Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Proto-Nasca art and antaras

The Dawson Nasca pottery seriation has not been updated since 1970, and it was never published in its entirety. An elusive “master sequence” based primarily on whole pots, which bore limited relevance to field situations, dissuaded recent generations of south-coast researchers from the study of ceramic chronology and iconography. As a contribution to archaeology and art history, this article re-invigorates the approach by demonstrating methods and results not available by other means. A nomenclature for studying antaras (panpipes) is introduced, and Paracas and Nasca antaras are compared. The markers Dawson used to define Nasca phases 1 and 2 are re-evaluated and adjusted, thereby unblocking log jams in south-coast studies. Several little-known Proto-Nasca antaras with elaborate iconography in European collections are authenticated and positioned in the American narrative. A previously unrecognized decorative technique called white on resin post-fire outlining, and an artistic convention termed Truco del Ojo, are documented for ceramics of the Necrópolis Era. This study demonstrates regional variation in Proto-Nasca pottery, and identifies the Nazca Valley (Cahuachi) as the origin of a radically new art style representing the emergence of a fertility cult associated with head taking.
Contours actifs : application à la détection de rangs de cultures en télédétection haute résolution

Row detection is a necessary first step for the analysis of high resolution remote sensing images of row crops. This paper presents an algorithm for automatic row detection which implements an active contour model. The model consists of a network of lines whose purpose is to adjust to the rows. After a rough initialization, the convergence of the network is obtained by minimizing an energy criterion. The energy is composed of two parts: an internal energy reflecting the internal geometric constraints undergone by the network, and an external energy which represents the effect of the image on the network. The algorithm proves to perform properly. The rows are precisely detected.
Exploratory versus Explanatory Visual Learning Analytics: Driving Teachers' Attention through Educational Data Storytelling

From a human-centred computing perspective, supporting the interpretation of educational dashboards and visualizations by the people intended to use them exposes critical design challenges that may often be trivialized. Empirical evidence already shows that “usable” visualizations are not necessarily effective from an educational perspective. Since an educator’s interpretation of visualized data is essentially the construction of a narrative about student progress, in this paper, we propose the concept of “Educational Data Storytelling” as an approach for explaining student data by aligning educational visualizations with the intended learning design. We present a pilot study that explores the effectiveness of these data storytelling elements based on educator responses to prototypes by analyzing the kinds of stories they articulate, their eye-tracking behaviour, and their preferences after inspecting a series of student data visualizations. The dual purpose is to understand the contribution of each visual element for data storytelling, as well as the effectiveness of the enhancements when combined.
Emotion Recognition from Speech with Acoustic, Non-Linear and Wavelet-based Features Extracted in Different Acoustic Conditions

In the last years, there has a great progress in automatic speech recognition. The challenge now it is not only recognize the semantic content in the speech but also the called "paralinguistic" aspects of the speech, including the emotions, and the personality of the speaker. This research work aims in the development of a methodology for the automatic emotion recognition from speech signals in non-controlled noise conditions. For that purpose, different sets of acoustic, non-linear, and wavelet based features are used to characterize emotions in different databases created for such purpose. The acoustic analysis considers a standard feature set developed for emotion recognition from speech called OpenEAR, and a set of spectral and noise derived measures. The non-linear analysis is based on non-linear dynamic measures and include the correlation dimension, the largest Lyapunov exponent, the Hurst exponent, and the Lempel Ziv complexity. Also it is proposed a set of measures derived from parametric non-stationary analysis using time dependent ARMA models. The wavelet based measures consider features derived from the wavelet packet transform, and different wavelet time-frequency representations such as the bionic wavelet transform, and the synchro-squeezed wavelet transform. Different non-controlled noise conditions are tested considering four different scenarios: (1) the original recordings, (2) the signals degraded by two additive noisy environments: street and a cafeteria babble, (3) the re-captured signals in two natural noisy environments as street and office, and (4) the recordings compressed by seven different codecs used for the transmission through mobile, VoIP, and web based telephone channels. Also two different speech enhancement algorithms are tested to evaluate if they are suitable to improve the results in the classification of emotions in noisy speech signals. A classification scheme based on the combination of Gaussian mixture models and Support vector machines is used for the analysis.
Kinderen beschermd tegen seksueel misbruik. Evaluatie van de partiële wijziging in de zedelijkheidswetgeving

