Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Creation of datasets from open sources

Machine learning is one of the fastest growing spheres in IT, but it still has some fundamental problems. Before training a neural network, it's necessary to collect a vast dataset of marked entries. However, manual collection of information takes a lot of time and resources. That is why one of the hardest problems to solve in deep learning is the problem of getting the right data with the proper tags. This paper aims at methods that allow to automatically create or update the marked dataset for building a car model classifier by the parser of known Internet sources, which uses a simple classifier to delete incorrect data. The main goal of this article is to prove that public sources can be used to collect the correctly selected and marked data.
RSB calibration of SNPP VIIRS using solar diffuser illuminated by scattered light

We present a new variant to the on-orbit calibration methodology for the reflective solar bands (RSBs) of SNPP VIIRS using solar diffuser (SD). Instead of following the standard method using full solar illumination through SD port that occurs during terminator crossing, we use light scattered off Earth scenes coming through the nadir port as the source of illumination for the SD. We describe the methodology, present the result, and compare with standard result. The scattered light signal for each orbit is summed up and a 16-day average is taken to build up the calibration coefficient trend. The preliminary result for SNPP VIIRS Bands M1 through M7 shows the scatter light-based approach to be viable, with its calibration coefficient result very well match the standard RSB calibration result over the entire mission to date. The preliminary result does show more variation, on the level of 2%. The methodology is applicable to other instruments employing a similar SD-based calibration strategy. Specifically for the twin MODIS in which the on-orbit RSB calibration is effectively identical, this approach is directly applicable as is.
FAIMUSS: Flexible Data Transformation to RDF from Multiple Streaming Sources

In this paper, we present FAIMUSS a tool for data transformation from a wide variety of heterogeneous streaming and archival sources to RDF. This is a typical situation in the analysis of mobility data, such as maritime and aviation, where streaming position data of moving objects need to be associated with static information (such as crossing sectors, protected geographical areas, weather, etc.) in order to provide semantically enriched trajectories. FAIMUSS is designed to perform “near-to-the-sources” integration, by interaction between a streaming source and an archival source, thus generating linked RDF graph fragments. Most of the existing approaches operate either on streaming or on static sources, thus fail to address our problem setting. In addition, FAIMUSS supports reusable user-defined functions that are applied to input data and achieve the desired data transformations and cleaning. We demonstrate our prototype by using data from the maritime and aviation domains.
Code Obfuscation: Why is This Still a Thing?

Early developments in code obfuscation were chiefly motivated by the needs of Digital Rights Management (DRM). Other suggested applications included intellectual property protection of software and code diversification to combat the monoculture problem of operating systems. Code obfuscation is typically employed in security scenarios where an adversary is in complete control over a device and the software it contains and can tamper with it at will. We call such situations the Man-At-The-End (MATE) scenario. MATE scenarios are the best of all worlds for attackers and, consequently, the worst of all worlds for defenders: Not only do attackers have physical access to a device and can reverse engineer and tamper with it at their leisure, they often have unbounded resources (time, computational power, etc.) to do so. Defenders, on the other hand, are often severely constrained in the types of protective techniques available to them and the amount of overhead they can tolerate. In other words, there is an asymmetry between the constraints of attackers and defenders. Moreover, DRM is becoming less prevalent (songs for sale on the Apple iTunes Store are no longer protected by DRM, for example); there are new cryptographically-based obfuscation techniques that promise provably secure obfuscation; secure enclaves are making it into commodity hardware, providing a safe haven for security sensitive code; and recent advances in program analysis and generic de-obfuscation provide algorithms that render current code obfuscation techniques impotent. Thus, one may reasonably ask the question: "Is Code Obfuscation Still a Thing? " Somewhat surprisingly, it appears that the answer is yes. In a recent report, Gartner lists 19 companies active in this space (8 of which were founded since 2010) and there are still (in 2017) many papers published on code obfuscation, code de-obfuscation, anti-tamper protection, reverse engineering, and related technologies. One of the reasons for this resurgence of code obfuscation as a protective technology is that, more and more, we are faced with applications where security-sensitive code needs to run on unsecured endpoints. In this talk we will show MATE attacks that appear in many novel and unlikely scenarios, including smart cars, smart meters, mobile applications such as Snapchat and smartphone games, Internet of Things applications, and ad blockers in web browsers. We will furthermore show novel code obfuscation techniques that increase the workload of attackers and which, at least for a time, purport to restore the symmetry between attackers and defenders.
Singing voice identification and lyrics transcription for music information retrieval invited paper

