Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A New Descriptor for Pattern Matching: Application to Identity Document Verification

Identity document verification consists on checking its conformity to one or eventually a set of authentic documents. This verification is usually performed through visible patterns matching. In this paper, we propose a new efficient visual descriptor for pattern comparison. As most of existing descriptors incorporate either color or spatial information; the proposed descriptor, called Grid-3CD, includes both information. This descriptor is based on color connected components (CC) extracted from a quantified image. It consists of a set of 6-tuples computed on a grid of pixels sampled from the color-quantified image. The 6-tuple of a given pixel describes the density, the mass center, the bounding box and the color of the CC that contains this pixel. The efficiency of this descriptor for identity document verification is shown using two strategies of pattern comparison. The first one is unsupervised and based on a distance measure whereas the second is supervised and based on one-class Support Vector Machine (SVM). The experimentation of the new descriptor on four datasets of identity documents totaling 3250 documents shows an average accuracy of about 90%, outperforming state-of-the-art descriptors.
Improving Tourism Prediction Models Using Climate and Social Media Data: A Fine-Grained Approach

Accurate predictions about future events is essential in many areas, one of them being the Tourism Industry. Usually, countries and cities invest a huge amount of money in planning and preparation in order to welcome (and profit from) tourists. An accurate prediction of the number of visits in the following days or months could help both the economy and tourists. Prior studies in this domain explore forecasting for a whole country rather than for fine-grained areas within a country (e.g., specific touristic attractions). In this work, we suggest that accessible data from online social networks and travel websites, in addition to climate data, can be used to support the inference of visitation count for many touristic attractions. To test our hypothesis we analyze visitation, climate and social media data in more than 70 National Parks in U.S during the last 3 years. The experimental results reveal a high correlation between social media data and tourism demands; in fact, in over 80\% of the parks, social media reviews and visitation counts are correlated by more than 50\%. Moreover, we assess the effectiveness of employing various prediction techniques, finding that even a simple linear regression model, when fed with social media and climate data as input features, can attain a prediction accuracy of over 80\% while a more robust algorithm, such as Support Vector Regression, reaches up to 94\% accuracy.
Recent advances in the detection of repeat expansions with short-read next-generation sequencing

Short tandem repeats (STRs), also known as microsatellites, are commonly defined as consisting of tandemly repeated nucleotide motifs of 2–6 base pairs in length. STRs appear throughout the human genome, and about 239,000 are documented in the Simple Repeats Track available from the UCSC (University of California, Santa Cruz) genome browser. STRs vary in size, producing highly polymorphic markers commonly used as genetic markers. A small fraction of STRs (about 30 loci) have been associated with human disease whereby one or both alleles exceed an STR-specific threshold in size, leading to disease. Detection of repeat expansions is currently performed with polymerase chain reaction–based assays or with Southern blots for large expansions. The tests are expensive and time-consuming and are not always conclusive, leading to lengthy diagnostic journeys for patients, potentially including missed diagnoses. The advent of whole exome and whole genome sequencing has identified the genetic cause of many genetic disorders; however, analysis pipelines are focused primarily on the detection of short nucleotide variations and short insertions and deletions (indels). Until recently, repeat expansions, with the exception of the smallest expansion (SCA6), were not detectable in next-generation short-read sequencing datasets and would have been ignored in most analyses. In the last two years, four analysis methods with accompanying software (ExpansionHunter, exSTRa, STRetch, and TREDPARSE) have been released. Although a comprehensive comparative analysis of the performance of these methods across all known repeat expansions is still lacking, it is clear that these methods are a valuable addition to any existing analysis pipeline. Here, we detail how to assess short-read data for evidence of expansions, reviewing all four methods and outlining their strengths and weaknesses. Implementation of these methods should lead to increased diagnostic yield of repeat expansion disorders for known STR loci and has the potential to detect novel repeat expansions.
A text message intervention to reduce first year university students’ alcohol use: A pilot experimental study

Objective The aim of Orientation Week is to help new students acclimatize to university life. However, Orientation Week is characterized by heavy alcohol use and during this time students may develop drinking patterns that persist into the academic year. The aim of the current study was to refine a brief Ecological Momentary Intervention (EMI) and test its effectiveness in reducing students’ alcohol use during both Orientation Week and throughout the academic year. Method We conducted two focus groups with students who had received a pilot intervention. We then updated and trialled the intervention with students from two residential colleges (College 1 n = 117 and College 2 n = 269) who were assigned to either an Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) condition or an EMA-EMI condition. Students in both conditions reported their pre-university drinking and their drinking during Orientation Week and the academic year via text message. In addition to the EMA messages, during Orientation Week, participants in the EMA-EMI condition received messages highlighting the potential social consequences of heavy alcohol use. Results In College 1 those in the EMA-EMI condition consumed fewer drinks, relative to those in the EMA condition, across both Orientation Week (9.7 vs. 15.5; t(98) = 2.138, p = . 018) and the academic year. (4.3 vs. 6.8; t(98) = 1.788, p = . 039). There were, however, no significant differences between conditions in College 2. Conclusion The current findings suggest that EMIs may be successful under certain circumstances and may provide a simple, cost-effective means of intervening.
Relationship Of Lipids, C-Reactive Protein And Sialic Acid In The Healthy Individuals.