Op 1 oktober 2002 is de partiele herziening van de zedelijkheidswetgeving in werking getreden. De kinderpornografiebepaling is aangescherpt, de extraterritoriale rechtsmacht is verruimd, en andere vormen van seksuele uitbuiting van minderjarigen zijn strafbaar gesteld. Met deze wetswijziging beoogt de minister van Justitie een betere bescherming te bieden tegen seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen en andere kwetsbare groeperingen. Dit rapport bevat de resultaten van een evaluatie van de wetswijziging.
Popularité, élections et marge de manœuvre du gouvernement. Une analyse de la production législative en France et en Italie

Les etudes menees sur le comportement gouvernemental devant la conjoncture politico-economique tendent a montrer que l’approche des elections et une faible popularite poussent le gouvernement a privilegier des politiques a court terme pour retrouver du soutien. L’explication traditionnelle repose sur l’idee que les gouvernants essayent de manipuler les preferences des electeurs concus comme myopes et passifs. L’objet de cet article est de proposer une explication alternative qui repose sur une conception active de l’electorat. L’hypothese generale est que – toutes choses egales par ailleurs – les citoyens utilisent les variations de la popularite du Premier ministre et l’approche des elections pour essayer d’influencer la politique du gouvernement en leur faveur. Cela se traduit par une chute de la production legislative dans ces circonstances. L’etude empirique porte sur la production legislative en France (1976-2003) et en Italie (1954-1993).
Stability Analysis of a Single-Bit Infinite Impulse Response Sigma-Delta Modulator

Abstract Although sigma-delta modulators have been applied as re-modulator blocks in single-bit filter systems, their inherently non-linear behaviour leads to stability concerns. When applied in simple systems such as a first order infinite impulse response (IIR) filter loop, positive feedback within the loop causes the system to become unstable after just a few input samples. In this paper, a new model is proposed that takes into account widely accepted input and quantiser gain limits of the second-order sigma delta modulator inside the IIR filter. A linear analysis of the limits to the quantiser gain and feedback parameter is presented. The proposed method gives sufficient control over the input to the sigma delta modulator and the quantiser gain while improving the acceptable limits of IIR filter feedback parameter. The new model requires fewer data bits to achieve an equivalent signal-to-noise ratio, reducing hardware costs and potentially improving performance, especially when mapping the hardware to a field programmable gate array.
PMS: diagnosis, aetiology, assessment and management: Revisiting… Premenstrual syndrome

This article reviews our understanding of the epidemiology and aetiology of premenstrual syndrome and premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and its assessment and management. It also addresses the concerns of the feminist community and the views of women themselves about this condition and its management. Service provision in the UK for women with these problems is unfocused and greatly varying, and they might be better assessed and treated by psychiatrists.
Effect of tranexamic acid in perioperative blood loss associated with total knee replacement: A KIMS experience

Materials and methods: A retrospective and prospective study was carried out on 148 patients undergoing total knee replacement. 88 patients received tranexamic acid (10 mg/kg, iv) just before the cementation, 3 hours and 6 hours post operatively. 60 patients did not receive tranexamic acid. Perioperative blood loss was measured by the amount of post-operative drain, and drop in hemoglobin levels. The number of patients who needed blood transfusion and the number of units transfused was recorded and possible postoperative thromboembolic complications were studied clinically.
The Efficacy of the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM) in the Provision of Life Skills to Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) in Zimbabwe

