Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Color-Based Skin Detection and its Application in Video Annotation

Skin detection in visual data cannot be solved by analyzing the low level image features only: In an extensive online experiment we are able to show that even humans are not able to detect skin color reliably without knowing the context of their perception. To compensate for this ma- jor drawback of many approaches, we combine a state of the art recognition algorithm with color model based skin detection. Detected faces in videos are the basis for adap- tive skin color models, which are propagated throughout the video, providing a more precise and accurate model in its recognition performance than pure color based approaches. The approach is able to run in real-time and does not need prior data-specific training. We received challenging online videos from an online service provider and use additional videos from public web platforms covering a grand variety of different skin colors, illumination circumstances, image quality and difficulty levels. In an extensive evaluation we estimated the best performing parameters and decided on the best model propagation techniques. We show that adap- tive model propagation outperforms static low level detec- tion.
author-version of: Extending native mass spectrometry approaches to integral membrane proteins

Recent developments in native mass spectrometry and ion mobility have made it possible to analyze the composition and structure of membrane protein complexes in the gas phase. In this short review, we discuss the experimental strategies which allow to elucidate aspects of the dynamic structure of these important drug targets, such as the structural effects of lipid binding or detection of co-populated conformational and assembly states during gating on an ion channel. As native mass spectrometry relies on nano-electrospray of natively reconstituted proteins, a number of commonly used lipid-and detergent-based reconstitution systems have been evaluated for their compatibility with this approach, and parameters for the release of intact, native-like folded membrane proteins studied in the gas-phase. The strategy thus developed can be employed for the investigation of the subunit composition and stoichiometry, oligomeric state, conformational changes, and lipid and drug binding of integral membrane proteins.
Velocity of climate change algorithms for guiding conservation and management

The velocity of climate change is an elegant analytical concept that can be used to evaluate the exposure of organisms to climate change. In essence, one divides the rate of climate change by the rate of spatial climate variability to obtain a speed at which species must migrate over the surface of the earth to maintain constant climate conditions. However, to apply the algorithm for conservation and management purposes, additional information is needed to improve realism at local scales. For example, destination information is needed to ensure that vectors describing speed and direction of required migration do not point toward a climatic cul‐de‐sac by pointing beyond mountain tops. Here, we present an analytical approach that conforms to standard velocity algorithms if climate equivalents are nearby. Otherwise, the algorithm extends the search for climate refugia, which can be expanded to search for multivariate climate matches. With source and destination information available, forward and backward velocities can be calculated allowing useful inferences about conservation of species (present‐to‐future velocities) and management of species populations (future‐to‐present velocities).
SHOMAR: An Open Architecture for Distributed Intrusion Detection Services

Distributed Intrusion Detection Systems (DIDS) offer an alternative to centralized intrusion detection. Current research indicates that a distributed intrusion detection paradigm may afford greater coverage, consequently providing an increase in security. In some cases, DIDS offer an alternative to centralized analysis, consequently improving scalabity. SHOMAR, the distributed architecture presented in this paper, provides an open framework that enables secure access to heterogeneous software and hardware components of a distributed intrusion detection system. SHOMAR is built upon a simplified Public Key Infrastructure that provides for authentication, non-repudiation, anti-playback, and access control. This framework supports a broad spectrum of approaches, ranging from hierarchical to peer-to-peer. The system topology and rules governing access to intrusion detection services is based solely upon policy, which is enforced through the use of a capability manager. The protoype system uses Java. The Extensible Markup Language is the sole medium for data exchange between intrusion detection components. SHOMAR provides a distributed service infrastructure independent of the underlying communications network.
Explaining the last consumption boom-bust cyclein Ireland : the role of news and noise shocks

The objective of the paper is to explain the last boom and bust in consumption in Ireland by the failure of consumers to correctly distinguish permanent changes in productivity from temporary changes. It uses a business cycle model, where agents update their beliefs about long-run productivity using information -that they receive continuously- about the future state of the economy. The analysis finds that a large and prolonged disconnect between consumption and long-run productivity occurred in the years leading to the economic crisis, which led to -- over-consumption -- for several quarters. A strong downward adjustment in 2008 followed when Irish consumers finally realized their mistake.
Attitudes of Primary Care Providers Toward Diabetes: Barriers to guideline implementation

