Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Perturbations on the Perceptual Ball

We present a simple regularisation of Adversarial Perturbations based upon the perceptual loss. While the resulting perturbations remain imperceptible to the human eye, they differ from existing adversarial perturbations in two important regards: (i) our resulting perturbations are semi-sparse, and typically make alterations to objects and regions of interest leaving the background static; (ii) our perturbations do not alter the distribution of data in the image and are undetectable by state-of-the-art methods. As such this work reinforces the connection between explainable AI and adversarial perturbations. We demonstrate the merits of our approach by evaluating on standard explainability benchmark and by defeating a recent test for detecting adversarial perturbations.
Composition Proposal Generation for Manga Creation Support

SUMMARY In recent years, cognition and use of manga pervade, and people who use manga for various purposes such as entertainment, study, marketing are increasing more and more. However, when people who do not specialize in it create it for these purposes, they can write plots expressing what they want to convey but the technique of the composition which arranges elements in manga such as characters or balloons corresponding to the plot create obstacles to using its merits for comprehensibility based on high ﬂexibility of its expression. Therefore, we consider that support of this composition technique is necessary for amateurs to use manga while taking advantage of its beneﬁts. We propose a method of generating composition proposal to support manga creation by amateurs. For the method, we also deﬁne new manga metadata model which summarize and extend metadata models by earlier studies. It represents the compostion and the plot in manga. We apply a neural machine translation mechanism for lear-ing the relation between the composition and the plot. It considers that the plot annotation is the source of the composition annotation that is the target, and learns from the annotation dataset based on the metadata model. We conducted experiments to evaluate how the composition proposal generated by our method helps amateur manga creation, and demonstrated that it is useful.
Analisis of predevelopment models and activities : a systematic bibliografic review

This paper has as main objective the systematic collection and analysis of models and activities proposed by the literature for the conduct of the pre-development phase of new products, as well as the techniques and tools used for the implementation of this phase. A Systematic Bibliographic Review identified the existence of 10 models composed of different activities for the predevelopment phase. These models were published between 1988 and 2013. They sought to systematize the predevelopment phase and guide managers in its conduct. It was observed that, although with different nomenclatures, activities such as opportunity identification, opportunity selection, idea generation, idea selection, concept development, concept selection, and project planning are recurrent in all models. Therefore, these activities are essential and must be present in the predevelopment phase, regardless of the type of product manufactured or sector to which the company belongs. Also, 57 different techniques aided by various tools were identified. According to the authors, these techniques can be effective in the conduct of predevelopment activities.
Finding high-redshift voids using Lyman α forest tomography

Author(s): Stark, CW; Font-Ribera, A; White, M; Lee, KG | Abstract: © 2015 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. We present a new method of finding cosmic voids using tomographic maps of Lyα forest flux. We identify cosmological voids with radii of 2-12 h-1 Mpc in a large N-body simulation at z=2.5, and characterize the signal of the high-redshift voids in density and Lyα forest flux. The void properties are similar to what has been found at lower redshifts, but they are smaller and have steeper radial density profiles. Similarly towhat has been found for low-redshift voids, the radial velocity profiles have little scatter and agree very well with the linear theory prediction. We run the same void finder on an ideal Lyα flux field and tomographic reconstructions at various spatial samplings. We compare the tomographic map void catalogues to the density void catalogue and find good agreement even with modest-sized voids (r g 6 h-1 Mpc). Using our simple void-finding method, the configuration of the ongoing COSMOS Lyman Alpha Mapping And Tomography Observations (CLAMATO) survey covering 1 deg2 would provide a sample of about 100 high-redshift voids. We also provide void-finding forecasts for larger area surveys, and discuss how these void samples can be used to test modified gravity models, study high-redshift void galaxies, and to make an Alcock-Paczynski measurement. To aid future work in this area, we provide public access to our simulation products, catalogues, and sample tomographic flux maps.
5G Internet of Radio Light Positioning System for Indoor Broadcasting Service

Many features of 5G are definitely important to the broadcasting service, including diverse content services such as follow-me TV, video-on-demand, but also gaming, Virtual reality (VR) and Augmented reality (AR) and many others. Meanwhile, those services depend more and more on the user’s position accuracy, especially in indoor environment. With the increase of broadcasting data traffic indoors, to obtain a highly accurate position is becoming a challenge because of the impact of radio interference. In order to support a high-quality indoor broadcasting service, a high-accuracy positioning, radiation-free, and high-capacity communication system is urgently needed. In this paper, a 5G indoor positioning system is proposed for museums. It utilizes unlicensed visible light of the electromagnetic spectrum to provide museum visitors with high-accuracy positioning, multiple forms of interaction services, and high-resolution multimedia delivery on a mobile device. The geographic data and the location-related data integrated into the 5G New Radio (NR) waveform are detailed. A general-purpose system architecture is provided and some basic techniques to enhance system performance are also investigated. A preliminary demonstration is built in the laboratory environment. It supports over 45.25 Mbps data rate and a mean positioning error of 0.18 m.
Knowledge and Perceptions of Couples ' Voluntary Counseling and Testing in Urban Rwanda and Zambia : A Cross-Sectional Household Survey April