This paper presents an overview of methods and applications dealing with analysis of singing voice audio signals, related to singer identity and lyrics content of the singing. Singer identification in polyphonic music is based on general audio classification methods. The presence of instruments is detrimental to voice identification performance, and eliminating the effect of instrumental accompaniment is an important aspect of the prob-lem. The results show that classification of singing voices can be done robustly in polyphonic music when using source separation. Lyrics transcription is approached as a speech recognition prob-lem, with specific elements for dealing with singing voice. The variability of phonation in singing poses a significant challenge to the speech recognition approach. The word recognition accuracy of the lyrics transcription from singing is quite low, but it is shown to be useful in a query-by-singing application, for performing a textual search based on the words recognized from the query. A system for automatic alignment of lyrics and audio is also presented, with sufficient performance for facilitating applications such as automatic karaoke annotation or song browsing.
Colors on grey: Chevreul's laws of contrast and depth

Chevreul (1839) predicted that a color on a grey background would be the least likely to produce mutual interactions altering the appearance of either (law of true color), and that its luminance contrast directly determines its likelihood to be seen as figure against the grey background (law of contrast). We show that such "true" colors produce unsuspected simultaneous brightness induction effects on their grey backgrounds, where assimilation and apparent contrast may occur in one and the same configuration. We examined the possible link between these induction effects and the perceived relative depth of colored and achromatic inducers as a function of their luminance contrast. In a first task, we measured probabilities of contrast, assimilation, and no effect in a three-alternative forced-choice procedure (background appears brighter on "left", on "right", or the "same"). Sets of 20 red, green, blue, yellow, and light grey, square-shaped inducers were placed on light and dark grey background fields. Inducers of a sole color, darker on one side of the display and brighter on the other, were shown on spatially separated backgrounds and on single fields of a given intensity. Background intensity varied between displays, generating five different levels of inducer contrast for each color, presented in random order. Experiments were run under three environmental conditions: dark-adaptation, daylight, and rod-saturation after exposure to bright light. While these had no significant influence on induction effects produced by colored inducers, we found that achromatic inducers produced significantly stronger contrast effects after dark-adaptation, and significantly stronger assimilation in daylight conditions. The luminance contrast of colored inducers did not influence the induction effects. Grouping two backgrounds into a single one was found to significantly increase probabilities of apparent contrast. Under the same conditions, we measured apparent depth effects in terms of probabilities of the inducers to be perceived as nearer to the observer on the left or right, or at the same distance. These were determined by luminance contrast only, with a marked asymmetry between negative and positive contrast signs, and with significantly higher probabilities of the brighter inducers to be seen as nearer, regardless of adaptation level or background grouping. It is concluded that the induction effects and the depth effects originate from different mechanisms. Having excluded all other cues to depth, we found that Chevreul's law of contrast holds for strong luminance contrasts of positive sign.
Impact of the modulation technique on overvoltage at the terminals of the induction machine fed by a voltage inverter

In industrial applications such as metallurgy, cement, and mining the asynchronous motor is usually installed far from the power supply. Thus, a long cable is needed to connect the variable speed drive to the asynchronous machine. Several studies had proven that the asynchronous motor thus powered will be solicited by a high voltage, which can reach twice the DC bus voltage. This paper presents two practical solutions for overvoltage mitigation. The first solution is based on choosing the most appropriate modulation technical for overvoltage reduction. The second one is frequently used in industry and it is based on interposing a filter between the inverter and the machine.
Using theory of planned behavior to predict healthy eating among Danish adolescents

Purpose – The purpose of the study was to apply the theory of planned behavior to predict Danish adolescents’ behavioral intention for healthy eating.Design/methodology/approach – A cluster sample survey of 410 students aged 11 to 16 years studying in Grade 6 to Grade 10 was conducted in Denmark.Findings – Perceived behavioral control followed by attitudes were the most important factors in predicting behavioral intention. Females and adolescents with a higher Body Mass Index were also found to have a stronger behavioral intention. Healthy eating was perceived to be beneficial and useful, and, to a lesser extent, interesting and desirable. Family, TV programs, and teachers were influential socialization agents.Research limitations/implications – The survey responses may be affected by a social desirability bias. The survey includes a non‐probability sample and results may not be generalized to all adolescents, even in Denmark.Practical implications – The results may inform educators and policy makers in d.
Sharing of Escherichia coli Sequence Type ST131 and Other Multidrug-Resistant and Urovirulent E. coli Strains among Dogs and Cats within a Household

ABSTRACT A multidrug-resistant (MDR) Escherichia coli strain from a human-associated pulsotype within sequence type ST131 (O25:H4) colonized three of five dogs and cats within a household. Of the four other colonizing strains identified, two were MDR and two colonized multiple hosts. The ST131 strain uniquely exhibited high resistance and virulence scores.
A New Coupler Structure with Phase-Controlled Power Divisions of Extremely-Wide Tunable Ranges and Arbitrary Phase Differences

This paper presents a novel structure for realizing a coupler with controllable power divisions, which is composed by two couplers and two phase shifters cascaded between them. This structure is applicable to constructing couplers with extremely-wide-range tunable power division, and the phase-difference performances can be predicted and controlled flexibly. In this paper, the rigorous design equations and methodologies are exhibited. For verification, two prototypes with rat-race and quadrature operations are fabricated and measured, and the measured results sufficiently confirm this topology to be effective and correct.
Concentration-Dependent Exchange of Replication Protein A on Single-Stranded DNA Revealed by Single-Molecule Imaging

Replication protein A (RPA) is a ubiquitous eukaryotic single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) binding protein necessary for all aspects of DNA metabolism involving an ssDNA intermediate, including DNA replication, repair, recombination, DNA damage response and checkpoint activation, and telomere maintenance [1], [2], [3]. The role of RPA in most of these reactions is to protect the ssDNA until it can be delivered to downstream enzymes. Therefore a crucial feature of RPA is that it must bind very tightly to ssDNA, but must also be easily displaced from ssDNA to allow other proteins to gain access to the substrate. Here we use total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy and nanofabricated DNA curtains to visualize the behavior of Saccharomyces cerevisiae RPA on individual strands of ssDNA in real-time. Our results show that RPA remains bound to ssDNA for long periods of time when free protein is absent from solution. In contrast, RPA rapidly dissociates from ssDNA when free RPA is present in solution allowing rapid exchange between the free and bound states. In addition, the S. cerevisiae DNA recombinase Rad51 and E. coli single-stranded binding protein (SSB) also promote removal of RPA from ssDNA. These results reveal an unanticipated exchange between bound and free RPA suggesting a binding mechanism that can confer exceptionally slow off rates, yet also enables rapid displacement through a direct exchange mechanism that is reliant upon the presence of free ssDNA-binding proteins in solution. Our results indicate that RPA undergoes constant microscopic dissociation under all conditions, but this is only manifested as macroscopic dissociation (i.e. exchange) when free proteins are present in solution, and this effect is due to mass action. We propose that the dissociation of RPA from ssDNA involves a partially dissociated intermediate, which exposes a small section of ssDNA allowing other proteins to access to the DNA.
Characterization and optimization of semiconductor optical amplifier for ultra high speed applications: A review

Basic modeling, characterization and optimization of semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) functionalities is presented in this paper for high speed optical application. In this paper we investigate few proposed techniques to improve slow carrier recovery time of SOA for its potential use in high speed optical network applications. It is shown that through Quantum dot structure, SOA can have 100 times faster carrier recovery then conventional SOA. Multiplexing intensity dependent data bits along with holding beam in SOA can also improve carrier recovery time in SOA. Increasing drive current of SOA and wavelength diversity technique are the other two techniques which can be used to provide stable gain in SOA.
MBD4 frameshift mutation caused by DNA mismatch repair deficiency enhances cytotoxicity by trifluridine, an active antitumor agent of TAS-102, in colorectal cancer cells

Backgrounds Trifluridine is an active antitumor component of TAS-102 that resembles 5-fluorouracil. Although patients with advanced colorectal cancer (CRC) exhibiting a mismatch repair (MMR) deficiency reportedly do not benefit from 5-fluorouracil-based chemotherapy and we previously reported that truncated methyl-CpG binding domain protein 4 (MBD4) enhances 5-fluorouracil cytotoxicity in MMR-deficient CRC cells, little is known regarding the effect of MMR deficiency on trifluridine cytotoxicity in CRC. Aim We investigated whether trifluridine induces cytotoxicity in a DNA MMR-dependent manner and evaluated how truncated MBD4 alters trifluridine cytotoxicity. Methods We utilized the human CRC cell lines HCT116 (hMLH1-deficient cells) and HCT116+ch3 (hMLH1-restored cells) and compared their sensitivities to trifluridine. And we established 5-fluorouracil-refractory hMLH1-deficient cells and analyzed trifluridine cytotoxicity. Finally, we established truncated MBD4 overexpressed CRC cell lines, and compared trifluridine sensitivity. Results The sensitivities of HCT116 and HCT116+ch3 to trifluridine were comparable. 5-Fluorouracil-refractory hMLH1-deficient cells treated with trifluridine showed an equal or greater sensitivity than non-5-fluorouracil-refractory cells. Moreover, MBD4tru cells were more sensitive than the control cells to trifluridine.Conclusions: Trifluridine induces cytotoxicity independently of the DNA MMR status as well as under 5-fluorouracil-refractory conditions, and the MBD4 frameshift mutation enhances trifluridine cytotoxicity.
Detecting Maturity Parameters of Mango Using Hyperspectral Imaging Technique

