Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An approach for detection of buildings and changes in buildings using orthophotos and point clouds: A case study of Van Erriş earthquake

Abstract This paper presents an image analysis of the Van Erciş earthquake, and demonstrates how efficiently the orthophoto images and point clouds from stereo matching data can be used for automatic detection of buildings and changes in buildings. The proposed method contains three basic steps. The first step is to classify the high-resolution pre and post event Red- Green-Blue (RGB) orthophoto images (orthoRGB) using Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification procedure to extract the building areas. In the second step, normalized Digital Surface Model (nDSM) band derived from point clouds and Digital Terrain Model (DTM) is integrated with the SVM classification (nDSM+orthoRGB). In the last step, building damage assessment is performed through a comparison between two independent classification results from pre-and post-event data. It was observed that using the nDSM band in the classification process as additional bands the accuracy of classification increases significantly.
Review of Research into Enterprise Bankruptcy Prediction in Selected Central and Eastern European Countries

In developed countries, the first studies on forecasting bankruptcy date to the early 20th century. In Central and Eastern Europe, due to, among other factors, the geopolitical situation and the introduced economic system, this issue became the subject of researcher interest only in the 1990s. Therefore, it is worthwhile to analyze whether these countries conduct bankruptcy risk assessments and what their level of advancement is. The main objective of the article is the review and assessment of the level of advancement of bankruptcy prediction research in countries of the former Eastern Bloc, in comparison to the latest global research trends in this area. For this purpose, the method of analyzing scientific literature was applied. The publications chosen as the basis for the research were mainly based on information from the Google Scholar and ResearchGate databases during the period Q4 2016–Q3 2017. According to the author’s knowledge, this is the first such large-scale study involving the countries of the former Eastern Bloc—which includes the following states: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Hungary, Russia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, and Belarus. The results show that the most advanced research in this area is conducted in the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Estonia, Russia, and Hungary. Belarus Bulgaria and Latvia are on the other end. In the remaining countries, traditional approaches to predicting business insolvency are generally used.
Coated Rectangular Composite Archwires : A Comparison of Self-Ligating and Conventional Bracket Systems During Sliding Mechanics

Title of dissertation: Coated Rectangular Composite Archwires: A Comparison of Self-Ligating and Conventional Bracket Systems During Sliding Mechanics David Woods, Doctor of Dental Medicine, 2013 Dissertation Directed by: Professor Robert E. Williams, D.M. D, M.A. The purpose of this study was to analyze the resistance to sliding of coated rectangular fiber reinforced composite archwires using various brackets systems and second-order bracket angulations. Resistance to sliding was investigated for eight bracket systems: six self-ligating brackets (four passive and two passive-active) and two conventional brackets. A rectangular fiber reinforced composite archwire of 0.019 x 0.025-in dimension from Biomers® SimpliClear was drawn through a three-bracket model system at ten millimeters per minute for 2.5 millimeters. For each bracket, the resistance to sliding was measured at four bracket angulations (0, 2.5°, 5°, and 10) in a dry state at room temperature. The fiber reinforced composite archwire produced the lowest sliding resistance with the passive self-ligating bracket system (Damon DQ) at each bracket angulation tested. Overall, self-ligating bracket systems generated lower sliding resistance than conventionally ligated systems, and one passive/active selfligating bracket system (In-Ovation-R). There was a significant increase in resistance to sliding as bracket angulation increased for all bracket systems tested. Microscopic analysis revealed increased perforation of the archwire coating material as bracket angulations were increased. Our findings show that the rectangular fiber reinforced composite archwire may be acceptable for sliding mechanics during the intermediate stages of orthodontic tooth movement, however more long-term studies are needed. COATED RECTANGULAR COMPOSITE ARCHWIRES: A COMPARISON OF SELF -LIGATING AND CONVENTIONAL BRACKET SYSTEMS DURING SLIDING MECHANICS by David Keith Woods, D.M.D. Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, Baltimore in partial Fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Master of Science 2013
Evaluation of corn meal on performance, carcass characteristics and nutrient digestibility of male broiler chickens

To study the effect of corn meal (CM) on performance, carcass characteristics and nutrient digestibility of chickens in a completely randomized design experiment with 4 × 2 factorial arrangement and 4 replicates per treatment, 384 Ross male broiler chickens in a 49 days period were evaluated. Treatments were 0 (CM0), 15 (CM15), 30 (CM30), or 45 (CM45) CM to replace corn and 2 levels of commercial NSP-degrading enzyme (0 and 0.025%). Corn meal had no effect (P > 0.05) on body weight gain, feed intake and carcass characteristics during the whole brooding period. Dietary corn meal level (CM45) had significant effect on digestibility of fat, apparent metabolizable energy (AME) and apparent metabolizable energy corrected for nitrogen (AME n ). However, enzyme supplementation significantly increased phosphorous digestibility (P < 0.05). Interaction between corn meal level and enzyme supplementation had significant effect on excreta dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM), crude protein (CP), AME and AME n during 0 to 49 days of age. Together, the results suggested that replacement of corn by corn meal may affect the digestibility of OM, CP, AME, AME n , and enzyme supplementation has some beneficial effects on theses traits. Keywords: Corn meal, enzyme, broiler chickens, performance, carcass characteristics, nutrient digestibility
Inferring crustal structure in the Aleutian island arc from a sparse wide‐angle seismic data set

