Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Object Matching Using Boundary Descriptors

The problem of object recognition is of immense practical importance and potential, and the last decade has witnessed a number of breakthroughs in the state of the art. Most of the past object recognition work focuses on textured objects and local appearance descriptors extracted around salient points in an image. These methods fail in the matching of smooth, untextured objects for which salient point detection does not produce robust results. The recently proposed bag of boundaries (BoB) method is the first to directly address this problem. Since the texture of smooth objects is largely uninformative, BoB focuses on describing and matching objects based on their post-segmentation boundaries. Herein we address three major weaknesses of this work. The first of these is the uniform treatment of all boundary segments. Instead, we describe a method for detecting the locations and scales of salient boundary segments. Secondly, while the BoB method uses an image based elementary descriptor (HoGs + occupancy matrix), we propose a more compact descriptor based on the local profile of boundary normals’ directions. Lastly, we conduct a far more systematic evaluation, both of the bag of boundaries method and the method proposed here. Using a large public database, we demonstrate that our method exhibits greater robustness while at the same time achieving a major computational saving – object representation is extracted from an image in only 6% of the time needed to extract a bag of boundaries, and the storage requirement is similarly reduced to less than 8%.
Ergodic convergence in subgradient optimization

When nonsmooth, convex minimization problems are solved by subgradient optimization methods, the subgradients used will in general not accumulate to subgradients which verify the optimality of a solution obtained in the limit. It is therefore not a straightforward task to monitor the progress of a subgradient method in terms of the approximate fulfillment of optimality conditions. Further, certain supplementary information, such as convergent estimates of Lagrange multipliers and convergent lower bounds on the optimal objective value, is not directly available in subgradient schemes As a means of overcoming these weaknesses in subgradient methods, we introduce the computation of an ergodic (averaged) sequence of subgradients. Specifically, we consider a nonsmooth, convex program solved by a conditional subgradient optimization scheme with divergent series step lengths, and show that the elements of the ergodic sequence of subgradients in the limit fulfill the optimality conditions at the optimal solution,.
A virtualized link layer with support for indirection

The current Internet today hosts several extensions for indirection like Mobile IP, NAT, proxies, route selection and various network overlays. At the same time, user-controlled indirection mechanisms foreseen in the Internet architecture (e.g., loose source routing) cannot be used to implement these extensions. This is a consequence of the Internet's indirection semantics not being rich enough at some places and too rich at others. In order to achieve a more uniform handling of indirection we propose SelNet, a network architecture that is based on a virtualized link layer with explicit indirection support. Indirection in this context refers to user-controlled steering of packet flows through the network. We discuss the architectural implications of such a scheme and report on implementation progress.
Classification, Analysis And Interaction Of SolidAirborne Particles In Urban Environments

An analysis was made of airborne solid particulate matter in Cordoba, a city in the southwestern Iberian Peninsula with a Mediterranean climate. The detection and analysis techniques used enabled solid particles to be classified by size, by biogenic or non-biogenic origin, and by natural source of emission, e.g. pollen grains released by vascular plants during the pollen season, or particles attributable to human activity. Airborne particles of biogenic origin were predominant in the spectrum of the air in Cordoba. Intradiurnal variations in solid-particle counts closely reflected human activities, especially traffic. Peak biogenic-particle counts at times coincided with peak non-biogenic particle counts, suggesting that in certain weather conditions, particulate matter is not dispersed due to the high degree of atmospheric stability, and also that there may be interactions between the two types of particle, mediated by the presence of very small allergenic particles. This joint action may prompt a worsening of symptoms in pollen-allergy sufferers, as well as a deterioration in biological air quality.
SHORT MEASURES OF ORGANISATIONAL COMMITMENT, CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOUR AND OTHER EMPLOYEE ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOURS: ASSOCIATIONS WITH WELL-BEING

Background: There is considerable literature on Psychological Contract Fulfilment and other employee attitudes and behaviours. Similarly, there is increasing literature on well-being at work, the well-being process and short measures of psychosocial concepts.Aims and objectivesThe first aim of the present study was to develop short measures of employee attitudes and behaviours and validate these by examining associations with longer established measures. The second aim was to examine associations of these short measures with Psychological Contract Fulfilment and aspects of well-being.MethodsThe study involved an online survey of 166 workers from the USA recruited using Mechanical Turk and delivered using Qualtrics software. The survey included established measures and the newly developed short items.ResultsThere were high correlations between short items and established measures. The short items were associated with Psychological Contract Fulfilment and the well-being variables in the predicted direction.ConclusionThe new short items can be used in future multi-variate analyses of the well-being of workers. This will lead to an increase in our knowledge and the development of new models that can be of theoretical and practical significance. [KF1] [KF1]NB/ guidelines say that it should be 150 words or less
Effects of uncertainties in the thermodynamic properties of aerosol components in an air quality model – Part 1: Treatment of inorganic electrolytes and organic compounds in the condensed phase

