Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Weighted Multi-projection: 3D Point Cloud Denoising with Estimated Tangent Planes

As a collection of 3D points sampled from surfaces of objects, a 3D point cloud is widely used in robotics, autonomous driving and augmented reality. Due to the physical limitations of 3D sensing devices, 3D point clouds are usually noisy, which influences subsequent computations, such as surface reconstruction, recognition and many others. To denoise a 3D point cloud, we present a novel algorithm, called weighted multi-projection. Compared to many previous works on denoising, instead of directly smoothing the coordinates of 3D points, we use a two-fold smoothing: We first estimate a local tangent plane at each 3D point and then reconstruct each 3D point by weighted averaging of its projections on multiple tangent planes. We also provide the theoretical analysis for the surface normal estimation and achieve a tighter bound than in a previous work. We validate the empirical performance on the dataset of ShapeNetCore and show that weighted multi-projection outperforms its competitors in all nine classes.
Evaluating the Antibiotic Susceptibility of Chlamydia – New Approaches for in Vitro Assays

Pigs are the natural hosts of Chlamydia suis, the only Chlamydia species known to spontaneously acquire homotypic resistance conferred by a class C tetracycline resistance gene. Various susceptibility assays have existed for several years, but there is no widely accepted, standardized assay to determine chlamydial antibiotic susceptibility. In this study, we developed new approaches to determine the in vitro susceptibility of Chlamydia to different antibiotics in view of existing protocols. Specifically, the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) is based on a consensus of both inclusion number reduction and alteration of inclusion size and morphology upon antibiotic exposure. In addition to these, we employed a recovery assay, allowing observation of the chlamydial response to drug removal and subsequent recovery, as compared to both continued exposure and to the unexposed control. We propose a simple and fast screening method to detect tetracycline resistant C. suis strains within 2 to 3 days with minimal use of consumables. For proof of principle, we evaluated the susceptibility of three C. suis field strains and the reference strain S45/6 to tetracycline, sulfamethoxazole, and penicillin, antibiotics commonly used to prevent respiratory and gastrointestinal diseases on fattening pig farms. We found that tetracycline sensitive strains can easily be distinguished from resistant strains using the evaluation parameters proposed in this study. Moreover, we report that S45/6 is sensitive to sulfamethoxazole while all evaluated C. suis field strains showed some degree of sulfamethoxazole resistance. Finally, we confirm that Penicillin G induces the chlamydial stress response in all evaluated C. suis strains.
LUMEN: A global fault management framework for network virtualization environments

The advent of 5G and its ever increasing stringent requirements for bandwidth, latency, and quality of service pushes the boundaries of what is feasible with legacy Mobile Network Operators' technologies. Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is one promising attempt at solving some of those challenges that were widely adopted by the industry and the standardization bodies. At its essence, NFV is about running network functions as software workloads on commodity hardware to optimize deployment costs and simplify the life-cycle management of network functions. However, it introduces new fault management challenges including dynamic topology, multi-tenant fault isolation and data consistency and ambiguity; that we propose to define in this paper. To tackle those challenges, we extend the classical fault management process to the virtualized functions by introducing LUMEN: a Global Fault Management Framework. Our approach aims at providing the availability and reliability of the virtualized 5G end-to-end service chain. LUMEN includes the canonical steps of the fault management process and proposes a monitoring solution for all types of Network virtualization Environments. Our framework is based on open source solutions and could easily be integrated with other existing autonomic management models.
Comparison of time-dependent variation of surface charge accumulation in SF6/N2 and pure SF6