Hyper-spectral imaging technology is an upcoming and promising field of research for nondestructive quality assessment of bio products. It has a greater advantage of combining spatial imaging and spectral measurement compared to spectroscopy which allows only the spectral measurements. Soluble solids content, firmness and water content are important quality attributes for any fresh fruits. Spectral reflectance from fruit surface varies with the colour, amount of soluble solids, moisture content and firmness. This research work was focused on evaluating the use of hyper-spectral imaging technique for detecting the maturity of mango (Mangifera indica L.) based on total soluble solids content, moisture and firmness. Spectral measurements in the wavelength range of 400 – 1000 nm were used to acquire the reflectance characteristics of immature and matured mango. From the spectra, calibration models were developed to predict the soluble solids content, water content and fruit firmness which are considered as main indices for maturity.
Development of the PHAST model: generating standard public health services data and evidence for decision-making

Objective Standardized data regarding the distribution, quality, reach, and variation in public health services provided at the community level and in wide use across states and communities do not exist. This leaves a major gap in our nation's understanding of the value of prevention activities and, in particular, the contributions of our government public health agencies charged with assuring community health promotion and protection. Public health and community leaders, therefore, are eager for accessible and comparable data regarding preventive services that can inform policy decisions about where to invest resources. Methods We used literature review and a practice-based approach, employing an iterative process to identify factors that facilitate data provision among public health practitioners. Results This paper describes the model, systematically developed by our research team and with input from practice partners, that guides our process toward maximizing the uptake and integration of these standardized measures into state and local data collection systems. Discussion The model we developed, using a dissemination and implementation science framework, is intended to foster greater interest in and accountability for data collection around local health department services and to facilitate spatial exploration and statistical analysis of local health department service distribution, change, and performance. Conclusion Our model is the first of its kind to thoroughly develop a means to guide research and practice in realizing the National Academy of Medicine's recommendation for developing systems to measure and track state and local public health system contributions to population health.
Nurses’ Caring Behaviors Toward Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy in Greece: A Mixed-Methods Study

Background Nurses’ caring behaviors are central in the quality of care of patients undergoing sophisticated chemotherapy protocols. However, there is a scarcity of research regarding these behaviors in non–Anglo-Saxon countries. Objective The aim of this study was to explore caring behaviors that nurses perceive as important in caring for patients in Greece receiving chemotherapy. Methods We used a mixed-methods design, including a survey in 7 oncology wards in 3 cancer hospitals in Attica, Greece, and a subsequent qualitative focus group investigation. Caring behaviors were explored through the Caring Behavior Inventory 24 and content analysis of 3 focus group interviews. Results A sample of 72 nurses (response rate, 68.5%) were surveyed, and 18 nurses participated in the focus groups. “Knowledge/skills” (5 [SD, 0.7]) was the most important caring behaviors. No significant associations with nurses’ characteristics were noted, except for higher scores in caring behaviors in participants who were married (P < .02). Six caring-related categories emerged from the qualitative analysis: “the concept of care,” “respect,” “nurse-patients’ connection,” “empathy,” “fear of cancer,” and “nurses’ professional role. ” Moreover, they stressed barriers they faced in each category. Conclusions Integrated quantitative and qualitative data concur that operational tasks are central in Greek nurses’ caring behaviors. In addition, qualitative findings highlighted those skills equipping nurses to provide holistic individualized care in a hectic care environment. Implications for Practice Supporting nurses in attaining excellence in technical skills and in meaningfully engaging with patients receiving chemotherapy is essential in the realization of their caring role. These should be priorities for continuing education and practice improvement initiatives.
iVQA: Inverse Visual Question Answering

We propose the inverse problem of Visual question answering (iVQA), and explore its suitability as a benchmark for visuo-linguistic understanding. The iVQA task is to generate a question that corresponds to a given image and answer pair. Since the answers are less informative than the questions, and the questions have less learnable bias, an iVQA model needs to better understand the image to be successful than a VQA model. We pose question generation as a multi-modal dynamic inference process and propose an iVQA model that can gradually adjust its focus of attention guided by both a partially generated question and the answer. For evaluation, apart from existing linguistic metrics, we propose a new ranking metric. This metric compares the ground truth question's rank among a list of distractors, which allows the drawbacks of different algorithms and sources of error to be studied. Experimental results show that our model can generate diverse, grammatically correct and content correlated questions that match the given answer.
Localization with Imprecise Distance Information in Sensor Networks

An approach to formulate geometric relations among distances between nodes as equality constraints is introduced in this paper to study the localization problem with imprecise distance information in sensor networks. These constraints can be further used to formulate optimization problems for distance estimation. The optimization solutions correspond to a set of distances that are consistent with the fact that sensor nodes live in the same plane or 3D space as the anchor nodes. These techniques serve as the foundation for most of the existing localization algorithms that depend on the sensors' distances to anchors to compute each sensor’s location.