pinecone/core-2020-05-10-deduplication huggingface dataset:
Spatial variation in boundary conditions can govern selection and location of eyespots in butterfly wings

Despite being the subject of widespread study, many aspects of the development of eyespot patterns in butterfly wings remain poorly understood. In this work, we examine, through numerical simulations, a mathematical model for eyespot focus point formation in which a reaction-diffusion system is assumed to play the role of the patterning mechanism. In the model, changes in the boundary conditions at the veins at the proximal boundary alone are capable of determining whether or not an eyespot focus forms in a given wing cell and the eventual position of focus points within the wing cell. Furthermore, an auxiliary surface reaction diffusion system posed along the entire proximal boundary of the wing cells is proposed as the mechanism that generates the necessary changes in the proximal boundary profiles. In order to illustrate the robustness of the model, we perform simulations on a curved wing geometry that is somewhat closer to a biological realistic domain than the rectangular wing cells previously considered, and we also illustrate the ability of the model to reproduce experimental results on artificial selection of eyespots.Publisher PD
Open source technology in biomedical engineering: fast track towards sustainable development

Recently the concept of Open Source Medical Devices (OSMD) has gained some attention, particularly with stunt-like displays of 3D printed prostheses capturing the imagination of the public. In this paper we argue that OSMD technology can be used to propel advancements in healthcare in developing countries in Africa, with equally beneficial consequences in more established economies, provided that the correct framework of training, sharing and safety and efficacy assessment is constructed.We demonstrate how such a framework can be created and show some examples of open-source engineering-based activities which we have conducted. The pros and cons of our approach are discussed in the context of biomedical engineering education, innovation and regulatory harmonizatio
Bayesian multi--dipole localization and uncertainty quantification from
  simultaneous EEG and MEG recordings

We deal with estimation of multiple dipoles from combined MEG and EEG
time--series. We use a sequential Monte Carlo algorithm to characterize the
posterior distribution of the number of dipoles and their locations. By
considering three test cases, we show that using the combined data the method
can localize sources that are not easily (or not at all) visible with either of
the two individual data alone. In addition, the posterior distribution from
combined data exhibits a lower variance, i.e. lower uncertainty, than the
posterior from single device.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures -- conference paper from EMBEC 2017, Tampere,
  Finlan
An automatic deep learning approach for coronary artery calcium
  segmentation

Coronary artery calcium (CAC) is a significant marker of atherosclerosis and
cardiovascular events. In this work we present a system for the automatic
quantification of calcium score in ECG-triggered non-contrast enhanced cardiac
computed tomography (CT) images. The proposed system uses a supervised deep
learning algorithm, i.e. convolutional neural network (CNN) for the
segmentation and classification of candidate lesions as coronary or not,
previously extracted in the region of the heart using a cardiac atlas. We
trained our network with 45 CT volumes; 18 volumes were used to validate the
model and 56 to test it. Individual lesions were detected with a sensitivity of
91.24%, a specificity of 95.37% and a positive predicted value (PPV) of 90.5%;
comparing calcium score obtained by the system and calcium score manually
evaluated by an expert operator, a Pearson coefficient of 0.983 was obtained. A
high agreement (Cohen's k = 0.879) between manual and automatic risk prediction
was also observed. These results demonstrated that convolutional neural
networks can be effectively applied for the automatic segmentation and
classification of coronary calcifications
Addressing food insecurity in Papua New Guinea through food safety and sago cropping

Papua New Guinea (PNG) is known to have a large resource base of sago with over 1 million ha, as well as a high number of germplasm types of the Metroxylon species. The country\u27s food security status is very low and is primarily dependent on subsistence fresh garden produce as practiced by 85% of the population who are rural dwellers. Postharvest losses can be as high as 40% with little to no postharvest technology nor processing of foods done. Sago provides well for food security and sustains life in rural communities during disasters such as droughts, floods, and cyclones. The dilemma of sago being an underutilized crop in PNG is exacerbated by the introduction of new food crops, cash crops, and limited accessibility to cash to purchase other foods. Over the last 50 years, sago consump-tion has diminished as one of the major traditional food staples, from 16% to less than 10%. Neglect of sago is further due to food safety concerns about traditionally processed sago, in particular, the risk from sago hemolytic disease (SHD). For over 30 years, SHD has been a food safety issue since it was first reported in 1973. Investigations on SHD highlight the serious need to improve on the hygiene and sanitation of the traditional postharvest processing and storage methods of sago starch in PNG. A set of hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) protocols has been developed for traditional processing of sago as a food safety measure to improve food safety for food security. While commercial cultivation is nonexistent, there is increased planting of the larger hapaxanthic, non-soboliferous sago species, Metroxylon salomonense Becc., in some nontraditional sago-consuming areas as a low-cost raw material source for roof thatching and other building materials. It is however a wasted opportunity for food security in these areas as the starch from the palm is not utilized. Current work in these areas promotes sago as a potential food source that can be harvested or processed into flour. This is to improve the food security status in areas of high population density, like island communities where land is scarce
Group Compactifications and Moduli Spaces