SF6/N2 Mixture has good insulation properties and reduces the use of SF6, thus it has drawn more and more attention. In addition, Surface charge accumulation on insulating materials is a major factor that greatly distorts the electrical field and reduces the insulation level. Therefore, it is necessary to research the characteristics of surface charge accumulation in SF6/N2 mixture. In this paper, the difference between the time-dependent variation of surface accumulated charge of spacer in 5atm pure SF6 and that in 5atm 20% SF6/N2 is researched. The downsized truncated cone-type spacer made of 70% Al2O3 filled epoxy resin and coaxial cylinder electrodes are used to model a GIL. In the experiment, ±30kV and ±40kV DC voltage are applied to the central electrode for 30–1080 min, then the surface potential of spacer is measured by a Kelvin vibrating electrostatic probe, and the corresponding surface charge density is further calculated by a calibration method. The results reveal that in both gases, the surface accumulated charge exhibits a time-dependent variation characteristic that the local fluctuates and the whole tends to saturate. Under the DC voltage of same amplitude and same applied time, the total amount of surface charge in 20% SF6/N2 is far more than that in pure SF6. However, the maximum of surface charge density in 20% SF6/N2 is not much different from that in pure SF6 under the same condition of DC voltage. Moreover, in pure SF6, the total amount of surface charge under negative DC voltage is far more than that under positive DC voltage, which means there is polar effect in pure SF6. However, in 20% SF6/N2 the polar effect does not exist.
Application of virtual reality for the treatment of Strabismus and Amblyopia

This work presents a technique that uses the immersion of patients in an interactive 3D virtual environment in the orthoptic treatment of strabismus. The most important part of this work is the act of forcing the eyes to cooperate, increasing the level of adaptation of the nervous system to the binocular vision, allowing the diverted eye to be rehabilitated. Returning to the patient better visual comfort and quality of life. The virtual environment, because it is attractive, has the function of entertainment, possessing as its property the ability to propose challenges directed towards specific objectives. In addition to offering real-time biological feedback to the healthcare professional who is making use of this product. Another point is that this interface has ideal approaches to be used in orthoptic treatment. And all of it was developed with free software and made by a low-cost virtual reality glasses, Google Cardboard, which uses a smartphone as a display for its display.
On-chip reconfigurable reflectarray for 2-D beam-steering at W-band

In this paper, a on-chip reconfigurable reflectarray (RRA) for 2-D beam-steering at W-band is designed, fabricated and tested. Beam steering can be realized by RRA, with the ability of shifting reflective phase by integrating tunable devices. In our work, the GaAs based chip process is used for a RRA integrated with p-i-n diode at W-band, to guarantee precision and improve flexibility. One 16×16 RRA prototype at W-band with each elements individually in control is fabricated at W-band. The beam steering is experimentally demonstrated using a near-field measurement system, showing ±10° beam steering in E-plane and 10° beam steering in H-plane.
Mediterranean hatchling lizards grow faster at higher altitude: a reciprocal transplant experiment

Summary 1In reptiles, growth is subject to proximate environmental influences, such as food availability and temperature, that may be crucial during the early stages of postnatal development. Mediterranean regions, with their severe summer drought, offer an excellent opportunity to examine the effects of environmental variations in precipitation and productivity on the timing of reproduction and growth rates of lizards. 2In this study, we compared the incubation time, size at hatching, growth rates and changes in juvenile body condition of two nearby populations of the lizard Psammodromus algirus separated by 600–700 m altitude in central Spain. We combined a reciprocal incubation experiment at 27 and 30 °C with a reciprocal transplant experiment to distinguish between environmental and population-specific sources of geographical variation. 3At both temperatures, eggs from the high-elevation site hatched sooner. Several important phenotypic traits of juveniles were primarily determined by the growing environment: the high-elevation site provided more food and allowed hatchlings to grow faster and reach larger size. 4Environmental effects overrode familial ones, as shown by the larger growth rate of half-sibs released at the high-elevation site. However, both the size and the growth rate of juveniles were also influenced by their mother's site of origin, which means that population differences may reflect a genetic differentiation and/or different maternal effects. 5Low precipitation and associated food scarcity were seemingly the main factors constraining the growth rates of juveniles at the lowland site.
Direct prediction of linear equalization coefficients using raised cosine pulse shaping in frequency domain