OBJECTIVE Primary care providers have been slow to adopt standards of care for diabetes, and continuing medical education (CME) programs have been minimally effective in changing provider behavior. The objective of this study was to explore the previously reported finding that attitudes, rather than knowledge, may impede primary care provider adherence to standards of care. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Study participants included 31 primary care providers attending an eight-session CME program on diabetes. Providers rated on a 10-point scale how the treatment of diabetes compared with that of five other chronic conditions (hypertension, hyperlipidemia, angina, arthritis, and heart failure; 1 = easier to 10 = harder; midpoint 5.5). In a subsequent open-ended qualitative interview, providers explained their scale ratings. RESULTS Diabetes was rated as significantly harder to treat than hypertension (24 of 30 >5.5; P < 0.001) and angina (20 of 30 >5.5; P = 0.03). A majority also rated hyperlipidemia (18 of 30) and arthritis (18 of 30) as easier to treat than diabetes. Explanatory themes underlying provider frustrations with diabetes include characteristics of the disease itself and the complexity of its management, and a perceived lack of support from society and the health care system for their efforts to control diabetes. CONCLUSIONS CME that addresses provider attitudes toward diabetes in addition to updating knowledge may be more effective than traditional CME in promoting adherence to standards of care. Additional changes are needed in our health care system to shift from an acute to a chronic disease model to effectively support diabetes care efforts.
Human robot interaction in industrial robotics. Examples from research centers to industry

Current state of the art in industrial robotics presents highly autonomous production plants, where an undefined number of robots work in cooperation to perform complicated tasks in an automatic way. However, these tasks are repetitive and generally do not allow a minimum change or variation in the overall process to obtain a successful result. In addition to this, these layouts do not allow any fast or easy change in the programmed operation, being not flexible at all. Contrary to this typical industrial situation, current research activities in industrial robotics are focused on human robot interaction and safety, to carry out added value operations that need to be performed both the human and the robot working together. This paper outlines real research cases of this latest type, which have as the final objective their set up in industrial facilities, presenting a review of the current state of the art in human robot interaction to explain, in following sections, successful industrial cases developed in the framework of European Commission Projects.
Shape Generation using Spatially Partitioned Point Clouds

We propose a method to generate 3D shapes using point clouds. Given a point-cloud representation of a 3D shape, our method builds a kd-tree to spatially partition the points. This orders them consistently across all shapes, resulting in reasonably good correspondences across all shapes. We then use PCA analysis to derive a linear shape basis across the spatially partitioned points, and optimize the point ordering by iteratively minimizing the PCA reconstruction error. Even with the spatial sorting, the point clouds are inherently noisy and the resulting distribution over the shape coefficients can be highly multi-modal. We propose to use the expressive power of neural networks to learn a distribution over the shape coefficients in a generative-adversarial framework. Compared to 3D shape generative models trained on voxel-representations, our point-based method is considerably more light-weight and scalable, with little loss of quality. It also outperforms simpler linear factor models such as Probabilistic PCA, both qualitatively and quantitatively, on a number of categories from the ShapeNet dataset. Furthermore, our method can easily incorporate other point attributes such as normal and color information, an additional advantage over voxel-based representations.
Distance to retail stores and risk of being homebound among older adults in a city severely affected by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake

Background: after the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, inactivity and the homebound status of older victims in affected areas have been a serious public health concern owing to the victims' prolonged existence as evacuees in mountainous areas. Objective: to evaluate the association between distances to retail stores and risks of being homebound. Design: secondary analysis of cross-sectional interview survey data with a geographical information analysis. Setting: Rikuzentakata, Iwate, a municipality seriously damaged by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Subjects: all Rikuzentakata residents aged 65 or older except for those living in temporary housing (n = 2,327). Methods: we calculated road distances between each residential address and retail stores, hawker sites and shopping bus stops, accounting for the extra load caused by walking on slopes. The prevalence ratio of being homebound adjusted for age, source of income and morbidity by road distance was estimated using Poisson regression with a generalised estimating equation. Results: those living at distances of 1,200 m or more were 1.78 (95% confidence intervals, 1.03–3.08) times more likely to be homebound (going out only every 4 or more days a week) among men and 1.85 (1.13-3.02) among women, compared with those residing in places <400 m from retail stores or shopping bus stops. The distances were reduced by new hawker and shopping bus services, but the improvements varied greatly across the districts. Conclusions: access to daily needs is essential to prevent homebound status. Post-disaster community diagnosis in terms of the built environment is important for strategic community restoration.
THE EFFECT OF PLANT GROWTH-PROMOTING BACTERIA ON THE DEVELOPMENT, YIELD AND YIELD COMPONENTS OF BREAD (TRITICUM AESTIVUM L.) AND DURUM (TRITICUM DURUM) WHEATS

