival analysis and multiple cause analysis. While the reported MMR decreased by 5% per year between 2010 and 2013, the MMR due to late and sequelae-related deaths doubled from 3.5 to 7 per 100,000 live-births in 2013 (p <0.01). A survival analysis of all maternal deaths revealed nothing particular around the 42 day threshold, other than the exclusion of 18% of women who died due to childbirth in 2013. The multiple cause analysis showed a strong association between the excluded deaths and obstetric causes. It is suggested to review the construction of the MMR to make it a more inclusive and dignified measurement of maternal mortality by including all deaths due to pregnancy and childbirth into the Maternal Death definition.
Sleep duration and all-cause mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies.

BACKGROUND Increasing evidence suggests an association between both short and long duration of habitual sleep with adverse health outcomes. OBJECTIVES To assess whether the population longitudinal evidence supports the presence of a relationship between duration of sleep and all-cause mortality, to investigate both short and long sleep duration and to obtain an estimate of the risk. METHODS We performed a systematic search of publications using MEDLINE (1966-2009), EMBASE (from 1980), the Cochrane Library, and manual searches without language restrictions. We included studies if they were prospective, had follow-up >3 years, had duration of sleep at baseline, and all-cause mortality prospectively. We extracted relative risks (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) and pooled them using a random effect model. We carried out sensitivity analyses and assessed heterogeneity and publication bias. RESULTS Overall, the 16 studies analyzed provided 27 independent cohort samples. They included 1,382,999 male and female participants (followup range 4 to 25 years), and 112,566 deaths. Sleep duration was assessed by questionnaire and outcome through death certification. In the pooled analysis, short duration of sleep was associated with a greater risk of death (RR: 1.12; 95% CI 1.06 to 1.18; P < 0.01) with no evidence of publication bias (P = 0.74) but heterogeneity between studies (P = 0.02). Long duration of sleep was also associated with a greater risk of death (1.30; [1.22 to 1.38]; P < 0.0001) with no evidence of publication bias (P = 0.18) but significant heterogeneity between studies (P < 0.0001). CONCLUSION Both short and long duration of sleep are significant predictors of death in prospective population studies.
Mechanism of filopodia initiation by reorganization of a dendritic network

Afilopodium protrudes by elongation of bundled actin filaments in its core. However, the mechanism of filopodia initiation remains unknown. Using live-cell imaging with GFP-tagged proteins and correlative electron microscopy, we performed a kinetic-structural analysis of filopodial initiation in B16F1 melanoma cells. Filopodial bundles arose not by a specific nucleation event, but by reorganization of the lamellipodial dendritic network analogous to fusion of established filopodia but occurring at the level of individual filaments. Subsets of independently nucleated lamellipodial filaments elongated and gradually associated with each other at their barbed ends, leading to formation of cone-shaped structures that we term Λ-precursors. An early marker of initiation was the gradual coalescence of GFP-vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein (GFP-VASP) fluorescence at the leading edge into discrete foci. The GFP-VASP foci were associated with Λ-precursors, whereas Arp2/3 was not. Subsequent recruitment of fascin to the clustered barbed ends of Λ-precursors initiated filament bundling and completed formation of the nascent filopodium. We propose a convergent elongation model of filopodia initiation, stipulating that filaments within the lamellipodial dendritic network acquire privileged status by binding a set of molecules (including VASP) to their barbed ends, which protect them from capping and mediate association of barbed ends with each other.
Face Detection on Different Algorithms used in Recent Decade

Face detection has been one of the most studied topics in the computer vision literature. In this technical report, we survey the recent advances in face detection for the past decade. The seminal Viola-Jones face detector is first reviewed. We then survey the various techniques according to how they extract features and what learning algorithms are adopted. It is our hope that by reviewing the many existing algorithms, we will see even better algorithms developed to solve this fundamental computer vision problem.