We give a summary of joint work with Michael Thaddeus that realizes toroidal
compactifcations of split reductive groups as moduli spaces of framed bundles
on chains of rational curves. We include an extension of this work that covers
Artin stacks with good moduli spaces. We discuss, for complex groups, the
symplectic counterpart of these compactifications, and conclude with some open
problems about the moduli problem concerned.Comment: To appear in proceedings of "International Conference on Analytic and
  Algebraic Geometry
Fog Computing: A Taxonomy, Survey and Future Directions

In recent years, the number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices/sensors has
increased to a great extent. To support the computational demand of real-time
latency-sensitive applications of largely geo-distributed IoT devices/sensors,
a new computing paradigm named "Fog computing" has been introduced. Generally,
Fog computing resides closer to the IoT devices/sensors and extends the
Cloud-based computing, storage and networking facilities. In this chapter, we
comprehensively analyse the challenges in Fogs acting as an intermediate layer
between IoT devices/ sensors and Cloud datacentres and review the current
developments in this field. We present a taxonomy of Fog computing according to
the identified challenges and its key features.We also map the existing works
to the taxonomy in order to identify current research gaps in the area of Fog
computing. Moreover, based on the observations, we propose future directions
for research
Are societies with a high value on the Active Ageing Index more age-integrated?

Combining round four data from the European Social Survey (ESS) with indicators of Active\ud
Ageing, Dykstra and Fleischmann examine conditions conducive to age integration. It uses both\ud
a behavioural and an attitudinal measure of age integration: the prevalence of cross-age\ud
friendships and low levels of ageism. The analyses focus on both “young” (age 18 to 30) and\ud
“old” (ages 70 to 90). Interestingly, high levels of independence, health and security in late life,\ud
and greater capacity to actively age rather than high levels of working, volunteering, caring and\ud
political engagement among the old create the greatest opportunities for meaningful cross-age\ud
interactions. Contrary to public belief, “productive ageing” will in and of itself not lead to greater\ud
age integration
Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in Europe and Asia

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the evolution of the\ud
protection of women’s rights in Europe and Asia. The chapter will focus on violence\ud
against women and on trafficking of women, on which two recent conventions,\ud
respectively in the European and Asian systems, have been adopted. We are\ud
referring to the Council of Europe Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating\ud
violence against women and domestic violence, concluded in 2011 and\ud
entered into force in 2014 (Istanbul Convention), and to the ASEAN Convention\ud
against trafficking in persons, especially women and children (ASEAN Convention\ud
against trafficking), opened to signature in 2015 and only recently entered into\ud
force
A survey of the state-of-the-art techniques for cognitive impairment detection in the elderly

With a growing number of elderly people in the UK, more and more of them suffer from various kinds of cognitive impairment. Cognitive impairment can be divided into different stages such as mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and severe cognitive impairment like dementia. Its early detection can be of great importance. However, it is challenging to detect cognitive impairment in the early stage with high accuracy and low cost, when most of the symptoms may not be fully expressed. This survey paper mainly reviews the state of the art techniques for the early detection of cognitive impairment and compares their advantages and weaknesses. In order to build an effective and low-cost automatic system for detecting and monitoring the cognitive impairment for a wide range of elderly people, the applications of computer vision techniques for the early detection of cognitive impairment by monitoring facial expressions, body movements and eye movements are highlighted in this paper. In additional to technique review, the main research challenges for the early detection of cognitive impairment with high accuracy and low cost are analysed in depth. Through carefully comparing and contrasting the currently popular techniques for their advantages and weaknesses, some important research directions are particularly pointed out and highlighted from the viewpoints of the authors alone
Automatic measurement of blood vessel angles in immunohistochemical images of liver cancer