Compressional seismic travel times from a relatively sparse wide‐angle data set hold key information on the structure of a 800 km long section of the central Aleutian arc. Since the source and receiver locations form a swath along the arc crest that is ∼50 km wide, we trace rays in 3‐D for a collection of 8336 seismic refraction and reflection arrivals. We investigate variations in seismic velocity structure parallel to the Aleutian arc, assuming that our result represents average crustal structure across the arc. We explore seismic velocity models that consist of three crustal layers that exhibit smooth variations in structure in the 2‐D vertical plane. We consider the influence of additional constraints and model parameterization in our search for a plausible model for Aleutian arc crust. A tomographic inversion with static corrections for island stations reduces the data variance of a 1‐D starting model by 91%. Our best model has seismic velocities of 6.0–6.5 km/s in the upper crust, 6.5–7.3 km/s in the middle crust, and 7.3–7.7 km/s in the lower crust and a total crustal thickness of 35–37 ± 1 km. A resolution analysis shows that features having a horizontal scale less than 20 km cannot be imaged, but at horizontal length scales of ∼50 km most model features are well resolved. The study indicates that the Aleutian island arc crust is thick compared to other island arcs and strongly stratified and that only the upper 60% of the arc crust has seismic velocities that are comparable to average seismic velocities in continental crust.
The Comparison of Three Major Occupations for User Acceptance of Information Technology: Applying the UTAUT Model

This study investigated whether the differences of gender, age, and occupation for m-learning showed significance on the utilization of the mobile devices and to figure out if the variation may influence the performance expectancy, effort expectancy and the social influence to the behavioral intention or even to the behavior of usage. When the employees’ behavioral intention was low, the director of managers or HR department can suggest the employees’ colleagues, superior manager or friends to communicate with them to enhance their behavioral intention and to use it. And it suggested that male employees and elder employees should be put more emphasis on the communication to enhance their behavioral intention. UTAUT model with different kinds of businesses for m-learning but the conclusion did not investigate the differences of the adoption of the mobile devices in each industry. Basing on this, this study attempted to investigate whether the difference occupations showed significance on the utilization of the mobile devices.
Computationally efficient discrimination between language varieties with large feature vectors and regularized classifiers

The present contribution revolves around efficient approaches to language classification which have been field-tested in the Vardial evaluation campaign. The methods used in several language identification tasks comprising different language types are presented and their results are discussed, giving insights on real-world application of regularization, linear classifiers and corresponding linguistic features. The use of a specially adapted Ridge classifier proved useful in 2 tasks out of 3. The overall approach (XAC) has slightly outperformed most of the other systems on the DFS task (Dutch and Flemish) and on the ILI task (Indo-Aryan languages), while its comparative performance was poorer in on the GDI task (Swiss German dialects).
Tied to the Land? Intergenerational Mobility and Agrarian Reform in Colombia

This study examines the intergenerational impacts of providing land to the rural poor. I use ID numbers to track applicants to the 1968 Colombian agrarian reform and their children in various administrative data. Exploiting discontinuities in the allocation of parcels, I find that the children of recipients exhibit higher intergenerational mobility. In contrast to the view that land would tie them to the countryside, today these children participate more in the modern economy. They have better living standards and are more likely to work in formal and high-skilled sectors. These findings appear driven by a relief of credit constraints that allowed recipients to migrate to urban centers and invest in the education of their children.
Fabrication of Specially Designed Novel Mold for Casting of Perindopril Erbumine Mouth Dissolving Film