Background: Most incident HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa occur between cohabiting, discordant, heterosexual couples. Though couples’ voluntary HIV counseling and testing (CVCT) is an effective, well-studied intervention in Africa, ,1% of couples have been jointly tested. Methods: We conducted cross-sectional household surveys in Kigali, Rwanda (n = 600) and Lusaka, Zambia (n = 603) to ascertain knowledge, perceptions, and barriers to use of CVCT. Results: Compared to Lusaka, Kigali respondents were significantly more aware of HIV testing sites (79% vs. 56%); had greater knowledge of HIV serodiscordance between couples (83% vs. 43%); believed CVCT is good (96% vs. 72%); and were willing to test jointly (91% vs. 47%). Stigma, fear of partner reaction, and distance/cost/logistics were CVCT barriers. Conclusions: Though most respondents had positive attitudes toward CVCT, the majority were unaware that serodiscordance between cohabiting couples is possible. Future messages should target gaps in knowledge about serodiscordance, provide logistical information about CVCT services, and aim to reduce stigma and fear. Citation: Kelley AL, Karita E, Sullivan PS, Katangulia F, Chomba E, et al. (2011) Knowledge and Perceptions of Couples’ Voluntary Counseling and Testing in Urban Rwanda and Zambia: A Cross-Sectional Household Survey. PLoS ONE 6(5): e19573. doi:10.1371/journal.pone. 0019573 Editor: Landon Myer, University of Cape Town, South Africa Received December 3, 2010; Accepted April 10, 2011; Published May 9, 2011 Copyright: 2011 Kelley et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This work was supported by funding from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Grant No. R01 MH66767, Fogarty AIDS International Training and Research Program (AITRP) FIC 2D43 TW001042, the Emory Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) P30 AI050409, and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: kmwall@emory.edu
Forest edge-induced damage of cephalo- and cyanolichens in northern temperate rainforests of British Columbia

Retention of trees after logging is a method of preserving epiphytic lichens; however, epiphytes’ responses to logging disturbance are insufficiently known. We aimed to characterize four viability measures — effective PSII yield (ΦPSII; a proxy for photosynthesis), maximal photosystem II efficiency (FV/FM; a proxy for photoinhibition), chlorophyll a content, and chlorophyll a/b ratio — and the functional parameter specific thallus mass (STM; a proxy for water storage) in sympatric populations of two old-growth lichens (Lobaria retigera (Bory) Trevisan and Lobaria oregana (Tuck.) Müll. Arg. ) and the less old-growth dependent Lobaria pulmonaria (L.) Hoffm. along recently logged forest edge gradients within retained forest patches. All species experienced substantially reduced chlorophyll contents near edges, whereas ΦPSII was lower in the two old-growth lichens than in L. pulmonaria. STM, and thus lichen water storage, did not respond to logging, probably because chlorophyll degradation reduced the carbon gain required for necessary acclimation. Reported edge effects on lichen viability were so strong that most of the epiphytic lichens in the retained forest patches were affected. Measured viability variables improved linearly with distances up to ≈120 m from the edge. To avoid logging-induced adverse impacts on the threatened epiphytic lichens of these old-growth rainforests, there is a need to retain forest patches wider than 240 m.
General Homogenised Formulation for Thick Viscoelastic Layered Structures for Finite Element Applications

Viscoelastic layered surface treatments are widely used for passive control of vibration and noise, especially in passenger vehicles and buildings. When the viscoelastic layer is thick, the structural models must account for shear effects. In this work, a homogenised formulation for thick N-layered viscoelastic structures for finite element applications is presented, which allows for avoiding computationally expensive models based on solids. This is achieved by substituting the flexural stiffness in the governing thin beam or plate equation by a frequency dependent equivalent flexural stiffness that takes shear and the properties of the different layers into account. The formulation is applied to Free Layer Damping (FLD) and Constrained Layer Damping (CLD) beams and plates and its ability to accurately compute the eigenpairs and dynamic response is tested by implementing it in a finite element model and comparing the obtained results to those given by the standard for the application—Oberst for the FLD case and RKU for the CLD one—and to a solid model, which is used as reference. For the cases studied, the homogenised formulation is nearly as precise as the model based on solids, but requires less computational effort, and provides better results than the standard model.
New American Schools