The Basic Education Assistant Module (BEAM) is one of the various forms of social protection that the Government of Zimbabwe is providing to vulnerable children. This research study evaluated the effectiveness of BEAM (Basic Education Assistance Module) as an intervention programme on education for orphans and vulnerable children. The study used a mixed methods approach. The survey design underpinned the study. The population included secondary school children who were beneficiaries of BEAM as well as teachers in three Harare schools. Purposive sampling was used to come up with a representative sample of thirty teachers and thirty learners (BEAM beneficiaries). The questionnaire was the sole data collection tool used. The results showed that BEAM limited the number of subjects to studied by beneficiaries. In addition it was established that most BEAM beneficiaries lacked a financial support in their curriculum especially sporting activities, life skills, food and uniformsIt was concluded that while BEAM managed to help orphans and vulnerable children additional funding is needed to enhance their quality of life. The major recommendations made include the need for BEAM to give independence in the number of subjects to be done and written at Ordinary Level, informed by the pupil capability. It was also recommended that BEAM should go beyond the payment of fees and include the purchsing of uniforms, books and supplementary food. The responsible authorities were also encouraged to reduce bias in the selection of BEAM beneficiaries. Lastly it was recommended that support systems be put in place for orphans and vulnerable children in transition to employment and adulthood.
A single-chip multimode receiver for GSM900, DCS1800, PCS1900, and WCDMA

A single-chip, multimode receiver for GSM900, DCS1800, PCS1900, and UTRA/FDD WCDMA is introduced in this paper. The receiver operates at four different radio frequencies with two different baseband bandwidths. The presented chip uses a direct-conversion architecture and consists of a low-noise amplifier (LNA), downconversion mixers with on-chip local-oscillator I/Q generation, channel selection filters, and programmable gain amplifiers. In spite of four receive bands, only four on-chip inductors are used in the single-ended LNA. The repeatable receiver second-order input intercept point (IIP2) of over +42 dBm is achieved with mixer linearization circuitry together with a baseband circuitry having approximately +100-dBV out-of-band IIP2. The noise figure of the SiGe BiCMOS receiver is less than 4.8 dB in all GSM modes, and 3.5 dB in WCDMA. The power consumption from a 2.7-V supply in all GSM modes and in WCDMA mode is 42 and 50 mW, respectively. The silicon area is 9.8 mm/sup 2/ including the bonding pads.
Lipid emulsion-induced inhibition of apoptosis.

Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Gyeongsang National University School of Medicine, Gyeongsang National University Hospital, 15 Jinju-daero 816 beon-gil, Jinju-si, Gyeongsangnam-do, 52727, Republic of Korea; Institute of Health Sciences, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju-si, 52727, Republic of Korea Address for correspondence: JT Sohn, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Gyeongsang National University Hospital, 79 Gangnamro, Jinju-si, 52727, Republic of Korea. Phone: +82.55. 7508586, Fax: +82.55. 7508142 Dear Editor I have read the article titled “Protective effects of intravenous lipid emulsion on malathion-induced hepatotoxicity” recently published in Bratislava Medical Journal (1). Bax and bcl-2, proapoptotic and anti-apoptotic proteins of the intrinsic apoptotic pathway, respectively, contribute to regulating apoptosis (2). In the Immunohistochemical results of the Results section, Esen and Uysal described that “The bax, bcl-2 and caspase-3 immunoreactivity in malathion group was signifi cantly increased (p < 0.001), and the immunoreactivity of all three proteins was lower in the malathion+ILE group compared to the malathion group (p < 0.01) (Fig. 5). ” (1). Malathion increased bax immunoreactivity, whereas the combined treatment with malathion and lipid emulsion decreased bax immunoreactivity. However, malathion increased bcl-2 immunoreactivity, whereas the combined treatment with malathion and lipid emulsion decreased bcl-2 immunoreactivity. Thus, because the combined treatment with malathion and lipid emulsion decreased the immunoreactivity of both the pro-apoptotic protein bax and the anti-apoptotic protein bcl-2 more than malathion alone, it may be confusing for readers to interpret the lipid emulsion-mediated decrease of apoptosis induced by malathion in this report (1). It would be more reasonable to compare the magnitude of difference of bax immunoreactivity in both groups (malathion alone versus the combined treatment with malathion and lipid emulsion) with that of difference of bcl-2 immunoreactivity in both groups (Fig. 5) (1). Otherwise, as it was reported that lipid emulsion inhibits bupivacaine-induced increase in bax/ bcl-2 expression ratio, it would be more reasonable to describe bax/bcl-2 ratio in the malathion alone and the combined treatment groups with malathion and lipid emulsion (3). I believe that this study suggests the protective effect of lipid emulsion on malathioninduced hepatotoxicity.
ASSESSMENT OF SMOKING BEHAVIOR AMONG MALAY MALE SMOKERS IN KELANTAN, MALAYSIA