This paper presents a method to derive an equalizer target function for a given interconnect and data rate. This is achieved by requiring a raised cosine pulse spectrum at the receiver. A technique to estimate the raised cosine pulse roll-off factor β at the receiver is presented. The target transfer function is used to directly calculate the parameters of Feed Forward Equalizer (FFE) and Continuous Time Linear Equalizer (CTLE) for the interconnect. The proposed method avoids optimization and can be completely implemented in frequency domain. The achieved vertical eye opening shows good agreement with an iterative approach for up to 7 taps and adequate agreement up to 10 taps.
Effect of oil replacement on dispersion staining colours of cellulose fibres in oil during the thermal ageing process

Ageing assessment of paper insulation is important to safe operation, condition based maintenance, and replacement of power transformers. This paper investigated the effect of oil replacement (OR) upon ageing assessment of paper insulation based on dispersion staining colours of cellulose fibres in oil. Accelerated thermal ageing experiments were conducted for oil-paper specimens for different durations and OR was conducted at different ageing stages. Degree of polymerization (DP) of paper and 2-furaldehyde (2-FAL) in oil were measured, and the dispersion staining colours of cellulose fibres were observed. DP of paper was predicted using traditional ageing marker 2-FAL and proposed ageing marker, i.e., primary colour ratio based Mahalanobis distance (PCR-MD) of (r, b) points. Results show that OR has little effect on DP of paper while it can results in substantial loss of carbon oxides and 2-FAL in oil. The OR has limited effect on Mahalanobis distance of (r, b) points. The prediction errors of DP with ageing marker PCR-MD is smaller than those with 2-FAL, which implies that the proposed ageing marker PCR-MD can be applied to ageing assessment of paper insulation that undergoes OR with accepted error level.
Predicting Long-Term Trajectories of Connected Vehicles via the Prefix-Projection Technique

The vehicle location prediction based on their spatial and temporal information is an important and difficult task in many applications. In the last few years, devices, such as connected vehicles, smart phones, GPS navigation systems, and smart home appliances, have amassed the large stores of geographic data. The task of leveraging this data by employing moving objects database techniques to predict spatio-temporal locations in an accurate and efficient fashion, comprising a complete trajectory remains an actively researched area. Existing methods for frequent sequential pattern mining tend to be limited to predicting short-term partial trajectories, at extremely high computational costs. In order to address these limitations, we designed a prefix-projection-based trajectory prediction algorithm called PrefixTP, which contains three essential phases. First, data collection, connected vehicles equipped with sensors comprise a vehicle grid and generate copious amounts of spatio-temporal data, in order to communicate and share traffic information. Second, model training, examining only the prefix subsequences, and projecting only their corresponding postfix subsequences into projected sets. Finally, trajectory matching, recursively finding postfix sequences meeting the requirement of minimum support count, and outputting the most frequent sequential pattern as the most probable trajectory. Fundamentally, PrefixTP supports three trajectory matching strategies which encompass all possibilities of prediction. Extensive experiments were conducted using real world GPS data sets, and the results show, when comparing predicted complete trajectories against partial short-term trajectories with a guarantee of real-time forecasting, that PrefixTP outperforms first-order, second-order Markov models, and Apriori-based trajectory prediction algorithm.
Characteristics of dielectric relaxation and low-frequency conduction in silicone rubber composite