This study was carried out with 3 replications and 24 parcels according to randomized complete blocks trial design between 2017 and 2018 as two separate experiments. The study was planned to determine the effects of previously identified Stenotrophomonas maltophilia TV14B (phosphate solubilizing), Bacillus atrophaeus TV83D (nitrogen fixation), Bacillus-GC group TV119E (phosphate solubilizing), Cellulomonas turbata TV54A (nitrogen fixation) and combined effects of Bacillus atrophaeus TV83D and Bacillus-GC group TV119E on the development of Ceyhan-99 and Fırat-93 bread wheat cultivars. According to the results, the highest grain yield for Fırat-93 durum wheat cultivar was obtained under full dose chemical fertilizer application (288.89 kg/da); while the highest grain yield (283.33 kg/da) in the case of bacteria applications was observed with Bacillus atrophaeus TV83D, nitrogen-fixation bacteria. The difference between these two was not significant, and these bacteria can be seen as an alternative to chemical fertilization. The highest yield among bacterial applications was obtained under treatment with Bacillus atrophaeus TV83D, a nitrogen-fixation bacterium with 319.45 kg/da, and the difference between them was statistically significant. At the end of the study it was concluded that Bacillus atrophaeus TV83D bacterial strain can be used as a microbial fertilizer because of its ability to increase grain yield significantly in both genotypes.
Role of plasmapheresis in the treatment of severe pruritus in pregnant patients with primary biliary cirrhosis: case reports.

BACKGROUND Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) may be associated with pruritus and, when present, may be accentuated during pregnancy. Several therapeutic modalities have been used to control itching caused by cholestasis, with variable responses. Drug therapies are ill-advised, particularly in early pregnancy. Plasmapheresis has been successful in controlling pruritus in patients with cholestasis. The use of plasmapheresis to alleviate severe life-threatening pruritus during pregnancy is reported in two patients with PBC. CASE PRESENTATIONS Two patients with PBC presented during their second trimester of pregnancy with severe pruritus that did not respond to the anion exchange resin cholestyramine. Their symptoms were disabling to the point that one patient had suicidal ideation. Given the severity of their symptoms, multiple sessions of plasmapheresis were instituted with good control of pruritus. Both patients tolerated the procedure well and delivered healthy babies. CONCLUSION Plasmapheresis is a relatively safe and rapidly effective treatment for severe pruritus during pregnancy in patients with PBC.
Influence of packet loss on wireless feedback control systems as a disturbance

: The knowledge of characteristics of the in ﬂ uence of packet loss is important to design controllers and observers which can reduce this in ﬂ uence on wireless feedback control systems. This paper clari ﬁ es the characteristics of the in ﬂ uence of packet loss as a disturbance that causes a di ﬀ erence between transmitted information and used information at the received side. Through the analyses of the in ﬂ uence of packet loss on both controller and controlled object sides, we clarify the power spectrum density of the in ﬂ uence on the controller side is not constant. Numerical results show an well-known approach - H ∞ controller, which can reduce the in ﬂ uence of white disturbances, can not reduce the in ﬂ uence of packet loss. Our analyses will be useful for good modeling of the in ﬂ uence of packet loss to design controllers and observers.
The structure of infectious disease outbreaks across the animal-human interface

Despite the enormous relevance of zoonotic infections to world- wide public health, and despite much effort in modeling individual zoonoses, a fundamental understanding of the disease dynamics and the nature of outbreaks arising in such systems is still lacking. We introduce a simple stochastic model of susceptible-infected- recovered dynamics in a coupled animal-human metapopulation, and solve analytically for several important properties of the cou- pled outbreaks. At early timescales, we solve for the probability and time of spillover, and the disease prevalence in the animal population at spillover as a function of model parameters. At long times, we characterize the distribution of outbreak sizes and the critical threshold for a large human outbreak, both of which show a strong dependence on the basic reproduction number in the animal population. The coupling of animal and human infection dynamics has several crucial implications, most importantly al- lowing for the possibility of large human outbreaks even when human-to-human transmission is subcritical.
A receiver operating characteristic partial area index for highly sensitive diagnostic tests.