In present investigation attempt was made to design novel mold with aim to overcome the problems occurs during the casting of mouth dissolving films. Placebo and Perindopril Erbumine containing mouth dissolving film (MDF) were prepared with Pullulan, HPMC E-15 as film forming agent and other excipient by solvent casting method on specially design mold and regular petri dish. The HPMC E-15 125mg and Propylene Glycol 30 μ ml as plasticizer contains MDFs formulation (H2) were found to be optimized when compared with Pullulan on the basis of physical evaluation parameters like weight variation, drug, thickness in the range 0.01 - 0.03 mm, disintegration time in <17sec. And release of drug from the film was found to <60sec and other parameters were found within acceptable limits. The prepared optimized stable mouth dissolving films were characterized by SEM, FT-IR, DSC etc. And various new equipments were used first time in PMDFs preparation for cutting, pill-out and water level indicator for balancing novel mold in the oven, which was widely used in other field like engineering and physics. Especially design mold for casting of the film was found to be more efficient than regular petri dish due to easily scale up and avoid problems occurs during preparation of stable mouth dissolving film which leads to reduce the wastage of active ingredients and excipients.
Fuel and metabolic scaling during the early life stages of Atlantic cod Gadus morhua

The simultaneous effect of temperature (5, 7, 10 and 13°C) and light on the rates of oxy- gen consumption and ammonia excretion of larval and early juvenile Atlantic cod Gadus morhua was examined. Larvae increased their mean dry body mass by 2000 times within 48 d. Instantaneous growth rate exceeded 30% d -1 towards the end of the study period, and proportionality of growth fol- lowed a triphasic pattern, during which body water content significantly declined but no inflection could be detected in the metabolic exponents. Data were rigorously tested via Model-I (least squares) and Model-II (geometric mean) regression techniques, and the aerobic metabolic rate was found to scale allometrically with both dry and wet body mass. The metabolic exponent was not affected by increasing temperature, but was significantly decreased by the presence of light (b = 0.88 to 0.89 for light-adapted larvae; b = 0.90 to 0.91 for dark-adapted larvae). The effect of light on small larvae (4 to 7 mm standard length, SL) caused a 30 to 40% increase in metabolic rate, while no effect was observed in larger juveniles (40 to 60 mm SL). Acute temperature acclimation of Atlantic cod of 4 to 60 mm SL (0.04 to 350 mg dry mass) demonstrated normal thermal sensitivity with Q10 values of 2.4 for dark-adapted larvae and 2.6 for light-adapted larvae. Rates of ammonia excretion also scaled allo- metrically with wet and dry body mass and showed greater variability in dark-adapted compared to light-adapted larvae. Comparison of the molar rates of ammonia excretion and oxygen consumption revealed that Atlantic cod larvae have a high reliance on amino acids as fuel for energy dissipation. With lipids as the assumed co-substrate, amino acids were estimated to account for 70 to 95% of total substrate oxidation for larvae up to 7 mm SL (first 3 to 4 wk of post-hatch development). Beyond 7 mm SL, the reliance on amino acids as fuel began to decline, but even in juveniles of 40 to 60 mm SL, amino acids still represented the dominant source of fuel. For juveniles of between 10 and 20 mm SL, both the rates of oxygen consumption and ammonia excretion remained unaffected by the presence of food in the gut. For short-term fasted juveniles (35 to 60 mm SL), however, a substantial decline in the rate of ammonia excretion was observed. This indicates that during short-term fasting (8 to 12 h) early juvenile Atlantic cod conserve amino acids, rather than funneling them into the tricarboxylic acid cycle.
An overview of, Biomarkers in Carcinoma breast and, the relevance of ER/PR and HER-2/neu markers

Breast cancer is a most common site specific cancer in women. It is the leading cause of death from cancer, exceeded only by, lung cancer. Traditionally they are classified by TNM classification consisting of Tumour, node and metastasis. They are then staged and also histopathology is taken into consideration. It has been seen that the same stage cancer behave differently to same treatment. The answer lies in its molecular biology. There are various biomarkers which have prognostic and predictive values. Their assessment helps in individualising the treatment of carcinoma breast. In this article an attempt is made to describe the various biomarkers and their influence. The basic workup for carcinoma breast consists of staging, histological classification and at least ER/PR and HER 2/new status. The proliferation marker Ki-67 provides important prognostic information particularly for the patients with small tumour and no axillary lymph node involvement.
Content adaptive wavelet based method for joint denoising of depth and luminance images

In this paper we present a new method for joint denoising of depth and luminance images produced by time-of-flight camera. Here we assume that the sequence does not contain outlier points which can be present in the depth images. Our method first performs estimation of noise and signal covariance matrices and then performs vector denoising. Luminance image is segmented into similar contexts using k-means algorithm, which are used for calculation of covariance matrices. Denoising results are compared with the ground truth images obtained by averaging of the multiple frames of the still scene.
Antioxidative and Hepatoprotective Activities of Deinoxanthin-Rich Extract from Deinococcus radiodurans R1 against Carbon Tetrachloride-Induced Liver Injury in Mice