This paper examines how to encourage widespread adoption of comprehensive school-reform models--adoption outside the schools and districts that took part in the development process. It refers to such models as "design-based" schools. The paper defines what is meant by a school design and describes receptive school and district environments that are likely to encourage adoption of promising designs. It also reviews the incentives governing the behavior of local stakeholders and considers the possibility that key local actors might be unwilling to cooperate with comprehensive school reform, inclined, in fact, to undermine it. It calls for performance pressures to encourage the adoption of design-based schools and suggests the establishment of state-level incentives to encourage widespread implementation. These incentives are appropriate for all design-based models, whether those proposed by NAS-supported organizations or others. (Contains 33 references.) (DFR) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. New American Schools How to Create Incentives Z, for Design-Based Schools PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY
Phytochemical contents, antimicrobial and antioxidative activities of Solanum sisymbriifolium

The present study was aimed at screening the phytochemical contents, antimicrobial and antioxidative activities from the aerial parts of Solanum sisymbriifolium. S. sisymbriifolium is known to be traditionally used in various kinds of ailments including pain and inflammation, some of which may be due to infection by various microbes found in our environment. Phytochemical analyses revealed the presence of phenolics, flavonoids, tannins, alkaloids and saponins in this plant. Screening for the antimicrobial activity of tissue extracts by disc diffusion assay against test microorganisms revealed the presence of antimicrobial activity, maximum activity being found in the methanolic extracts. The activity was stable against drastic thermal and pH treatments. The antioxidative activity of its aerial tissue extracts was determined using DPPH-radical scavenging method. Antioxidant activities have been implicated as agents for fighting many other diseases such as cancer that result from oxidative damages arising out of synthesis of compounds via natural metabolic routes. The study suggests the use of Solanum sisymbriifolium species for further isolation and characterization of its bioactive compounds leading to the development of new antimicrobial drugs.
Offloading Real-time DDoS Attack Detection to Programmable Data Planes

In recent years, Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks have escalated both in frequency and traffic volume, with outbreaks reaching rates up to the order of terabits per second and compromising the availability of supposedly highly resilient infrastructure (e.g., DNS and cloud-based web hosting). The reality is that existing detection solutions resort to a combination of mechanisms, such as packet sampling and transmission of gathered data to external software, which makes it very difficult (if at all possible) to reach a good compromise for accuracy (higher is better), resource usage footprint, and latency (lower is better). Data plane programmability has emerged as a promising approach to help meeting these requirements as forwarding devices can be configured to execute algorithms and examine traffic at line rate. In this paper, we explore P4 primitives to design a fine-grained, low-footprint, and low-latency traffic inspection mechanism for real-time DDoS attack detection. Our proposal – the first to be fully in-network – contributes to shed light on the challenges to implement sophisticated security logic on forwarding devices given that, to operate at high throughput, the inspection (and overall processing) of packets is subject to a small time budget (dozens of nanoseconds) and limited memory space (in the order of megabytes). We evaluate the proposed mechanism using packet traces from CAIDA. The results show that it can detect DDoS attacks entirely within the data plane with high accuracy (98.2%) and low latency (≈250 ms) while keeping device resource usage low (dozens of kilobytes in SRAM per 1 Gbps link and a few hundred TCAM entries).
Black Hole Nilpotent Orbits and Tits Satake Universality Classes

In this paper we consider the problem of classification of nilpotent orbits for the pseudo-quaternionic coset manifolds U/H* obtained in the time-like dimensional reduction of N = 2 supergravity models based on homogeneous symmetric special geometries. Within the D=3 approach this classification amounts to a classification of regular and singular extremal black hole solutions of supergravity. We show that the pattern of such orbits is a universal property depending only on the Tits-Satake universality class of the considered model, the number of such classes being five. We present a new algorithm for the classification and construction of the nilpotent orbits for each universality class which is based on an essential use of the Weyl group W of the Tits Satake subalgebra U_{TS} of U and on a certain subgroup W_H thereof. The splitting of orbits of the full group Uinto suborbits with respect to the stability subgroup H* is shown to be governed by the structure of the discrete coset W/W_H. For the case of the universality class SO(4,5) /[SO(2,3) x SO(2,2)] we derive the complete list of nilpotent orbits which happens to contain 37 elements. We also show how the universal orbits are regularly embedded in all the members of the class that are infinite in number. As a matter of check we apply our new algorithm also to the Tits Satake class G_(2,2)/[SL(2)x SL(2)] confirming the previously obtained result encompassing 7 nilpotent orbits. Perspectives for future developments based on the obtained results are outlined.
The C-Band All-Sky Survey (C-BASS): design and capabilities

The C-Band All-Sky Survey (C-BASS) is an all-sky full-polarization survey at a frequency of 5 GHz, designed to provide complementary data to the all-sky surveys of WMAP and Planck, and future CMB B-mode polarization imaging surveys. The observing frequency has been chosen to provide a signal that is dominated by Galactic synchrotron emission, but suffers little from Faraday rotation, so that the measured polarization directions provide a good template for higher frequency observations, and carry direct information about the Galactic magnetic field. Telescopes in both northern and southern hemispheres with matched optical performance are used to provide all-sky coverage from a ground-based experiment. A continuous-comparison radiometer and a correlation polarimeter on each telescope provide stable imaging properties such that all angular scales from the instrument resolution of 45 arcmin up to full sky are accurately measured. The northern instrument has completed its survey and the southern instrument has started observing. We expect that C-BASS data will significantly improve the component separation analysis of Planck and other CMB data, and will provide important constraints on the properties of anomalous Galactic dust and the Galactic magnetic field.
Study of Acidified Aqueous Extraction of Phenolic Compounds from Hibiscus sabdariffa L. calyces

Hibiscus calyces are important sources from anthocyanins and pigments. The recovery of these bioactive compounds using non-organic solvents becomes very attractive for the food industry.For this reason, the separation of phenolic compounds by acidified aqueous extraction from hibiscus calyces was studied. The experiments were conducted by a fractional factorial design.Four factors were evaluated: temperature, time, stirring speed and enzyme concentration. The extracts produced were subjected to analysis of color (L*,a*,b*andChroma), total monomeric anthocyanins, antioxidant capacity by ABTS and fourteen phenolic compounds were quantified. The results showed that the best condition to obtain hibiscus calyces extract was using an enzyme concentration of 50 µL/1000 g hibiscus extract, 400 rpm of stirring speed at 55 ºC by 4 hours of extraction, that corresponded to concentrations of 17595, 7516, 2568 μg/g, expressed on a dry basis, for total phenolic compounds, delphinidin 3-sambubioside and cyanidin 3-sambubioside, respectively, and antioxidant capacity measured by ABTS of 7.8 µmol of Trolox equivalent per gram.
Binary Neutron Star and Short Gamma-Ray Burst Simulations in Light of GW170817

In the dawn of the multi-messenger era of gravitational wave astronomy, which was marked by the first ever coincident detection of gravitational waves and electromagnetic radiation, it is important to take a step back and consider our current established knowledge. Numerical simulations of binary neutron star mergers and simulations of short GRB jets must combine efforts to understand such complicated and phenomenologically rich explosions. We review the status of numerical relativity simulations with respect to any jet or magnetized outflow produced after merger. We compare what is known from such simulations with what is used and obtained from short GRB jet simulations propagating through the BNS ejecta. We then review the established facts on this topic, as well as discuss things that need to be revised and further clarified.
Creatinine-based GFR predicting equations in renal transplantation : reassessing the tubular secretion effect

Background. The real utility of blocking the tubular secretion of creatinine with cimetidine in order to ameliorate the prediction of renal graft function is questionable, particularly in the context of an increasing diffusion of the Modification of Diet in Renal Disease (MDRD) study equation. We have compared the impact of cimetidine on the performances of the Cockcroft–Gault (C–G) and MDRD equations in 56 renal transplant patients with an estimated glomerular filter rate (GFR) >30 mL/min/ 1.73 m for whom true GFR was directly measured by inulin clearance. Methods. Serum creatinine concentration (SCr) was measured [isotope dilution mass spectrometry (IDMS) traceable enzymatic assay] at the beginning of the inulin clearance procedure and 2 days later, after three oral cimetidine doses of 800 mg every 12 h. Predictive and diagnostic performances of the re-expressed MDRD and C–G formulas were compared before and after cimetidine intake. Results. Mean SCr (±SD) increased from 120 μmol/L (±34) before to 154 μmol/L (±47) after cimetidine. The beneficial effect of cimetidine was significant only on the accuracy of the C–G formula (accuracy 30% post-cimetidine of 93 and 79% for the C–G and MDRD equations, respectively). Likewise, while a higher proportion of patients were correctly staged using the chronic kidney disease classification after cimetidine with the C–G equation (59% before and 68% after), no improvement was seen with the MDRD formula (59 vs 57%). For both equations, receiver operating characteristic curves analysis showed only a marginal gain in GFR prediction. Conclusion. Our data do not support the use of a cimetidine-based strategy for the evaluation of renal graft function in the clinic, particularly when the GFR is estimated by the MDRD equation.