PURPOSE Area under a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (Az) is widely used as an index of diagnostic performance. However, Az is not a meaningful summary of clinical diagnostic performance when high sensitivity must be maintained clinically. The authors developed a new ROC partial area index, which measures clinical diagnostic performance more meaningfully in such situations, to summarize an ROC curve in only a high-sensitivity region. MATERIALS AND METHODS The mathematical formation of the partial area index was derived from the conventional binormal model. Statistical tests of apparent differences in this index were formulated analogous to that of Az. One common statistical test involving the partial area index was validated by computer simulations under realistic conditions. RESULTS An example in mammography illustrates a situation in which the partial area index is more meaningful than Az in measuring clinical diagnostic performance. CONCLUSION The partial area index can be used as a more meaningful alternative to the conventional Az index for highly sensitive diagnostic tests.
Visualizing Indicators of Rootkit Infections in Memory Forensics

Research in the area of memory forensics has been flourishing over the last years, and powerful analysis frameworks such as Volatility have been developed. While these frameworks permit examining a forensic memory snapshot in great detail, they mainly aim at experienced investigators with a thorough knowledge of operating system internals. On the other hand, result correlation and interpretation is especially demanding for personnel with only marginal forensic expertise as they are often found in IT departments of smaller- and medium-sized enterprises. This task becomes even more challenging when attempting to detect traces of sophisticated malicious applications such as rootkits. In this paper, we present rkfinder, a plug-in for the well-known forensic framework DFF, that integrates major capabilities of Volatility into an intuitive and easy-to-use graphical user interface. Rkfinder generates an abstract, tree-like view of the system state, implements checks that are capable of revealing inconsistencies, and automatically highlights suspicious objects that may indicate the presence of a threat. Thereby, potential sources of a system infection are better visible and can be better addressed in the course of incident response.
Oncogenic properties of the endogenous fatty acid metabolism: molecular pathology of fatty acid synthase in cancer cells

Purpose of reviewThis review documents our rapidly changing perspectives on the function of fatty acid synthase-catalyzed endogenous fatty acid biogenesis in cancer biology. Recent findingsUp-regulation of fatty acid synthase gene expression and fatty acid synthase biosynthetic activity are molecular events accompanying the pathogenesis and natural history of cancer disease. First, the increased fatty acid synthase gene expression in precursor, preinvasive and invasive cancer lesions appears to represent an indirect, early epiphenomenon, occurring in response to a microenvironment containing regions of poor oxygenation and high acidity due to, for example, lack of an adequate angiogenesis and/or nutritional supply. Second, aberrant transduction cascades driven by cancer-associated oncogenic changes subvert the downregulatory effects of circulating fatty acids. Third, fatty acid synthase-dependent endogenous fatty acid metabolism actively contributes to cancer evolution by specifically regulating the expression, activity and/or cellular localization of proteins closely related to malignant transformation and/or cancer progression. SummaryFatty acid synthase-catalyzed endogenous fatty acid metabolism appears to be an obligatory acquisition selecting a biologically aggressive sub-group of cancer cells capable of growth and survival upon stresses such as hypoxia, low pH and/or nutritional deprivation. Considering that an ever-growing body of evidence demonstrates that fatty acid synthase-driven signalling actively regulates key cancer-controlling networks, we may hereafter redefine fatty acid synthase as a metabolic oncogene in human cancer cells.
Coheritability and Coenvironmentability as Concepts for Partitioning the Phenotypic Correlation

Central to the study of joint inheritance of quantitative traits is the determination of the degree of association between two phenotypic characters, and to quantify the relative contribution of shared genetic and environmental components influencing such relationship. One way to approach this problem builds on classical quantitative genetics theory, where the phenotypic correlation between two traits is modelled as the sum of a genetic component called the coheritability (hx,y), which reflects the degree of shared genetics influencing the phenotypic correlation, and an environmental component, namely the coenvironmentability (ex,y) that accounts for all other factors that exert influence on the observed trait-trait association. Here a mathematical and statistical framework is presented on the partition of the phenotypic correlation into these components. I describe visualization tools to analyze and ex,y concurrently, in the form of a three-dimensional (3DHER-plane) and a two-dimensional (2DHER-field) plots. A large data set of genetic parameter estimates (heritabilities, genetic and phenotypic correlations) was compiled from an extensive literature review, from which coheritability and coenvironmentability were derived, with the object to observe patterns of distribution, and tendency. Illustrative examples from a diverse set of published studies show the value of applying this partition to generate hypotheses proposing the differential contribution of shared genetics and shared environment to an observed phenotypic relationship between traits.
Linearity enhancement techniques in low OSR, high clock rate multi-bit continuous-time sigma-delta modulators

This paper evaluates two techniques to improve the linearity of the main feedback D/A converter in multi-bit continuous-time sigma-delta modulators (CT-SDM). A self-calibrated current-steering (SCCS) implementation of the D/A converter is compared to the usage of a data-weighted averaging (DWA) algorithm on the selection of uncalibrated D/A-elements. Two test-chips including the two different solutions are presented and measurement results are compared. Clocked at 300 MHz, the two CT-SDMs achieve a dynamic range of 67 dB (DWA) and 70 dB (SCCS), respectively, over an analog bandwidth of 15 MHz.