BACKGROUND Raised levels of cholesterol and triglycerides are major risk factors for atherosclerosis, which can lead to coronary heart disease. Both the CRP and Sialic Acid levels are elevated in response to acute as well as chronic inflammatory conditions. This study was conducted to determine the serum lipid profile, CRP and Sialic Acid levels and their relationship with each other in healthy individuals. METHODS This was a cross-sectional study performed by the Department of Biochemistry, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences (IBMS), Khyber Medical University (KMU) Peshawar. Two hundred healthy subjects in the age group of 18-50 years of either gender was recruited through consecutive sampling. Blood sampling were taken from all the participants and analysed each for serum lipid profile, CRP and Sialic Acid levels through standardized methods. RESULTS A total of 200 individuals were included, 53.5% being male. Mean age was 33.39±9.76 years. Mean height was 167.86±10.8 cm. Mean weight was 66.87±11.39kg. Mean Hip-Waist ratio was 0.93±0.16 whereas mean BMI was 24.12±3.65. The simultaneous raised levels of serum lipids, CRP and Sialic Acid were observed more commonly in females as compared to males. CRP and Sialic Acid has got statistically significant correlation with HDL. Sialic Acid had statistically significant correlation with triglycerides in the study population with a significant p-value (<0.05), while having a non-significant correlation with total cholesterol and LDL. CRP had got significant correlation with total cholesterol and LDL and non-significant correlation with triglycerides. CONCLUSIONS The study showed that serum CRP and Sialic Acid had a significant negative correlation with serum HDL. A significant positive correlation was found between serum Sialic Acid and triglycerides. CRP and Sialic Acid though expensive but are useful predictors of atherosclerotic disease.
The Impact of Cervical Spinal Cord Contusion on the Laryngeal Resistance in the Rat.

The present study was designed to investigate laryngeal function responses to chemoreceptor activation after unilateral high-cervical spinal cord contusion in rats. Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats received laminectomy or unilateral contusion at the C2 spinal cord. Both respiratory airflow and subglottal pressure were measured in spontaneously breathing rats at three days, two weeks, or six weeks after spinal surgery. Laryngeal closure responses were evoked via intrajugular capsaicin (1.5 μg/kg) administration and hypoxia (12.5% O2, 3 min) to activate bronchopulmonary C-fibers and chemoreceptors, respectively. High cervical contusion resulted in long-term reductions in tidal volume without changes in laryngeal resistance at baseline. Alternatively, capsaicin-induced increased subglottal pressure was significantly attenuated in contused rats at three days post-injury. Contused rats regained the ability to increase laryngeal resistance after capsaicin treatment at two and six weeks post-injury, whereas this recovered response remained weaker than uninjured animals. Notably, hypoxia-induced laryngeal closure was not altered during the acute injured stage, but instead was blunted at six weeks post-injury. These data suggest that cervical spinal cord injury not only influences the breathing pattern, but it also impacts upper airway function through modulation of laryngeal resistance. An attenuated laryngeal closure response may negatively impact the ability to prevent irritant inhalation and maintenance of the functional residual capacity. This may contribute to the provocation of pulmonary disease after cervical spinal cord injury.
Time-domain electromagnetic field analysis based on discrete time signal expansion and its relation to frequency domain banded signals

In this paper we presents a novel time-domain (TD) electromagnetic (EM) field signal process by using discrete-time signal expansion. In particular, the TD signals are first expanded by a set of orthogonal basis functions which may be used to represent frequency-domain (FD) banded signals. As a result, the coefficients of TD field expansion form a matrix field in a form analogous to the EM field quantity. Thus, the conventional FD solutions for the scattering and diffraction problems can be used to predict the TD wave propagation problems. The characteristics of these TD basis functions will be investigated and presented. Examples demonstrating the applications of this technique of discrete-time signal expansion will be presented.
Assessment of the contribution of a source of information to the final belief in a proposition

The Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence is currently one of the main mathematical frameworks used for reasoning under uncertainty, as it allows combination of imprecise information originating from different sources. In multi-source information fusion it may be problematic to identify which of the multiple information sources had the most significant contribution to the final decision. This may be of particularly importance in situations where it may not be possible to accurately assess the reliability of the sources involved. As the results of information fusion may be used in safety critical situations it is necessary to be able to track the origin of the beliefs obtained. In order to address this question we propose a new measure based on Jousselme's distance between two basic probability assignments. The concept of measuring the dissimilarity between two bodies of evidence is extended by conditioning the final fusion outcome on the plausibility of the proposition in question. The assumption is that the more similar a body of evidence provided is to the plausibility-conditioned result, the more significant its contribution. The performance of this metric is experimentally tested in the context of identifying the main source of information contributing to a hypothesis and sensitivity analysis.
A Lightweight Anti-Phishing Technique for Mobile Phone

Mobile phones have become an essential device for accessing the web. This is due to the advantages of portability, lower cost and ease. However, the adoption of mobile phones for online activities is now being challenged by myriads of cybercrimes. One of such crimes is phishing attack. In this work, a lightweight anti-phishing technique is proposed to combat phishing attacks on mobile devices. This is necessary because these mobile platforms have increased the attack surface for phishers while diminishing the effectiveness of existing countermeasures. The proposed approach uses a number of URL behavior to determine the status of a website based on frequency analysis of extracted phishing features from PhishTank. To increase the detection power of unknown pattern, a machine learning algorithm called Support Vector Machine is adopted. The results indicated that the approach is very efficient against phishing sites with negligible false negatives.
Implementation of lightweight cryptographic algorithms in FPGA

With the advancements in technology the needs of security systems to protect data are becoming crucial. The shift from high end devices such as desktop computers, servers and laptops to small constrained devices brings a wide range of new security challenges. The major concern of such devices is the storage, access and transmission of critical data. Lightweight cryptography refers to the branch of cryptography for developing cryptographic algorithms and its implementation in resource constrained devices like smart cards, RFID tags ,wireless sensors, Internet of Things(IoT) etc. In this paper the implementation of 64 bit plaintext input cryptographic algorithms in FPGA has been proposed.
Analysis of vascular mechanical properties of the yellow anaconda reveals increased elasticity and distensibility of the pulmonary artery during digestion

ABSTRACT In animals with functional division of blood systemic and pulmonary pressures, such as mammals, birds, crocodilians and a few non-crocodilian reptiles, the vessel walls of systemic and pulmonary arteries are exquisitely adapted to endure different pressures during the cardiac cycle, systemic arteries being stronger and stiffer than pulmonary arteries. However, the typical non-crocodilian reptile heart possesses an undivided ventricle that provides similar systolic blood pressure to both circuits. This raises the question whether in these species the systemic and pulmonary mechanical vascular properties are similar. Snakes also display large organ plasticity and increased cardiac output in response to digestion, and we speculate how the vascular circuit would respond to this further stress. We addressed these questions by testing the mechanical vascular properties of the dorsal aorta and the right pulmonary artery of fasted and fed yellow anacondas, Eunectes notaeus, a snake without functional ventricular separation that also exhibits large metabolic and cardiovascular responses to digestion. Similar to previous studies, the dorsal aorta was thicker, stronger, stiffer and more elastic than the pulmonary artery. However, unlike any other species studied so far, the vascular distensibility (i.e. the relative volume change given a pressure change) was similar for the two circuits. Most striking, the pulmonary artery elasticity (i.e. its capacity to resume its original form after being stretched) and distensibility increased during digestion, which suggests that this circuit is remodeled to accommodate the larger stroke volume and enhance the Windkessel effect, thus providing a more constant blood perfusion during digestion. Summary: The mechanical properties of the dorsal aorta and the pulmonary artery during fasting and after feeding reveal increased pulmonary artery distensibility and elasticity during digestion, which possibly improves the Windkessel effect.
Best Vision Technologies Submission to ActivityNet Challenge 2018-Task: Dense-Captioning Events in Videos

This note describes the details of our solution to the dense-captioning events in videos task of ActivityNet Challenge 2018. Specifically, we solve this problem with a two-stage way, i.e., first temporal event proposal and then sentence generation. For temporal event proposal, we directly leverage the three-stage workflow in [13, 16]. For sentence generation, we capitalize on LSTM-based captioning framework with temporal attention mechanism (dubbed as LSTM-T). Moreover, the input visual sequence to the LSTM-based video captioning model is comprised of RGB and optical flow images. At inference, we adopt a late fusion scheme to fuse the two LSTM-based captioning models for sentence generation.
Approximating some network problems with scenarios