Purpose : To investigate the antioxidant activity and hepatoprotective effect of deinoxanthin-rich extract from Deinococcus radiodurans (EDR) against CCl4-induced liver injury in mice. Methods : The ethanol extract of EDR was analyzed by liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS), and its antioxidant activity was examined using in vitro assays for reducing power, iron chelating activity and lipid peroxidation. The extract was also evaluated for its hepatoprotective activity against carbon tetrachloride-induced liver injury in mice. The activities of alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) in serum, and catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) in liver tissue, as well as hepatic malondialdehyde (MDA) levels, were measured to monitor liver injury. Damage to liver cells was assessed by histology. Results : EDR displayed strong reducing activity and lipid peroxidation inhibition activity in vitro. Pretreatment with EDR (400 mg/kg b.w.) significantly reduced activities of serum ALT, AST and ALP, as well as hepatic MDA levels (p < 0.05), but increased the activities of GSH-Px, CAT and SOD. Histopathological assessment showed that liver tissue damage was decreased by the protective effect of EDR. Conclusion : The results show that EDR can protect mice against CCl4-induced hepatic damage by its antioxidant and free radical scavenging activities. Keywords : Antioxidant, Deinoxanthin, Deinococcus radiodurans, Hepatoprotective, Carbon tetrachloride, Liver damage
Corrigendum: Quantum nanophotonics using hyperbolic metamaterials (2012 J. Opt. 14 063001)

Engineering optical properties using artiﬁcial nanostructured media known as metamaterials has led to breakthrough devices with capabilities from super-resolution imaging to invisibility. In this paper, we review metamaterials for quantum nanophotonic applications, a recent development in the ﬁeld. This seeks to address many challenges in the ﬁeld of quantum optics using advances in nanophotonics and nanofabrication. We focus on the class of nanostructured media with hyperbolic dispersion that have emerged as one of the most promising metamaterials with a multitude of practical applications from subwavelength imaging, nanoscale waveguiding, biosensing to nonlinear switching. We present the various design and characterization principles of hyperbolic metamaterials and explain the most important property of such media: a broadband enhancement in the electromagnetic density of states. We review several recent experiments that have explored this phenomenon using spontaneous emission from dye molecules and quantum dots. We ﬁnally point to future applications of hyperbolic metamaterials, using the broadband enhancement in the spontaneous emission to construct single-photon sources.
Head Nod and Shake Gesture Interface for a Self-portrait Camera

Interactive interfaces and applications are a flourishing research area. In this paper, we introduce a head gesture interface for a digital camera shooting self-portrait pictures. Natural head nodding and shaking gestures can be recognized in real-time, using optical-flow motion tracking. A double head nod triggers the camera shutter to take shots. Continuous nodding or shaking triggers a zooming interface to zoom the user's face in or out. To make the recognition robust, a safe zone analysis of the head region was conducted to quickly exclude any insignificant head motion, and thresholds of moving direction and length of head motion were selected in a preliminary set-up step. A finite state machine was used to recognize head gestures. Our results show that the proposed head gesture recognition method is a promising interface for a self-portrait camera. Keywords-head gesture; self-portrait; human computer interaction; optical-flow; motion tracking.
Tutorial 2 : Zero-Order optimization algorithms

This workshop aims at presenting some optimization algorithms often used in literature, that is two local search algorithms – a gradient-based and the Simplex method –, an evolutionary algorithm – “Evolution Strategies” (ES) – and a swarm intelligence-based algorithm – “Particle Swarm Optimization” (PSO). Each algorithm is applied on the Rastrigin function and compared to the Random Search Algorithm (RSA) using a statistical approach. An implementation of ES and PSO is proposed in appendix which uses the Matlab programming language. Moreover, they share a common interface so that it is quite straightforward to switch from one algorithm to another.
A mostly unlexicalized model for recognizing textual entailment

Many approaches to automatically recognizing entailment relations have employed classifiers over hand engineered lexicalized features, or deep learning models that implicitly capture lexicalization through word embeddings. This reliance on lexicalization may complicate the adaptation of these tools between domains. For example, such a system trained in the news domain may learn that a sentence like “Palestinians recognize Texas as part of Mexico” tends to be unsupported, but this fact (and its corresponding lexicalized cues) have no value in, say, a scientific domain. To mitigate this dependence on lexicalized information, in this paper we propose a model that reads two sentences, from any given domain, to determine entailment without using lexicalized features. Instead our model relies on features that are either unlexicalized or are domain independent such as proportion of negated verbs, antonyms, or noun overlap. In its current implementation, this model does not perform well on the FEVER dataset, due to two reasons. First, for the information retrieval portion of the task we used the baseline system provided, since this was not the aim of our project. Second, this is work in progress and we still are in the process of identifying more features and gradually increasing the accuracy of our model. In the end, we hope to build a generic end-to-end classifier, which can be used in a domain outside the one in which it was trained, with no or minimal re-training.