This paper presents a method for automated measurement of vascular angle in immunohistochemical images of liver cancer. Firstly, Colour Deconvolution is used to conduct staining separation on a H & E-stained immunohistochemical image, and then blood vessels are segmented using an improved Otsu algorithm. Then the standard SURF algorithm is used to select feature points of the image, and then these feature points are divided into two equal groups according to the distance between individual feature points and the far left (or right) feature point. Finally, a standard least squares method is used to fit two lines using the two groups of points. When the linear deviation of the fitting result based on the two groups of feature points is significant, it is necessary to adjust the belonging of the points of the two groups, and then the two sets are fitted again respectively till the correlation coefficients of the two fitted lines are greater than the predefined threshold, meaning that the measurement of the blood vessel angle in the immunohistochemical map is completed. Compared with the experts’ results, our proposed technique results in better accuracy. It is worthy to point out that, to our knowledge, our system is the first one that conducts automated measurement of blood vessel angle of immunohistochemistry.This work was financially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, China under Grant No. BK20170443. Nantong Research Program of Application Foundation under Grant No. GY12016022, and Dr. H. Zhou is supported by UK EPSRC under Grant EP/N011074/1, and Newton Advanced Fellowship under Grant NA160342.Peer-reviewedPost-printInternational Conference on Intelligent Computing for Sustainable Energy and Environment LSMS 2017, ICSEE 2017: Advanced Computational Methods in Life System Modeling and Simulatio
Design of Space Truss Based Insulating Walls for Robotic Fabrication in Concrete

This work focuses on the design of ultra-light concrete walls for individual or collective housing, the normative context being constrained masonry. It is stated that current block work building is very inefficient in terms of quantity of concrete used for cinderblocks and mortar joints, and with regards to thermal insulation. Here is proposed a robotic manufacturing technique based on mortar extrusion that allows producing more efficient walls. First we present the fabrication concept, then design criteria for such objects. In the last section we show a comparative study on different geometries. We conclude with a discussion on the performances of this proposed building system
Risk and resilience in gifted young people from low socio-economic backgrounds

Gifted and talented young people from low socio-economic backgrounds are consistently under-represented in gifted programmes in New Zealand schools. This chapter reports on a qualitative study that explored the lived experiences of 101 gifted New Zealand young people from low socio-economic back-grounds. An overarching question for this study was ‘What is it about gifted young people from low socio-economic backgrounds who have achieved to exceptional levels, that has enabled them to do so?’ The risk and resilience construct was used as a lens through which to explore their experiences across a range of contexts. These young people reflected on their perceptions of their giftedness and socio-economic circumstances, their childhoods and school ex-periences, and their home lives. The stories of the participants in this study in-dicated that there are particular risks associated with both giftedness and low socio-economic status, and contribute to ideas about how these young people might be more effectively supported to develop their potential
Atmospheric Reactions of PAH Derivatives: Formation and Degradation

Polycyclic aromatic compounds are ubiquitous atmospheric pollutants with toxic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic properties. They are produced from the chemical reactions of their parent or related compounds in the atmosphere as well as from a wide variety of anthropogenic sources, such as fuel combustion. In this chapter, chemical reaction pathways for the atmospheric secondary formation of several polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) derivatives, i.e., gas-phase formation of mutagenic 1- and 2-nitrotriphenylene via OH or NO3 radical-initiated reactions of the parent triphenylene, formation of carcinogenic 1-nitropyrene from heterogeneous nitration of pyrene on mineral dust aerosols, atmospheric formation of hydroxynitropyrenes from a photochemical reaction of 1-nitropyrene, and photochemical degradation of selected nitrated and oxygenated PAHs on airborne particles under simulated solar UV irradiation, are addressed
Urban Systems Between National and Global: Recent Reconfiguration Through Transnational Networks

Because  the  whole  book’s  issue  assumes  the  uneven  integrations  of national/continental  urban  systems  inside  the  global  economy,  this  chapter  evaluates the rates and qualitative modes of integration of the national urban systems by 
the  economic  networks  that  are  dominated  by  multinational  firms.  The  empirical study encompasses the largest 1250 cities of the world delineated in a comparative way according to common definitions of large urban regions (LURs). The position of  LURs  in  multinational  firms’  ownership  networks  in  2  years,  2010  and  2013, corresponds to the deepest period of the crisis and the following recovery, respectively. Thus, we checked that the fast reorganization of multinational firms facing this  crisis  between  2010  and  2013  did  not  fundamentally  transform  their  strong  urban organization but rather introduced some minor changes, particularly due to the  simultaneous  breakthrough  of  emergent  countries’  companies  (especially  the  Chinese ones). Synthetic network clustering methods partitioning cities of the world offer  clear  visions  of  the  structure  of  the  multipolar  urban  networks.  They  reveal  “regions” of integration of cities for all kinds of multinational companies but also distinguishing companies according to their skill levels either in industry or in services. A special attention is given to some highly integrated cities appearing with properties of “city-states,” i.e., without a strong national urban system
A new world typology of cities and systems of cities