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess smoking behavior among Malay male smokers in Kelantan, Malaysia. Methods: Volunteers (n=496) were recruited in the study by randomly selected manner. The participants were categorized as smokers (n=248) and non-smoking controls (n=248). All participants were given data collection sheets to record their information. The participants who were selected in smokers group (n=248) were given a form containing questionnaires regarding their smoking behavior. The participants were asked about their smoking history such as smoking initiation age, factors that influence smoking behavior, number of cigarettes daily, number of quitting attempts, and methods of quitting attempts. The validated Malay version of Fagerstrom test for nicotine dependence (FTND-M) was used to measure physical dependence on nicotine among smokers. R esults: The study revealed that smokers in this study group were mainly light smokers. More than half of the participants, i.e., 51.6% (n=128), in this study had an FTND-M score lower than 2 (very low nicotine dependence). The minimum smoking initiation age of the participants in this study was 10 years whereas the maximum age was 40 years. Most of the participants start smoking at the age of <20 years with the higher frequency being 18 years. More than half of the participants (58.5%) claimed that peer influence is the main factor initiating their smoking behavior. From the study, about 50.4% (n=125) of participants used <10 sticks of cigarettes per day, 39.1% (n=97) used 11-20 sticks, 9.39% (n=23) used 21-30 sticks, while 1.2% of the participants used more than 31 sticks of cigarettes per day. Our data indicate that only 10.9% (n=27) of participants had tried more than 5 times to quit smoking. Even though new effective treatments are now available, almost half of the participants, i.e., 51.6% (n=128), had tried to quit smoking without any intervention. C onclusion: Data obtained from this study later may help the public health policy makers and practitioners, especially in Kelantan, Malaysia, to make smoking prevention strategies more effective. Ke ywords: Smoking behavior, Male smoker, Malay male and smoking assessment.
La politique des partenariats public-privé : une approche bipartisane en évolution

La politique des partenariats public-prive mise en place en 1992 sous le gouvernement de John Major (Private Financial Initiative, PFI), n’a pas ete remise en cause a l’arrivee du New Labour en 1997. Rebaptisee en Public Private Partnership (PPP), elle fut au contraire intensifiee, mais egalement redefinie a la suite de deux rapports d’evaluation commandes par le gouvernement. En 2003, la publication par HM Treasury du rapport Meeting the Investment Challenge a marque le debut d’une reorientation importante de cette politique. Jusqu’a cette periode, les decideurs ne semblaient preoccupes que par les questions juridiques, economiques et financieres liees a ces nouveaux contrats de partenariat. Mais a partir de 2003, non seulement la politique du tout PFI est abandonnee et la recherche de la qualite de la conception (design) parait acceder au statut de priorite pour repondre aux tres nombreuses critiques qui sont apparues au grand jour avec l’evaluation des premiers contrats. Cet article repere les changements institutionnels intervenus dans la procedure elle-meme, tant au plan national qu’au plan des collectivites locales, et analyse l’inflexion que connait la politique des partenariats public-prive depuis le debut des annees 2000.
Kinerja Deep Convolutional Network untuk Pengenalan Aksara Pallawa