Air quality models that generate the concentrations of semi-volatile and other condensable organic compounds using an explicit reaction mechanism require estimates of the physical and thermodynamic properties of the compounds that affect gas/aerosol partitioning: vapour pressure (as a subcooled liquid), and activity coefficients in the aerosol phase. The model of Griffin, Kleeman and co-workers (e.g., Griffin et al., 2003; Kleeman et al., 1999) assumes that aerosol particles consist of an aqueous phase, containing inorganic electrolytes and soluble organic compounds, and a hydrophobic phase containing mainly primary hydrocarbon material. Thirty eight semi-volatile reaction products are grouped into ten surrogate species which partition between the gas phase and both phases in the aerosol. Activity coefficients of the organic compounds are calculated using UNIFAC. In a companion paper (Clegg et al., 2008) we examine the likely uncertainties in the vapour pressures of the semi-volatile compounds and their effects on partitioning over a range of atmospheric relative humidities. In this work a simulation for the South Coast Air Basin surrounding Los Angeles, using lower vapour pressures of the semi-volatile surrogate compounds consistent with estimated uncertainties in the boiling points on which they are based, yields a doubling of the predicted 24-h average secondary organic aerosol concentrations. The dependency of organic compound partitioning on the treatment of inorganic electrolytes in the air quality model, and the performance of this component of the model, are determined by analysing the results of a trajectory calculation using an extended version of the Aerosol Inorganics Model of Wexler and Clegg (2002). Simplifications are identified where substantial efficiency gains can be made, principally: the omission of dissociation of the organic acid surrogates; restriction of aerosol organic compounds to one of the two phases (aqueous or hydrophobic) where equilibrium calculations suggest partitioning strongly in either direction; a single calculation of activity coefficients of the organic compounds for simulations where they are determined by the presence of one component at high concentration in either phase (i.e., water in the aqueous phase, or a hydrocarbon surrogate compound P8 in the hydrophobic phase) and are therefore almost invariant. The implications of the results for the development of aerosol models are discussed.
Myxoma virus therapy for human embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma in a nude mouse model

Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is a devastating tumor of young people that is difficult to cure. To determine if oncolytic virus therapy can improve outcomes in individuals with RMS, myxoma virus expressing a red fluorescent protein (MYXV-red) was evaluated for antitumoral effects using a murine model of RMS. Fluorescent protein was expressed in four RMS cell lines inoculated with MYXV-red, indicating that these cells were semipermissive to MYXV infection. MYXV-red replication and cytopathic effects were further evaluated using human embryonal RMS (CCL-136) cells. Logarithmic growth of MYXV-red and significant cell death were observed 72 hours after inoculation with MYXV. The oncolytic effects of MYXV-red were then studied in nude mice that were injected subcutaneously with CCL-136 cells to establish RMS xenografts. Once tumors measured 5 mm in diameter, mice were treated with multiple intratumoral injections of MXYV-red or saline. The average final tumor volume and rate of tumor growth were significantly decreased, and median survival time was significantly increased in MYXV-red-treated mice (P-values =0.0416, 0.0037, and 0.0004, respectively). Histologic sections of MYXV-red-treated tumors showed increased inflammation compared to saline-treated tumors (P-value =0.0002). In conclusion, MXYV-red treatment of RMS tumors was successful in individual mice as it resulted in decreased tumor burden in eight of eleven mice with nearly complete tumor remission in five of eleven mice. These data hold promise that MYXV-red treatment may be beneficial for people suffering from RMS. To our knowledge, this is the first report of successful treatment of RMS tumors using an oncolytic poxvirus.
Magnetic backgrounds and tachyonic instabilities in closed string theory

We consider closed superstrings in Melvin-type magnetic backgrounds. In the case of NS-NS backgrounds, these are exactly solvable as weakly coupled string models with spectrum containing tachyonic modes. Magnetic field allows one to interpolate between free superstring theories with periodic and antiperiodic boundary conditions for the fermions around some compact direction, and, in particular, between type 0 and type II string theories. Using “9–11” flip, this interpolation can be extended to M-theory and may be used to study the issue of tachyon condensation in type 0 string theory. We review related duality proposals, and, in particular, suggest a description of type 0 theory in terms of M-theory in a curved magnetic flux background in which the type 0 tachyon appears to correspond to a state in d=11 supergravity fluctuation spectrum.
Resource allocation for device-to-device communication overlaying two-way cellular networks

In this paper, a spectrum sharing protocol is proposed for device-to-device (D2D) communication overlaying cellular networks. Specifically, the protocol allows the D2D users to communicate bi-directionally with each other while assisting the two-way communication between the cellular base station (BS) and the cellular user (CU) over the same time and frequency resources. The achievable rate region of the sum-rate of the D2D transmissions versus that of the cellular transmissions is evaluated. The Pareto boundary of the region is found by optimizing the transmit power at BS and CU as well as the power splitting factor at the relay D2D node. We find through numerical results that the proposed two-way protocol with power control at the BS and CU is effective to improve the sum rate for both the D2D and cellular communication.
Peak systolic velocity indices are more sensitive than end-systolic indices in detecting contraction changes assessed by echocardiography in young healthy humans.

AIMS It remains to be proven whether left ventricular (LV) peak systolic velocity indices (peak systolic annulus tissue velocities, ejection velocity, and strain rate) are more closely related to contraction than LV end-systolic echocardiographic indices (ejection fraction, fractional shortening, systolic annulus displacement, global strain, and ejection velocity time integral). The study aimed to compare the ability of different echocardiographic methods in detecting contraction changes of the LV. METHODS AND RESULTS Thirty-three healthy volunteers (20-32 years) were examined by echocardiography at rest, during 10 μg/kg/min dobutamine (n = 20), and after injection of 15 mg metoprolol (n = 20). The effects of dobutamine and metoprolol on peak systolic velocity indices and end-systolic indices were compared. The relative increase from rest to dobutamine stress and the relative decrease after injection of metoprolol were 62 and -15% for peak systolic annulus tissue velocity, 60 and -11% for LV outflow tract (LVOT) peak velocity, 56 and -11% for peak systolic strain rate, 25 and 1% for ejection fraction, 30 and -1% for systolic mitral annulus displacement, 30 and -5% for LVOT velocity time integral, and 21 and -3% for global strain, respectively. The changes of the peak systolic indices were significantly higher (all P < 0.05) than the changes of the end-systolic indices. CONCLUSION Peak systolic velocity indices (mitral annulus tissue velocities, ejection velocities, and strain rate) exhibited greater variation than end-systolic indices during inotropic alterations from which it is assumed that they better reflected LV contraction.
A game-theoretic framework for classifier ensembles using weighted majority voting with local accuracy estimates

In this paper, a novel approach for the optimal combination of binary classifiers is proposed. The classifier combination problem is approached from a Game Theory perspective. The proposed framework of adapted weighted majority rules (WMR) is tested against common rank-based, Bayesian and simple majority models, as well as two soft-output averaging rules. Experiments with ensembles of Support Vector Machines (SVM), Ordinary Binary Tree Classifiers (OBTC) and weighted k-nearest-neighbor (w/k-NN) models on benchmark datasets indicate that this new adaptive WMR model, employing local accuracy estimators and the analytically computed optimal weights outperform all the other simple combination rules.
A Neural Network Approach to Intention Modeling for User-Adapted Conversational Agents

Spoken dialogue systems have been proposed to enable a more natural and intuitive interaction with the environment and human-computer interfaces. In this contribution, we present a framework based on neural networks that allows modeling of the user's intention during the dialogue and uses this prediction to dynamically adapt the dialogue model of the system taking into consideration the user's needs and preferences. We have evaluated our proposal to develop a user-adapted spoken dialogue system that facilitates tourist information and services and provide a detailed discussion of the positive influence of our proposal in the success of the interaction, the information and services provided, and the quality perceived by the users.
Closures for Ensemble-Mean Linear Dynamics with Stochastic Basic Flows

This paper demonstrates the validity of a second-order closure for the ensemble-mean dynamics using the approach of direct numerical ensemble simulations of a linear barotropic model with stochastic basic flows. For various configurations of the stochastic basic flow and external forcing, the deterministic solutions under the second-order closure capture, with remarkable accuracy, the ensemble means and the associated eddy covariance fields of forced responses simulated by a 500-member numerical ensemble. Thus, the second-order closure is found to be adequate for describing the ensemble-mean linear dynamics with stochastic basic flows. Moreover, simple analytical solutions based on the second-order closure also demonstrate that the stochastic component of a superrotational basic flow not only damps the ensemble-mean Rossby waves, but also enhances their eastward propagation. Various examples of ensemble-mean solutions all show the important role played by the stochastic synoptic eddy component of the basic flow in determining the ensemble-mean responses to external forcing. This study supports the notion that linear frameworks of ensemble-mean dynamics under second-order closure are useful tools for describing and understanding the dynamics of the synoptic eddy and the low-frequency flow (SELF) feedback and extratropical atmospheric low-frequency variability.
A personalized television listings service

COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM August 2000/Vol. 43, No. 8 107 The ClixSmart content personalization engine has been developed in the Department of Computer Science at University College Dublin. Its engine performs two essential tasks: It monitors the online activity of users (for a given Web site) and automatically constructs profiles for these users to capture their domain and behavioral preferences. (This task is carried out by the profile manager [5, 6]). The actions of individual users are stored as they select (click), browse, and read content assets, and this information is used to infer interest in specific content assets stored in the content database. Also, it uses this user profile information to personalize a target Web site by filtering information content for the target user, eliminating irrelevant content items and highlighting relevant ones [1–3, 7, 8, 10]. A Personalized TELEVISION LISTINGS SERVICE Barry Smyth and Paul Cotter
Using Semi-Projective Doll Play Methods to Classify Middle Childhood Children Into Four Attachment Types: Types Associations With Distinctive Psychosocial Adaptation

This research presents an adapted version of the Attachment Doll Story Completion Task for children in middle childhood (ADSCT for m-c), a measure for classifying children’s representations of mother-child attachment relationships into four attachment types: secure, avoidant, ambivalent, and disorganized. The ADSCT enables interviewers to partially circumvent the sophistication and defensiveness of middle childhood children's story completions. A sample of 185 children in the 4th and 5th grades, and 50 mothers of children from one 4th and one 5th grade class of that sample participated in the study. Children underwent the ADSCT for m-c procedure. Homeroom teachers, classmates, and the child reported on the children’s psychosocial adaptation. A sub-sample of the mothers completed measures of maternal caring attitudes and practices. Associations between the different attachment types and distinct forms of adaptation showed that secure attachment exhibited positive social relationships and a low level of psychosocial and behavior problems; disorganized attachment showed the poorest adaptation, manifested in psychosocial problems, behavior problems, social problem, aggressiveness, and victimization. Avoidant attachment exhibited social problems, peer rejection, behavior problems, and compulsive thought. And ambivalent attachment showed social vulnerability, and intermediate level of adaptation, between the better functioning of the securely attached and the problematic functioning of the insecurely attached. Concurrent validity of the ADSCT for m-c with maternal attitudes and practices, and discriminate validity with reference to key cognitive variables were good.
A virtualized platform for analyzing LTE broadcast services

Nowadays, users are demanding access to video content anytime and anywhere. LTE broadcast services and video streaming services can reduce the resources used by telecommunication companies to give access to video content and open up new business opportunities. In this context, testbeds and simulation tools can help in the analysis of the different parameters that need to be considered in the deployment of video services based on LTE. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of an open-source virtualized platform that supports both LTE broadcast services and video streaming services. The testbed is being used both over real LTE networks and LTE network emulations to analyze the performance of video streaming services and to validate new proposals.
Physical Therapists' Clinical Reasoning and Decision-Making Processes When Mobilizing Patients Who Are Critically Ill: A Qualitative Study

Purpose: Although mobilization is a widely practiced intervention for patients who are critically ill, the clinical reasoning and decision-making processes used by physical therapists to maximize its effectiveness warrants elucidation. This study's purpose was to investigate factors guiding physical therapists' clinical reasoning and decision-making processes when initiating and progressing mobilization in patients who are critically ill. Methods: In a 2-phased qualitative research design, 12 physical therapists working in a tertiary care university hospital were observed before, during, and after a mobilization session with 1 patient, followed by a semistructured interview. Results: Six categories (patient; intensive care unit-context; physical therapist; transfer; FITT parameters [frequency, intensity, type, and time]; and expected outcome) and 4 encompassing factors (safety and well-being; continuous assessment and intervention intertwined; individualized and response-driven intervention; and barriers and solutions) emerged as important in guiding participants' clinical reasoning when mobilizing their patients. Conclusions: The categories and encompassing factors identified, influenced, and guided participants in their clinical reasoning and decision-making when they initiated mobilization and progressed its parameters. The approach was goal-oriented and tailored to each patient's needs based on moment-to-moment evaluation of responses. The categories and factors that emerged favored a response-driven rather than a protocol-driven approach to mobilizing patients who are critically ill.
Optimization-based multiple target test generation for highly compacted test sets

Test compaction is an important aspect in the postproduction test since it is able to reduce the test data and the test costs, respectively. Current ATPG methods treat all faults independently from each other which limits the test compaction capability. This paper proposes a new optimization based SAT-ATPG for compact test set generation. Robust solving algorithms are leveraged to determine fault groups which can be detected by the same test. The proposed technique can be used during initial compact test generation as well as a post-process to increase the compactness of existing test sets, e.g, generated by commercial tools, in an iterative manner. Experimental results on industrial circuits and academic benchmarks show that this technique is able to significantly reduce the pattern count down to 40% for the initial test generation and down to 30% for the iterative reduction.