The microstructure and charge transport mechanisms of silicon rubber (SR) composite are the key influential factors for its dielectric performance. This study reports on the dielectric response of the silicon rubber composite by dielectric spectroscopy and discusses the molecular chain relaxation and electric conduction characteristics of the composite. The experimental results show that an obvious chain relaxation response exists under low temperature (< 0 oC). The composite permittivity behavior as a function of frequency was found to follow the Debye relaxation theory. Over the temperature range from 0 to 100 oC, a significant increase of permittivity under low frequency was observed, indicating a kind of interfacial polarization and a distinct electric conduction at low frequency. The dielectric relaxation at high temperature and middle frequency becomes wider and is hidden by the conduction. The conduction process under low frequency and the parameters of the dielectric responses were obtained using the Cole-Cole polarization model. After analysis, a longer relaxation time and a lower activation energy than usual were calculated, possibly due to the restricted molecular chain movements under the low-temperature condition and middle-frequency range. Additionally, a strong thermally assisted conduction process seemingly occurs inside the sample. This would possibly stem from the ionic conduction associated with impurities and charge carrier transport at the interfaces (hopping conduction). The estimated activation energy of the conduction was found to be 0.23 eV according to the Arrhenius equation.
Clustering with Temporal Constraints on Spatio-Temporal Data of Human Mobility

Extracting significant places or places of interest (POIs) using individuals' spatio-temporal data is of fundamental importance for human mobility analysis. Classical clustering methods have been used in prior work for detecting POIs, but without considering temporal constraints. Usually, the involved parameters for clustering are difficult to determine, e.g., the optimal cluster number in hierarchical clustering. Currently, researchers either choose heuristic values or use spatial distance-based optimization to determine an appropriate parameter set. We argue that existing research does not optimally address temporal information and thus leaves much room for improvement. Considering temporal constraints in human mobility, we introduce an effective clustering approach - namely POI clustering with temporal constraints (PC-TC) - to extract POIs from spatio-temporal data of human mobility. Following human mobility nature in modern society, our approach aims to extract both global POIs (e.g., workplace or university) and local POIs (e.g., library, lab, and canteen). Based on two publicly available datasets including 193 individuals, our evaluation results show that PC-TC has much potential for next place prediction in terms of granularity (i.e., the number of extracted POIs) and predictability.
Bandwidth-Satisfied and Coding-Aware Multicast Protocol in MANETs

Network coding is a promising technology proven to improve the performance of wireless networks. To successfully design a quality-of-service (QoS)-satisfied routing protocol with network coding, the bandwidth consumption of a coding host should be determined. Furthermore, coding opportunities should be increased to improve network capacity. Nevertheless, it is challenging to determine whether a host can be a coding host and to determine the bandwidth consumption of a coding host in a mobile ad hoc network (MANET). In this paper, we first present and define the coding conditions to identify a coding host. The bandwidth consumption of a coding host is then estimated under the contention-based wireless networks with a random access mechanism. Finally, we propose a bandwidth-satisfied and coding-aware multicast routing protocol (BCMRP). By taking into account the residual bandwidth of the carrier-sense neighbors of the forwarders, the proposed protocol can satisfy the bandwidth requirements of the requested flow and other ongoing flows. As a consequence of considering coding opportunities in multicast tree construction, the proposed multicast protocol can reduce the total bandwidth consumption. The simulation results show that BCMRP outperforms the prior multicast routing protocols in receiving ratio, admission ratio, and total bandwidth consumption.
Subjective and Objective Quality Assessment of Compressed 4K UHD Videos for Immersive Experience

We present a study of subjective and objective quality assessment of compressed 4K ultra-high-definition (UHD) videos in an immersive viewing environment. First, we conduct a subjective quality evaluation experiment for 4K UHD videos compressed by three state-of-the-art video coding techniques, i.e., Advanced Video Coding, High Efficiency Video Coding, and VP9. In particular, we aim at investigating added values of UHD over conventional high definition (HD) in terms of perceptual quality. The results are systematically analyzed in various viewpoints, such as coding scheme, bitrate, and video content. Second, existing state-of-the-art objective quality assessment techniques are benchmarked using the subjective data in order to investigate their validity and limitation for 4K UHD videos. Finally, the video and subjective data are made publicly available for further research by the research community.
Effect of the Use of Different Acoustic Stimuli on Cortical Auditory Evoked Potentials and Autonomic Cardiac Modulation

Purpose The aim of this study was to analyze the relationship between Cortical Auditory Evoked Potentials (CAEPs) measurements and autonomic cardiac modulation in relation to different acoustic stimuli and to verify which of these stimuli have more influence on the autonomic nervous system. Methods Sixty healthy women, aged between 18 and 25 years, participated in this study. Prior to the CAEP examination, blood pressure and resting heart rate were measured using a stethoscope, sphygmomanometer, and the Polar RS800CX cardiofrequency measures. After the collection of these measures, the CAEP test was started simultaneously with the HRV collection. Results All the HRV indices presented correlations with the components of the CAEPs. During the acoustic stimulation, a predominance of the modulation of the autonomic parasympathetic nervous system was observed. The harmonic and disharmonic stimuli were the ones that presented the most correlations between the measures analyzed in this study. Conclusions There was an association between CAEP and cardiac autonomic modulation in relation to different acoustic stimuli. Among the acoustic stimuli used in this study, the ones that most influenced the autonomic cardiac modulation were harmonic and disharmonic stimuli, which are acoustically more complex stimuli.
Adaptive Spatiotemporal SVD Clutter Filtering for Ultrafast Doppler Imaging Using Similarity of Spatial Singular Vectors

Singular value decomposition of ultrafast imaging ultrasonic data sets has recently been shown to build a vector basis far more adapted to the discrimination of tissue and blood flow than the classical Fourier basis, improving by large factor clutter filtering and blood flow estimation. However, the question of optimally estimating the boundary between the tissue subspace and the blood flow subspace remained unanswered. Here, we introduce an efficient estimator for automatic thresholding of subspaces and compare it to an exhaustive list of thirteen estimators that could achieve this task based on the main characteristics of the singular components, namely the singular values, the temporal singular vectors, and the spatial singular vectors. The performance of those fourteen estimators was tested in vitro in a large set of controlled experimental conditions with different tissue motion and flow speeds on a phantom. The estimator based on the degree of resemblance of spatial singular vectors outperformed all others. Apart from solving the thresholding problem, the additional benefit with this estimator was its denoising capabilities, strongly increasing the contrast to noise ratio and lowering the noise floor by at least 5 dB. This confirms that, contrary to conventional clutter filtering techniques that are almost exclusively based on temporal characteristics, efficient clutter filtering of ultrafast Doppler imaging cannot overlook space. Finally, this estimator was applied in vivo on various organs (human brain, kidney, carotid, and thyroid) and showed efficient clutter filtering and noise suppression, improving largely the dynamic range of the obtained ultrafast power Doppler images.
Small lightweight hash functions in FPGA

This paper presents hardware realizations of two lightweight hash function families on FPGA: spongent and LHash. The assessment provided for both cryptographic primitives is in terms of area, performance, and energy consumption, when implemented in LUT-4 and LUT-6 FPGA technology for equivalent security levels. To the best of our knowledge, this paper reports the most compact spongent FPGA implementation and the first FPGA implementation of LHash.
Theory of RF Pulse Generation Through Nonlinear Transmission Lines

Nonlinear transmission lines (NLTLs) are one of the most prominent solid-state sources of high-power RF pulses. However, there is no integrated mathematical basis, which predicts adequately the generated waveforms on an NLTL and those delivered to the load. This analysis is required for designing and optimizing these transmission lines. Most works in this area are related to experimental studies and results. In this paper, we have developed a theoretical basis, which predicts all the required characteristics of the generated RF pulses on a lossy NLTL. The RF amplitude, the maximum voltage, and the central frequency of the generated pulses at each node of an NLTL are formulated. All the obtained formulas were verified by SPICE simulations and experimental measurements. The comparisons made with the data obtained from the reported experimental studies of the other researchers in this field reinforce these analytical results as well.