This research trained Deep Convolutional Networks(ConvNets) to classify hand-written Pallava alphabet. The Deep ConvNets architecture consists of two convolutional layers, each followed by maxpooling layer, two Fully-Connected layers. It had 442.602 parameters. This model classified 660 images of hand-written Pallava alphabet into 33 diferent classes. To make training faster, this research used GPU implementation with 384 CUDA cores. Two different techniques were implemented, Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) and Adaptive Gradient, each trained with 10, 20, 30 and 40 epoch. The best accuracy was 67,5%, achieved by the model with SGD technique trained at 30 epoch. Keywords: Deep ConvNets, Pallava, GPU, SGD
Life-Motion and the Sense of Space in Early Chinese Representational Art

STYLISTIC evolution is nowhere more clearly and fully demonstrated than by the change in Chinese representational art between Han and T'ang. The contrast of extremes is comparable to the difference that separates Greek art of the archaic period from Hellenistic maturity. Monumental sculpture, on the one hand, is represented in the horse of Ho Ch'u-ping's tomb1 by a block of Daedalan immobility and stoniness. On the other it shows a mastery of living, moving forms no less complete than Lysippus': an almost Alexandrian grace and soft sensuousness in the Bodhisattvas of T'ien-lung-shan, a wild strength no less dramatic than the Pergamene in the guardian gods of the Nara temples. Han painting, again, as imitated in the Shantung tomb slabs, is an art of silhouettes, strung along a base line without any concern for environment, or enclosed conventionally in an architectural frame drawn in elevation. T'ang representation, in contrast, has learned not only how to give the illusion of swelling mass by line alone, .
Space Target Motion Salient Classification using Polarimetric Retina Vision Sensing Principles

A new remote sensing retina vision system aimed at classifying rapid moving objects, such as Space debris, based on their motion patterns, is presented. The purpose of this study is to investigate how different types of target complex motion patterns can be detected and discriminated with high accuracy. The remote retina vision sensing system consists of an asynchronous event-based neuromorphic camera coupled with polarization filters enabling improved detection, tracking, and discrimination, with high contrast and dynamic range; a spinning light modulating wheel, operating at varying angular frequency, is placed in front of a static target. The outcome of this study indicates that deep learning combined with Polarimetric Dynamic Vision Sensor p(DVS) principles is well suited to accurately classify targets based on distinct salient features, such as motion patterns, rapidly, at low operational bandwidth, low-power consumption, and storage.
An RGB-D video-based wire detection tool to aid robotic arms during machine alignment measurement

Industrial equipment may require precise alignment of components in order to function properly. In this work, we consider the machine alignment of a beamline in a research facility where an autonomous measurement system is used to execute these machine alignment procedures. The system consists of two robotic arms equipped with laser sensors placed at their ends which with the help of fiducial markers, are used by a camera system to calculate the position of the machine with respect to a stretched wire installed on top of the machines. In this work we propose a wire detection tool that assists the measurement process by detecting the line automatically through RGB-D images. Although the system was implemented for the specific application of beam line component alignment in the LHC tunnel, the same principle can be used in various other applications requiring detection of fine lines at a close distance.
A Temporal Tone Mapping Adaptation: An Application using Logarithmic Camera

Noise, flicker, temporal inconsistencies disturb the tone mapping creation for High Dynamic Range image (HDR). A method to alleviate these artifacts in tone mapped HDR video sequences is presented in this paper. A temporal filtering is developed in order to minimize undesirable artifacts in the low dynamic range image reconstruction process. In the experiments, tone mapping is applied on video sequences obtained by a logarithmic camera. This temporal process provides visual comfort without any kind of blink and prevents Low Dynamic Range (LDR) videos to be disturbed by some random brightness values of isolated pixels.