In this paper the shortest path and the minimum spanning tree problems in a graph with $n$ nodes and $K$ cost scenarios (objectives) are discussed. In order to choose a solution the min-max criterion is applied. The minmax versions of both problems are hard to approximate within $O(\log^{1-\epsilon} K)$ for any $\epsilon>0$. The best approximation algorithm for the min-max shortest path problem, known to date, has approximation ratio of $K$. On the other hand, for the min-max spanning tree, there is a randomized algorithm with approximation ratio of $O(\log^2 n)$. In this paper a deterministic $O(\sqrt{n\log K/\log\log K})$-approximation algorithm for min-max shortest path is constructed. For min-max spanning tree a deterministic $O(\log n \log K/\log\log K)$-approximation algorithm is proposed, which works for a large class of graphs and a randomized $O(\log n)$-approximation algorithm, which can be applied to all graphs, is constructed. It is also shown that the approximation ratios obtained are close to the integrality gaps of the corresponding LP relaxations.
Can CAPTURE be used to identify undiagnosed patients with mild-to-moderate COPD likely to benefit from treatment?

Background COPD Assessment in Primary Care To Identify Undiagnosed Respiratory Disease and Exacerbation Risk (CAPTURE™) uses five questions and peak expiratory flow (PEF) thresholds (males ≤350 L/min; females ≤250 L/min) to identify patients with a forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1)/forced vital capacity (FVC) <0.70 and FEV1 <60% predicted or exacerbation risk requiring further evaluation for COPD. This study tested CAPTURE’s ability to identify symptomatic patients with mild-to-moderate COPD (FEV1 60%–80% predicted) who may also benefit from diagnosis and treatment. Methods Data from the CAPTURE development study were used to test its sensitivity (SN) and specificity (SP) differentiating mild-to-moderate COPD (n=73) from no COPD (n=87). SN and SP for differentiating all COPD cases (mild to severe; n=259) from those without COPD (n=87) were also estimated. The modified Medical Research Council (mMRC) dyspnea scale and COPD Assessment Test (CAT™) were used to evaluate symptoms and health status. Clinical Trial Registration: NCT01880177, https://ClinicalTrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01880177? term=NCT01880177&rank=1. Results Mean age (+SD): 61 (+10.5) years; 41% male. COPD: FEV1/FVC=0.60 (+0.1), FEV1% predicted=74% (+12.4). SN and SP for differentiating mild-to-moderate and non-COPD patients (n=160): Questionnaire: 83.6%, 67.8%; PEF (≤450 L/min; ≤350 L/min): 83.6%, 66.7%; CAPTURE (Questionnaire+PEF): 71.2%, 83.9%. COPD patients whose CAPTURE results suggested that diagnostic evaluation was warranted (n=52) were more likely to be symptomatic than patients whose results did not (n=21) (mMRC >2: 37% vs 5%, p<0.01; CAT>10: 86% vs 57%, p<0.01). CAPTURE differentiated COPD from no COPD (n=346): SN: 88.0%, SP: 83.9%. Conclusion CAPTURE (450/350) may be useful for identifying symptomatic patients with mild-to-moderate airflow obstruction in need of diagnostic evaluation for COPD.
Context‐aware search optimization framework on the internet of things

The resource discovery on IoT paradigm requires to be efficient with respect to modeling, storage, processing, and validation of the gathered data. These requirements face challenges like interoperability, heterogeneity, etc, with respect to exponentially growing interconnected resources across distinct application domains and drastically changing search metrics. It leads resource discovery to emerge as a non‐linear constrained‐specific problem that need to be linearized for its optimization with reduced complexity. Keeping the perspective, a context‐aware search optimization framework on the internet of things is introduced, which targets knowledge presentation through schema, discovery via a multi‐modal search algorithm, and its optimization through an Iterative Gradient Descent algorithm. The multi‐modal search algorithm through keywords, value or spatial‐temporal indices performs resource discovery by finding the suited matches as a search set from a search‐space. The search set is further evaluated via the iterative gradient descent algorithm for optimization through the usage of iterative and convergence properties of the gradient descent. The search efficiency is tested using various objective functions and resources on MATLAB and is compared with Newton and Quasi‐Newton methods. The obtained results depict the efficiency of the algorithm graphically with reference to the searching time, such as validate the system performance.
The Emotional Voices Database: Towards Controlling the Emotion Dimension in Voice Generation Systems

In this paper, we present a database of emotional speech intended to be open-sourced and used for synthesis and generation purpose. It contains data for male and female actors in English and a male actor in French. The database covers 5 emotion classes so it could be suitable to build synthesis and voice transformation systems with the potential to control the emotional dimension in a continuous way. We show the data's efficiency by building a simple MLP system converting neutral to angry speech style and evaluate it via a CMOS perception test. Even though the system is a very simple one, the test show the efficiency of the data which is promising for future work.