The  chapter  proposes  an  overview  of  global  urbanization  since  1950, relying on the structural and dynamic principles of the evolutionary theory of urban systems and on the observations of some of the major financial linkages connecting 
cities. We analyze first an overview of the state of urbanization at the world scale using statistics collected and provided for all 195 nation-states of the United Nations. We  then  examine  the  extent  to  which  the  income  level  and  human  development index of countries are correlated with the urbanization rates. Trajectories of cities underline the booming cities including many Asiatic and African cities opposed to the  relative  declining  cities.  The  total  weight  of  emerging  metropolises  mostly located in Southern countries passed the total population of the other groups of relatively  declining  cities  between  1980  and  2010.  It  is  highly  critical  for  the  urban future that the large majority of urban citizens of the world (more than 60%) will be living in these emerging cities in 2030. It will require finding adapted ways to manage urban growth and ecological transition in these developing systems. This global approach finally leads to the partition of the world we used in the book to analyze more precisely the evolution of individual national or continental urban systems
Metropolization and polycentrism in the European Urban system

In the time when Europe needs to strengthen its territorial cohesion and its  global  competitiveness,  this  chapter questions  the  integration  and  unity  of  the European  urban  system  inherited  from  the  long-term  history  as  well  as  from  the shortest-term  division  and  reunification  occurring  during  the  second  half  of  the twentieth  century.  First,  we  recall  problems  linked  with  the  conceptual  definition and delineation of cities and specify the inherited socio-spatial framework. We then detail the significant evolution of the European urban system during the second half of the twentieth century and in the beginning of this millennium due to two main processes  of  social  and  economic  transition.  Analyzing  the  concentration  of activities in specialized cities enables to find metropolization processes following two  different  qualitative  modes  dividing  Europe  between  Eastern  and  Western countries.  Then,  we  discuss  the  question  of  polycentrism  at  different  scales  in connection with European policies
Extensive Reading and Vocabulary Acquisition

One of the important aspects of learning a foreign language is vocabulary acquisition. Many scholars agree that even though direct instruction can contribute to learning vocabulary, the greatest part of vocabulary growth happens while learners are exposed to the target language. As studies have shown that the range of vocabulary in spoken language is much smaller than that in written texts, it is believed that the main factor that influences vocabulary development is the quantity of texts that learners read. A number of studies have demonstrated that foreign language learners can acquire vocabulary through reading and that language learning programmes that include extensive reading are more effective than only explicit learning of vocabulary through decontextualized exercises. Therefore, language instruction should include explicit vocabulary learning as well as vocabulary learning strategies and reading strategies, but it should also provide opportunities for incidental vocabulary learning through extensive reading, as it is one of the best ways of developing vocabulary knowledge and reading skills. The chapter elaborates on the importance of extensive reading for language development with a focus on vocabulary acquisition. It includes studies on the effects of reading on learning vocabulary. The last section is devoted to the characteristics of successful extensive reading programmes, selection of reading materials and implications for teaching
A Novel Hybrid Swarm Algorithm for P300-Based BCI Channel Selection

Producción CientíficaChannel selection procedures are essential to reduce the
curse of dimensionality in Brain-Computer Interface
systems. However, these selection is not trivial, due to
the fact that there are 2Nc possible subsets for an Nc
channel cap. The aim of this study is to propose a novel
multi-objective hybrid algorithm to simultaneously: (i) reduce
the required number of channels and (ii) increase the
accuracy of the system. The method, which integrates
novel concepts based on dedicated searching and deterministic
initialization, returns a set of pareto-optimal
channel sets. Tested with 4 healthy subjects, the results
show that the proposed algorithm is able to reach higher
accuracies (97.00%) than the classic MOPSO (96.60%),
the common 8-channel set (95.25%) and the full set of 16
channels (96.00%). Moreover, these accuracies have been
obtained using less number of channels, making the
proposed method suitable for its application in BCI
systems.This study was partially funded by projects TEC2014-53196-R of ‘Ministerio of Economía y Competitividad’ and FEDER, the project “Análisis y correlación entre el genoma completo y la actividad cerebral para la ayuda en el diagnóstico de la enfermedad de Alzheimer” (Inter-regional cooperation program VA Spain-Portugal POCTEP 2014–202) of the European Commission and FEDER, and project VA037U16 of the ‘Junta de Castilla y León’ and FEDER. V. Martínez-Cagigal was in receipt of a PIF-UVa grant of the University of Valladolid. The authors declare no conflict of interes
Dataset Augmentation with Synthetic Images Improves Semantic
  Segmentation

Although Deep Convolutional Neural Networks trained with strong pixel-level
annotations have significantly pushed the performance in semantic segmentation,
annotation efforts required for the creation of training data remains a
roadblock for further improvements. We show that augmentation of the weakly
annotated training dataset with synthetic images minimizes both the annotation
efforts and also the cost of capturing images with sufficient variety.
Evaluation on the PASCAL 2012 validation dataset shows an increase in mean IOU
from 52.80% to 55.47% by adding just 100 synthetic images per object class. Our
approach is thus a promising solution to the problems of annotation and dataset
collection.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure