Content-based image retrieval by integrating color and texture features

Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) has been an active research topic in the last decade. Feature extraction and representation is one of the most important issues in the CBIR. In this paper, we propose a content-based image retrieval method based on an efficient integration of color and texture features. As its color features, pseudo-Zernike chromaticity distribution moments in opponent chromaticity space are used. As its texture features, rotation-invariant and scale-invariant image descriptor in steerable pyramid domain are adopted, which offers an efficient and flexible approximation of early processing in the human visual system. The integration of color and texture information provides a robust feature set for color image retrieval. Experimental results show that the proposed method yields higher retrieval accuracy than some conventional methods even though its feature vector dimension is not higher than those of the latter for different test DBs.


Rfam 12.0: updates to the RNA families database

The Rfam database (available at http://rfam.xfam.org) is a collection of non-coding RNA families represented by manually curated sequence alignments, consensus secondary structures and annotation gathered from corresponding Wikipedia, taxonomy and ontology resources. In this article, we detail updates and improvements to the Rfam data and website for the Rfam 12.0 release. We describe the upgrade of our search pipeline to use Infernal 1.1 and demonstrate its improved homology detection ability by comparison with the previous version. The new pipeline is easier for users to apply to their own data sets, and we illustrate its ability to annotate RNAs in genomic and metagenomic data sets of various sizes. Rfam has been expanded to include 260 new families, including the well-studied large subunit ribosomal RNA family, and for the first time includes information on short sequence- and structure-based RNA motifs present within families.


Marginalized Denoising Autoencoders for Domain Adaptation

Stacked denoising autoencoders (SDAs) have been successfully used to learn new representations for domain adaptation. Recently, they have attained record accuracy on standard benchmark tasks of sentiment analysis across different text domains. SDAs learn robust data representations by reconstruction, recovering original features from data that are artificially corrupted with noise. In this paper, we propose marginalized SDA (mSDA) that addresses two crucial limitations of SDAs: high computational cost and lack of scalability to high-dimensional features. In contrast to SDAs, our approach of mSDA marginalizes noise and thus does not require stochastic gradient descent or other optimization algorithms to learn parameters — in fact, they are computed in closed-form. Consequently, mSDA, which can be implemented in only 20 lines of MATLAB, significantly speeds up SDAs by two orders of magnitude. Furthermore, the representations learnt by mSDA are as effective as the traditional SDAs, attaining almost identical accuracies in benchmark tasks.


Multi-Task Learning for Mental Health using Social Media Text

We introduce initial groundwork for estimating suicide risk and mental health in a deep learning framework. By modeling multiple conditions, the system learns to make predictions about suicide risk and mental health at a low false positive rate. Conditions are modeled as tasks in a multitask learning (MTL) framework, with gender prediction as an additional auxiliary task. We demonstrate the effectiveness of multi-task learning by comparison to a well-tuned single-task baseline with the same number of parameters. Our best MTL model predicts potential suicide attempt, as well as the presence of atypical mental health, with AUC > 0.8. We also find additional large improvements using multi-task learning on mental health tasks with limited training data.


Co-Training for Domain Adaptation

Domain adaptation algorithms seek to generalize a model trained in a source domain to a new target domain. In many practical cases, the source and target distributions can differ substantially, and in some cases crucial target features may not have support in the source domain. In this paper we introduce an algorithm that bridges the gap between source and target domains by slowly adding to the training set both the target features and instances in which the current algorithm is the most confident. Our algorithm is a variant of co-training [7], and we name it CODA (Co-training for domain adaptation). Unlike the original co-training work, we do not assume a particular feature split. Instead, for each iteration of cotraining, we formulate a single optimization problem which simultaneously learns a target predictor, a split of the feature space into views, and a subset of source and target features to include in the predictor. CODA significantly out-performs the state-of-the-art on the 12-domain benchmark data set of Blitzer et al. [4]. Indeed, over a wide range (65 of 84 comparisons) of target supervision CODA achieves the best performance.


A Planar Magic-T Using Substrate Integrated Circuits Concept

In this letter, a slotline to substrate integrated waveguide transition is proposed for the development of substrate integrated circuits. The insertion loss of the back-to-back transition is less than 1 dB from 8.7 to 9.0 GHz. With this transition, a planar magic-T is studied and designed. Measured results indicate a very good performance of the fabricated magic-T is observed within the experimental frequency range of 8.4-9.4 GHz. The amplitude and phase imbalances are less than 0.2 dB and 1.5deg, respectively.


Automatic global vessel segmentation and catheter removal using local geometry information and vector field integration

Vessel enhancement and segmentation aim at (binary) per-pixel segmentation considering certain local features as probabilistic vessel indicators. We propose a new methodology to combine any local probability map with local directional vessel information. The resulting global vessel segmentation is represented as a set of discrete streamlines populating the vascular structures and providing additional connectivity and geometric shape information. The streamlines are computed by numerical integration of the directional vector field that is obtained from the eigenanalysis of the local Hessian indicating the local vessel direction. The streamline representation allows for sophisticated post-processing techniques using the additional information to refine the segmentation result with respect to the requirements of the particular application such as image registration. We propose different post-processing techniques for hierarchical segmentation, centerline extraction, and catheter removal to be used for X-ray angiograms. We further demonstrate how the global approach is able to significantly improve the segmentation compared to conventional local Hessian-based approaches.


Control of VSC connected to the grid through LCL-filter to achieve balanced currents

Grid-connected voltage source converters (VSCs) are the heart of many applications with power quality concerns due to their reactive power controllability. However, the major drawback is their sensitivity to grid disturbances. Moreover, when VSCs are used in DG applications, voltage unbalance may be intolerant. The current protection may trip due to current unbalance or due to overcurrent. In this paper, a vector current controller for VSC connected to the grid through LCL-filter is developed with the main focus on producing symmetrical and balanced currents in case of unbalanced voltage dips. Implementing this controller helps the VSC system not to trip during voltage dips.


Marketing malpractice: the cause and the cure.

Ted Levitt used to tell his Harvard Business School students, "People don't want a quarter-inch drill--they want a quarter-inch hole." But 35 years later, marketers are still thinking in terms of products and ever-finer demographic segments. The structure of a market, as seen from customers' point of view, is very simple. When people need to get a job done, they hire a product or service to do it for them. The marketer's task is to understand what jobs periodically arise in customers' lives for which they might hire products the company could make. One job, the "I-need-to-send-this-from-here-to-there-with-perfect-certainty-as-fast-as-possible"job, has existed practically forever. Federal Express designed a service to do precisely that--and do it wonderfully again and again. The FedEx brand began popping into people's minds whenever they needed to get that job done. Most of today's great brands--Crest, Starbucks, Kleenex, eBay, and Kodak, to name a few-started out as just this kind of purpose brand. When a purpose brand is extended to products that target different jobs, it becomes an endorser brand. But, over time, the power of an endorser brand will surely erode unless the company creates a new purpose brand for each new job, even as it leverages the endorser brand as an overall marker of quality. Different jobs demand different purpose brands. New growth markets are created when an innovating company designs a product and then positions its brand on a job for which no optimal product yet exists. In fact, companies that historically have segmented and measured markets by product categories generally find that when they instead segment by job, their market is much larger (and their current share much smaller) than they had thought. This is great news for smart companies hungry for growth.


Cubrick : A Scalable Distributed MOLAP Database for Fast Analytics

This paper describes the architecture and design of Cubrick, a distributed multidimensional in-memory database that enables real-time data analysis of large dynamic datasets. Cubrick has a strictly multidimensional data model composed of dimensions, dimensional hierarchies and metrics, supporting sub-second MOLAP operations such as slice and dice, roll-up and drill-down over terabytes of data. All data stored in Cubrick is chunked in every dimension and stored within containers called bricks in an unordered and sparse fashion, providing high data ingestion ratios and indexed access through every dimension. In this paper, we describe details about Cubrick’s internal data structures, distributed model, query execution engine and a few details about the current implementation. Finally, we present some experimental results found in a first Cubrick deployment inside Facebook.


A comparative study of HTM and other neural network models for online sequence learning with streaming data

Online sequence learning from streaming data is one of the most challenging topics in machine learning. Neural network models represent promising candidates for sequence learning due to their ability to learn and recognize complex temporal patterns. In this paper, we present a comparative study of Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM), a neurally-inspired model, and other feedforward and recurrent artificial neural network models on both artificial and real-world sequence prediction algorithms. HTM and long-short term memory (LSTM) give the best prediction accuracy. HTM additionally demonstrates many other features that are desirable for real-world sequence learning, such as fast adaptation to changes in the data stream, robustness to sensor noise and fault tolerance. These features make HTM an ideal candidate for online sequence learning problems.


Multirate Multimodal Video Captioning

Automatically describing videos with natural language is a crucial challenge of video understanding. Compared to images, videos have specific spatial-temporal structure and various modality information. In this paper, we propose a Multirate Multimodal Approach for video captioning. Considering that the speed of motion in videos varies constantly, we utilize a Multirate GRU to capture temporal structure of videos. It encodes video frames with different intervals and has a strong ability to deal with motion speed variance. As videos contain different modality cues, we design a particular multimodal fusion method. By incorporating visual, motion, and topic information together, we construct a well-designed video representation. Then the video representation is fed into a RNN-based language model for generating natural language descriptions. We evaluate our approach for video captioning on "Microsoft Research - Video to Text" (MSR-VTT), a large-scale video benchmark for video understanding. And our approach gets great performance on the 2nd MSR Video to Language Challenge.


Animal-assisted therapy for persons with aphasia: A pilot study.

This study explored the effects and effectiveness of animal-assisted therapy (AAT) for persons with aphasia. Three men with aphasia from left-hemisphere strokes participated in this study. The men received one semester of traditional therapy followed by one semester of AAT. While both therapies were effective, in that each participant met his goals, no significant differences existed between test results following traditional speech-language therapy versus AAT. Results of a client-satisfaction questionnaire, however, indicated that each of the participants was more motivated, enjoyed the therapy sessions more, and felt that the atmosphere of the sessions was lighter and less stressed during AAT compared with traditional therapy.


NoSQL Databases and Data Modeling Techniques for a Document-oriented NoSQL Database

NoSQL databases are an important component of Big Data for storing and retrieving large volumes of data. Traditional Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS) use the ACID theorem for data consistency, whereas NoSQL Databases use a non-transactional approach called BASE. RDBMS scale vertically and NoSQL Databases can scale both horizontally (sharding) and vertically. Four types of NoSQL databases are Document-oriented, Key-Value Pairs, Column-oriented and Graph. Data modeling for Document-oriented databases is similar to data modeling for traditional RDBMS during the conceptual and logical modeling phases. However, for a physical data model, entities can be combined (denormalized) by using embedding. What was once called a foreign key in a traditional RDBMS is now called a reference in a Documentoriented NoSQL database.


Institutionally Distributed Deep Learning Networks

Deep learning has become a promising approach for automated medical diagnoses. When medical data samples are limited, collaboration among multiple institutions is necessary to achieve high algorithm performance. However, sharing patient data often has limitations due to technical, legal, or ethical concerns. In such cases, sharing a deep learning model is a more attractive alternative. The best method of performing such a task is unclear, however. In this study, we simulate the dissemination of learning deep learning network models across four institutions using various heuristics and compare the results with a deep learning model trained on centrally hosted patient data. The heuristics investigated include ensembling single institution models, single weight transfer, and cyclical weight transfer. We evaluated these approaches for image classification in three independent image collections (retinal fundus photos, mammography, and ImageNet). We find that cyclical weight transfer resulted in a performance (testing accuracy = 77.3%) that was closest to that of centrally hosted patient data (testing accuracy = 78.7%). We also found that there is an improvement in the performance of cyclical weight transfer heuristic with high frequency of weight transfer.


A Chebyshev-Response Step-Impedance Phase-Inverter Rat-Race Coupler Directly on Lossy Silicon Substrate and Its Gilbert Mixer Application

This paper focuses on the analysis and the design methodology of the step-impedance phase-inverter rat-race coupler on a silicon-based process. The issues of impedance limitation and bandwidth are discussed in detail. Our proposed concept utilizes a high silicon dielectric constant, phase-inverter structure, step-impedance technique, and Chebyshev response to make the rat-race coupler more compact (~ 64% reduction) and highly balanced over a wide operating bandwidth. Moreover, the inter-digital coplanar stripline used in the step-impedance section effectively reduces the characteristic impedance of the transmission line for large size shrinkage and insertion-loss reduction. The demonstrated step-impedance rat-race coupler directly on silicon substrate has 6- ~ 7-dB insertion loss from 5 to 15 GHz and small variations in amplitude/phase balance. Compared with our previous work, the proposed rat-race coupler achieves a 3-dB improvement in the insertion loss. Thus, a 0.13-μm CMOS Gilbert down-converter with a miniature phase-inverter rat-race coupler at the RF path for wideband single-to-differential signal conversion achieves a noise figure of 16 dB.


The Visual Hull Concept for Silhouette-Based Image Understanding

Many algorithms for both identifying and reconstructing a 3-D object are based on the 2-D silhouettes of the object. In general, identifying a nonconvex object using a silhouettebased approach implies neglecting some features of its surface as identification clues. The same features cannot be reconstructed by volume intersection techniques using multiple silhouettes of the object. This paper addresses the problem of finding which parts of a nonconvex object are relevant for silhouette-based image understanding. For this purpose, the geometric concept of visual hull of a 3-D object is introduced. The visual hull of a 3-D object S is the closest approximation of S that can be obtained with the volume intersection approach. An equivalent statement, relative to object identification, is that the visual hull of S is the maximal object silhouette-equivalent to S, i.e., which can be substituted for S without affecting any silhouette. Only the parts of the surface of S that also lie on the surface of the visual hull can be reconstructed or identified using silhouette-based algorithms. The visual hull of an object depends not only on the object itself but also on the region allowed to the viewpoint. Two main viewing regions can be considered, resulting in the external and internal visual hull. In the former case the viewing region is related to the convex hull of S, in the latter it is bounded by S itself. The internal visual hull also admits an interpretation not related to silhouettes: the features of the surface of S that is not coincident with the surface of the internal visual hull cannot be observed from any viewpoint lying outside the convex hull. After a general discussion of the visual hull and its properties, algorithms for computing the internal and external visual hulls of 2-D objects and 3-D planar face objects are presented and their complexity analyzed. In general, the visual hull of a 3-D planar face object turns out to be bounded by planar and curved patches. A precise statement of the concept of visual hull appears to be novel, as is the problem of its computation.


Big data, smart cities and city planning

I define big data with respect to its size but pay particular attention to the fact that the data I am referring to is urban data, that is, data for cities that are invariably tagged to space and time. I argue that this sort of data are largely being streamed from sensors, and this represents a sea change in the kinds of data that we have about what happens where and when in cities. I describe how the growth of big data is shifting the emphasis from longer term strategic planning to short-term thinking about how cities function and can be managed, although with the possibility that over much longer periods of time, this kind of big data will become a source for information about every time horizon. By way of conclusion, I illustrate the need for new theory and analysis with respect to 6 months of smart travel card data of individual trips on Greater London's public transport systems.


Maglev: A Fast and Reliable Software Network Load Balancer

Maglev is Google’s network load balancer. It is a large distributed software system that runs on commodity Linux servers. Unlike traditional hardware network load balancers, it does not require a specialized physical rack deployment, and its capacity can be easily adjusted by adding or removing servers. Network routers distribute packets evenly to the Maglev machines via Equal Cost Multipath (ECMP); each Maglev machine then matches the packets to their corresponding services and spreads them evenly to the service endpoints. To accommodate high and ever-increasing traffic, Maglev is specifically optimized for packet processing performance. A single Maglev machine is able to saturate a 10Gbps link with small packets. Maglev is also equipped with consistent hashing and connection tracking features, to minimize the negative impact of unexpected faults and failures on connection-oriented protocols. Maglev has been serving Google’s traffic since 2008. It has sustained the rapid global growth of Google services, and it also provides network load balancing for Google Cloud Platform.


Augmented Reality Tracking in Natural Environments

Tracking, or camera pose determination, is the main technical challenge in creating augmented realities. Constraining the degree to which the environment may be altered to support tracking heightens the challenge. This paper describes several years of work at the USC Computer Graphics and Immersive Technologies (CGIT) laboratory to develop self-contained, minimally intrusive tracking systems for use in both indoor and outdoor settings. These hybrid-technology tracking systems combine vision and inertial sensing with research in fiducial design, feature detection, motion estimation, recursive filters, and pragmatic engineering to satisfy realistic application requirements.


Word Epoch Disambiguation: Finding How Words Change Over Time

In this paper we introduce the novel task of “word epoch disambiguation,” defined as the problem of identifying changes in word usage over time. Through experiments run using word usage examples collected from three major periods of time (1800, 1900, 2000), we show that the task is feasible, and significant differences can be observed between occurrences of words in different periods of time.


How to model fake news

Over the past three years it has become evident that fake news is a danger to democracy. However, until now there has been no clear understanding of how to define fake news, much less how to model it. This paper addresses both these issues. A definition of fake news is given, and two approaches for the modelling of fake news and its impact in elections and referendums are introduced. The first approach, based on the idea of a representative voter, is shown to be suitable to obtain a qualitative understanding of phenomena associated with fake news at a macroscopic level. The second approach, based on the idea of an election microstructure, describes the collective behaviour of the electorate by modelling the preferences of individual voters. It is shown through a simulation study that the mere knowledge that pieces of fake news may be in circulation goes a long way towards mitigating the impact of fake news.


Penoscrotal plication as a uniform approach to reconstruction of penile curvature.

OBJECTIVE
To present our 4-year experience of using a minimally invasive technique, penoscrotal plication (PSP), as a uniform treatment for men with debilitating penile curvature resulting from Peyronie's disease.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
In 48 men (median age 58.7 years) with penile curvature the penis was reconstructed by imbricating the tunica albuginea opposite the curvature with multiple nonabsorbable sutures. All patients, regardless of the degree or direction of curvature, were approached through a small penoscrotal incision made without degloving the penis. Detailed measurements of penile shaft angle and stretched penile length were recorded and analysed before and after reconstruction, and the numbers of sutures required for correction were documented.

RESULTS
Nearly all patients had dorsal and/or lateral deformities that were easily corrected via a ventral penoscrotal incision. The median (range) degree of correction was 28 (18-55) degrees and number of sutures used was 6 (4-17). Stretched penile length measurements before and after plication showed no significant difference. A single PSP procedure was successful in 45/48 (93%) patients; two were dissatisfied with the correction, one having repeat plication and the other a penile prosthesis; one other required a suture release for pain.

CONCLUSIONS
PSP is safe and effective and should be considered even for cases with severe or biplanar curvature.


Non-sexually related acute genital ulcers in 13 pubertal girls: a clinical and microbiological study.

OBJECTIVE
To describe the clinical and microbiological features of acute genital ulcers (AGU), which have been reported in virgin adolescents, predominantly in girls.

DESIGN
Descriptive study. We collected data on the clinical features, sexual history, blood cell count, biochemistry, microbiological workup, and 1-year follow-up.

SETTING
Departments of dermatology of 3 university hospitals in Paris. Patients Thirteen immunocompetent female patients with a first flare of non-sexually transmitted AGU.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Clinical and microbiological data, using a standardized form.

RESULTS
Mean age was 16.6 years (range, 11-19 years). Eleven patients denied previous sexual contact. A fever or flulike symptoms preceded AGU in 10 of the 13 patients (77%), with a mean delay of 3.8 days before the AGU onset (range, 0-10 days). The genital ulcers were bilateral in 10 patients. The final diagnosis was Epstein-Barr virus primary infection in 4 patients (31%) and Behçet disease in 1 patient (8%). No other infectious agents were detected in this series.

CONCLUSIONS
We recommend serologic testing for Epstein-Barr virus with IgM antibodies to viral capsid antigens in non-sexually related AGU in immunocompetent patients. Further microbiological studies are required to identify other causative agents.


Tangible Query Interfaces: Physically Constrained Tokens for Manipulating Database Queries

We present a new approach for using physically constrained tokens to express, manipulate, and visualize parameterized database queries. This method extends tangible interfaces to enable interaction with large aggregates of information. We describe two interface prototypes that use physical tokens to represent database parameters. These tokens are manipulated upon physical constraints, which map compositions of tokens onto interpretations including database queries, views, and Boolean operations. We propose a framework for “ token + constraint” interfaces, and compare one of our prototypes with a comparable graphical interface in a preliminary user study. † Current affiliation: Visualization Dept., Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB), ullmer@zib.de †† Current affiliation: Computer Science Dept., Tufts University, jacob@cs.tufts.edu


OpenIoT: An open service framework for the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) has been a hot topic for the future of computing and communication. It will not only have a broad impact on our everyday life in the near future, but also create a new ecosystem involving a wide array of players such as device developers, service providers, software developers, network operators, and service users. In this paper, we present an open service framework for the Internet of Things, facilitating entrance into the IoT-related mass market, and establishing a global IoT ecosystem with the worldwide use of IoT devices and softwares. We expect that the open IoT service framework we proposed will play an important role in the widespread adoption of the Internet of Things in our everyday life, enhancing our quality of life with a large number of innovative applications and services, but also offering endless opportunities to all of the stakeholders in the world of information and communication technologies.


A visual analytics agenda

Researchers have made significant progress in disciplines such as scientific and information visualization, statistically based exploratory and confirmatory analysis, data and knowledge representations, and perceptual and cognitive sciences. Although some research is being done in this area, the pace at which new technologies and technical talents are becoming available is far too slow to meet the urgent need. National Visualization and Analytics Center's goal is to advance the state of the science to enable analysts to detect the expected and discover the unexpected from massive and dynamic information streams and databases consisting of data of multiple types and from multiple sources, even though the data are often conflicting and incomplete. Visual analytics is a multidisciplinary field that includes the following focus areas: (i) analytical reasoning techniques, (ii) visual representations and interaction techniques, (iii) data representations and transformations, (iv) techniques to support production, presentation, and dissemination of analytical results. The R&D agenda for visual analytics addresses technical needs for each of these focus areas, as well as recommendations for speeding the movement of promising technologies into practice. This article provides only the concise summary of the R&D agenda. We encourage reading, discussion, and debate as well as active innovation toward the agenda for visual analysis.


An Introduction to Variable and Feature Selection

Variable and feature selection have become the focus of much research in areas of application for which datasets with tens or hundreds of thousands of variabl es are available. These areas include text processing of internet documents, gene expression arr ay nalysis, and combinatorial chemistry. The objective of variable selection is three-fold: improvi ng the prediction performance of the predictors, providing faster and more cost-effective predict ors, and providing a better understanding of the underlying process that generated the data. The contrib utions of this special issue cover a wide range of aspects of such problems: providing a better definit ion of the objective function, feature construction, feature ranking, multivariate feature sele ction, efficient search methods, and feature validity assessment methods.


Incidence of adverse events and negligence in hospitalized patients. Results of the Harvard Medical Practice Study I.

BACKGROUND
As part of an interdisciplinary study of medical injury and malpractice litigation, we estimated the incidence of adverse events, defined as injuries caused by medical management, and of the subgroup of such injuries that resulted from negligent or substandard care.

METHODS
We reviewed 30,121 randomly selected records from 51 randomly selected acute care, nonpsychiatric hospitals in New York State in 1984. We then developed population estimates of injuries and computed rates according to the age and sex of the patients as well as the specialties of the physicians.

RESULTS
Adverse events occurred in 3.7 percent of the hospitalizations (95 percent confidence interval, 3.2 to 4.2), and 27.6 percent of the adverse events were due to negligence (95 percent confidence interval, 22.5 to 32.6). Although 70.5 percent of the adverse events gave rise to disability lasting less than six months, 2.6 percent caused permanently disabling injuries and 13.6 percent led to death. The percentage of adverse events attributable to negligence increased in the categories of more severe injuries (Wald test chi 2 = 21.04, P less than 0.0001). Using weighted totals, we estimated that among the 2,671,863 patients discharged from New York hospitals in 1984 there were 98,609 adverse events and 27,179 adverse events involving negligence. Rates of adverse events rose with age (P less than 0.0001). The percentage of adverse events due to negligence was markedly higher among the elderly (P less than 0.01). There were significant differences in rates of adverse events among categories of clinical specialties (P less than 0.0001), but no differences in the percentage due to negligence.

CONCLUSIONS
There is a substantial amount of injury to patients from medical management, and many injuries are the result of substandard care.


Developing a car gesture interface for use as a secondary task

Existing gesture-interface research has centered on controlling the user's primary task. This paper explores the use of gestures to control secondary tasks while the user is focused on driving. Through contextual inquiry, ten iterative prototypes, and a Wizard of Oz experiment, we show that a gesture interface is a viable alternative for completing secondary tasks in the car.


Modularized Morphing of Neural Networks

In this work we study the problem of network morphism, an effective learning scheme to morph a well-trained neural network to a new one with the network function completely preserved. Different from existing work where basic morphing types on the layer level were addressed, we target at the central problem of network morphism at a higher level, i.e., how a convolutional layer can be morphed into an arbitrary module of a neural network. To simplify the representation of a network, we abstract a module as a graph with blobs as vertices and convolutional layers as edges, based on which the morphing process is able to be formulated as a graph transformation problem. Two atomic morphing operations are introduced to compose the graphs, based on which modules are classified into two families, i.e., simple morphable modules and complex modules. We present practical morphing solutions for both of these two families, and prove that any reasonable module can be morphed from a single convolutional layer. Extensive experiments have been conducted based on the state-of-the-art ResNet on benchmark datasets, and the effectiveness of the proposed solution has been verified.


Face Detection using Digital Image Processing

This paper presents a technique for automatically detecting human faces in digital color images. This is two-step process which first detects regions contain human skin in the color image and then extracts information from these regions which might indicate the location of a face in the image. The skin detection is performed using a skin filter which relies on color and texture information. The face detection is performed on a grayscale image containing only the detected skin areas. A combination of thresh holding and mathematical morphology are used to extract object features that would indicate the presence of a face. The face detection process works predictably and fairly reliably, as test results show.


Regularized linear and kernel redundancy analysis

Redundancy analysis (RA) is a versatile technique used to predict multivariate criterion variables from multivariate predictor variables. The reduced-rank feature of RA captures redundant information in the criterion variables in a most parsimonious way. A ridge type of regularization was introduced in RA to deal with the multicollinearity problem among the predictor variables. The regularized linear RA was extended to nonlinear RA using a kernel method to enhance the predictability. The usefulness of the proposed procedures was demonstrated by a Monte Carlo study and through the analysis of two real data sets.


A design process for embedding knowledge management in everyday work

Knowledge Management Software must be embedded in processes of knowledge workers' everyday practice. In order to attain a seamless design, regarding the special qualities and requirements of knowledge work, detailed studies of the existing work processes and analysis of the used knowledge are necessary. Participation of the knowledge owners and future users us an important factor for success of knowledge management systems. In this paper we describe characteristics of knowledge work motivating the usage of participatory design techniques. We suggest a design process for developing or improving knowledge management, which includes ethnographic surveys, user participation in cyclic improvement, scenario based design, and the use of multiple design artifacts and documents. Finally we explain the benefits of our approach. The paper is based on a case study we carried out to design and introduce a knowledge management system in a training company.


The Development Process of the Semantic Web and Web Ontology

This paper deals with the semantic web and web ontology. The existing ontology development processes are not catered towards casual web ontology development, a notion analogous to standard web page development. Ontologies have become common on the World-Wide Web[2]. Key features of this process include easy and rapid creation of ontological skeletons, searching and linking to existing ontologies and a natural language-based technique to improve presentation of ontologies[6]. Ontologies, however, vary greatly in size, scope and semantics. They can range from generic upper-level ontologies to domain-specific schemas. The success of the Semantic Web is based on the existance of numerous distributed ontologies, using which users can annotate their data, thereby enabling shared machine readable content. This paper elaborates the stages in a casual ontology development process. Key wordsToolkits; ontology; semantic web; language-based; web ontology.


Building upon RouteFlow : a SDN development experience

RouteFlow is a platform for providing virtual IP routing services in OpenFlow networks. During the first year of development, we came across some use cases that might be interesting pursuing in addition to a number of lessons learned worth sharing. In this paper, we will discuss identified requirements and architectural and implementation changes made to shape RouteFlow into a more robust solution for Software Defined networking (SDN). This paper addresses topics of interest to the SDN community, such as development issues involving layered applications on top of network controllers, ease of configuration, and network visualization. In addition, we will present the first publicly known use case with multiple, heterogeneous OpenFlow controllers to implement a centralized routing control function, demonstrating how IP routing as a service can be provided for different network domains under a single central control. Finally, performance comparisons and a real testbed were used as means of validating the implementation.


PhysioDroid: Combining Wearable Health Sensors and Mobile Devices for a Ubiquitous, Continuous, and Personal Monitoring

Technological advances on the development of mobile devices, medical sensors, and wireless communication systems support a new generation of unobtrusive, portable, and ubiquitous health monitoring systems for continuous patient assessment and more personalized health care. There exist a growing number of mobile apps in the health domain; however, little contribution has been specifically provided, so far, to operate this kind of apps with wearable physiological sensors. The PhysioDroid, presented in this paper, provides a personalized means to remotely monitor and evaluate users' conditions. The PhysioDroid system provides ubiquitous and continuous vital signs analysis, such as electrocardiogram, heart rate, respiration rate, skin temperature, and body motion, intended to help empower patients and improve clinical understanding. The PhysioDroid is composed of a wearable monitoring device and an Android app providing gathering, storage, and processing features for the physiological sensor data. The versatility of the developed app allows its use for both average users and specialists, and the reduced cost of the PhysioDroid puts it at the reach of most people. Two exemplary use cases for health assessment and sports training are presented to illustrate the capabilities of the PhysioDroid. Next technical steps include generalization to other mobile platforms and health monitoring devices.


Wideband planar monopole antennas with dual band-notched characteristics are presented. The proposed antenna consists of a wideband planar monopole antenna and the multiple cup-, cap-, and inverted L-shaped slots, producing band-notched characteristics. In order to generate dual band-notched characteristic, we propose nine types of planar monopole antennas, which have two or three cap (cup or inverted L)-shaped slots in the radiator. This technique is suitable for creating ultra-wideband antenna with narrow frequency notches or for creating multiband antennas


Optimal Operation of Distribution Feeders in Smart Grids

This paper presents a generic and comprehensive distribution optimal power flow (DOPF) model that can be used by local distribution companies (LDCs) to integrate their distribution system feeders into a Smart Grid. The proposed three-phase DOPF framework incorporates detailed modeling of distribution system components and considers various operating objectives. Phase specific and voltage dependent modeling of customer loads in the three-phase DOPF model allows LDC operators to determine realistic operating strategies that can improve the overall feeder efficiency. The proposed distribution system operation objective is based on the minimization of the energy drawn from the substation while seeking to minimize the number of switching operations of load tap changers and capacitors. A novel method for solving the three-phase DOPF model by transforming the mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem to a nonlinear programming problem is proposed which reduces the computational burden and facilitates its practical implementation and application. Two practical case studies, including a real distribution feeder test case, are presented to demonstrate the features of the proposed methodology. The results illustrate the benefits of the proposed DOPF in terms of reducing energy losses while limiting the number of switching operations.


Human error analysis of commercial aviation accidents: application of the Human Factors Analysis and Classification system (HFACS).

BACKGROUND
The Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) is a general human error framework originally developed and tested within the U.S. military as a tool for investigating and analyzing the human causes of aviation accidents. Based on Reason's (1990) model of latent and active failures, HFACS addresses human error at all levels of the system, including the condition of aircrew and organizational factors. The purpose of the present study was to assess the utility of the HFACS framework as an error analysis and classification tool outside the military.

METHODS
The HFACS framework was used to analyze human error data associated with aircrew-related commercial aviation accidents that occurred between January 1990 and December 1996 using database records maintained by the NTSB and the FAA.

RESULTS
Investigators were able to reliably accommodate all the human causal factors associated with the commercial aviation accidents examined in this study using the HFACS system. In addition, the classification of data using HFACS highlighted several critical safety issues in need of intervention research.

CONCLUSION
These results demonstrate that the HFACS framework can be a viable tool for use within the civil aviation arena. However, additional research is needed to examine its applicability to areas outside the flight deck, such as aircraft maintenance and air traffic control domains.


A 0.5-to-2.5 Gb/s Reference-Less Half-Rate Digital CDR With Unlimited Frequency Acquisition Range and Improved Input Duty-Cycle Error Tolerance

A reference-less highly digital half-rate clock and data recovery (CDR) circuit with improved tolerance to input duty cycle error is presented. Using a chain of frequency dividers, the pro posed frequency detector produces a known sub-harmonic tone from the incoming random data. A digital frequency-locked loop uses the extracted tone, and drives the oscillator to any sub-rate of the input data frequency. The early/late outputs of a conventional half-rate bang-bang phase detector are used to determine the duty-cycle error in the incoming random data and adjust the oscillator clock phases to maximize receiver timing margins. Fabricated in 0.13 μm CMOS technology, the prototype digital CDR op erates without any errors from 0.5 Gb/s to 2.5 Gb/s. At 2 Gb/s, the prototype consumes 6.1 mW power from a 1.2 V supply. The pro posed clock-phase calibration is capable of correcting upto ±20% of input data duty-cycle error.


Applying data mining techniques in job recommender system for considering candidate job preferences

Job recommender systems are desired to attain a high level of accuracy while making the predictions which are relevant to the customer, as it becomes a very tedious task to explore thousands of jobs, posted on the web, periodically. Although a lot of job recommender systems exist that uses different strategies , here efforts have been put to make the job recommendations on the basis of candidate's profile matching as well as preserving candidate's job behavior or preferences. Firstly, rules predicting the general preferences of the different user groups are mined. Then the job recommendations to the target candidate are made on the basis of content based matching as well as candidate preferences, which are preserved either in the form of mined rules or obtained by candidate's own applied jobs history. Through this technique a significant level of accuracy has been achieved over other basic methods of job recommendations.


A Simple Flood Forecasting Scheme Using Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper presents a forecasting model designed using WSNs( Wireless Sensor Networks) to predict flood in rivers using simple and fast calculations to provide real-time results and save the lives of people who may be affected by the flood. Our prediction model uses multiple variable robust linear regression which is easy to understand and simple and cost effective in implementation, is speed efficient, but has low resource utilization and yet provides real time predictions with reliable accuracy, thus having features which are desirable in any real world algorithm. Our prediction model is independent of the number of parameters, i.e. any number of parameters may be added or removed based on the on-site requirements. When the water level rises, we represent it using a polynomial whose nature is used to determine if the water level may exceed the flood line in the near future. We compare our work with a contemporary algorithm to demonstrate our improvements over it. Then we present our simulation results for the predicted water level compared to the actual water level.


Test Case Prioritization Using Requirements-Based Clustering

The importance of using requirements information in the testing phase has been well recognized by the requirements engineering community, but to date, a vast majority of regression testing techniques have primarily relied on software code information. Incorporating requirements information into the current testing practice could help software engineers identify the source of defects more easily, validate the product against requirements, and maintain software products in a holistic way. In this paper, we investigate whether the requirements-based clustering approach that incorporates traditional code analysis information can improve the effectiveness of test case prioritization techniques. To investigate the effectiveness of our approach, we performed an empirical study using two Java programs with multiple versions and requirements documents. Our results indicate that the use of requirements information during the test case prioritization process can be beneficial.


Teaching and working with robots as a collaboration

New applications for autonomous robots bring them into the human environment where they are to serve as helpful assistants to untrained users in the home or office, or work as capable members of human-robot teams for security, military, and space efforts. These applications require robots to be able to quickly learn how to perform new tasks from natural human instruction, and to perform tasks collaboratively with human teammates. Using joint intention theory as our theoretical framework, our approach integrates learning and collaboration through a goal based task structure. Specifically, we use collaborative discourse with accompanying gestures and social cues to teach a humanoid robot a structurally complex task. Having learned the representation for the task, the robot then performs it shoulder-to-shoulder with a human partner, using social communication acts to dynamically mesh its plans with those of its partner, according to the relative capabilities of the human and the robot.


Sensitive Lifelogs: A Privacy Analysis of Photos from Wearable Cameras

While media reports about wearable cameras have focused on the privacy concerns of bystanders, the perspectives of the `lifeloggers' themselves have not been adequately studied. We report on additional analysis of our previous in-situ lifelogging study in which 36 participants wore a camera for a week and then reviewed the images to specify privacy and sharing preferences. In this Note, we analyze the photos themselves, seeking to understand what makes a photo private, what participants said about their images, and what we can learn about privacy in this new and very different context where photos are captured automatically by one's wearable camera. We find that these devices record many moments that may not be captured by traditional (deliberate) photography, with camera owners concerned about impression management and protecting private information of both themselves and bystanders.


Foundations of Logic Programming


Evaluating faces on trustworthiness: an extension of systems for recognition of emotions signaling approach/avoidance behaviors.

People routinely make various trait judgments from facial appearance, and such judgments affect important social outcomes. These judgments are highly correlated with each other, reflecting the fact that valence evaluation permeates trait judgments from faces. Trustworthiness judgments best approximate this evaluation, consistent with evidence about the involvement of the amygdala in the implicit evaluation of face trustworthiness. Based on computer modeling and behavioral experiments, I argue that face evaluation is an extension of functionally adaptive systems for understanding the communicative meaning of emotional expressions. Specifically, in the absence of diagnostic emotional cues, trustworthiness judgments are an attempt to infer behavioral intentions signaling approach/avoidance behaviors. Correspondingly, these judgments are derived from facial features that resemble emotional expressions signaling such behaviors: happiness and anger for the positive and negative ends of the trustworthiness continuum, respectively. The emotion overgeneralization hypothesis can explain highly efficient but not necessarily accurate trait judgments from faces, a pattern that appears puzzling from an evolutionary point of view and also generates novel predictions about brain responses to faces. Specifically, this hypothesis predicts a nonlinear response in the amygdala to face trustworthiness, confirmed in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, and dissociations between processing of facial identity and face evaluation, confirmed in studies with developmental prosopagnosics. I conclude with some methodological implications for the study of face evaluation, focusing on the advantages of formally modeling representation of faces on social dimensions.


Sync-DRAW: Automatic Video Generation using Deep Recurrent Attentive Architectures

This paper introduces a novel approach for generating videos called Synchronized Deep Recurrent Attentive Writer (Sync-DRAW). Sync-DRAW can also perform text-to-video generation which, to the best of our knowledge, makes it the first approach of its kind. It combines a Variational Autoencoder(VAE) with a Recurrent Attention Mechanism in a novel manner to create a temporally dependent sequence of frames that are gradually formed over time. The recurrent attention mechanism in Sync-DRAW attends to each individual frame of the video in sychronization, while the VAE learns a latent distribution for the entire video at the global level. Our experiments with Bouncing MNIST, KTH and UCF-101 suggest that Sync-DRAW is efficient in learning the spatial and temporal information of the videos and generates frames with high structural integrity, and can generate videos from simple captions on these datasets.


How schema and novelty augment memory formation

Information that is congruent with existing knowledge (a schema) is usually better remembered than less congruent information. Only recently, however, has the role of schemas in memory been studied from a systems neuroscience perspective. Moreover, incongruent (novel) information is also sometimes better remembered. Here, we review lesion and neuroimaging findings in animals and humans that relate to this apparent paradoxical relationship between schema and novelty. In addition, we sketch a framework relating key brain regions in medial temporal lobe (MTL) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) during encoding, consolidation and retrieval of information as a function of its congruency with existing information represented in neocortex. An important aspect of this framework is the efficiency of learning enabled by congruency-dependent MTL-mPFC interactions.


Neural scene representation and rendering

Scene representation—the process of converting visual sensory data into concise descriptions—is a requirement for intelligent behavior. Recent work has shown that neural networks excel at this task when provided with large, labeled datasets. However, removing the reliance on human labeling remains an important open problem. To this end, we introduce the Generative Query Network (GQN), a framework within which machines learn to represent scenes using only their own sensors. The GQN takes as input images of a scene taken from different viewpoints, constructs an internal representation, and uses this representation to predict the appearance of that scene from previously unobserved viewpoints. The GQN demonstrates representation learning without human labels or domain knowledge, paving the way toward machines that autonomously learn to understand the world around them.


Detecting sources of computer viruses in networks: theory and experiment

We provide a systematic study of the problem of finding the source of a computer virus in a network. We model virus spreading in a network with a variant of the popular SIR model and then construct an estimator for the virus source. This estimator is based upon a novel combinatorial quantity which we term rumor centrality. We establish that this is an ML estimator for a class of graphs. We find the following surprising threshold phenomenon: on trees which grow faster than a line, the estimator always has non-trivial detection probability, whereas on trees that grow like a line, the detection probability will go to 0 as the network grows. Simulations performed on synthetic networks such as the popular small-world and scale-free networks, and on real networks such as an internet AS network and the U.S. electric power grid network, show that the estimator either finds the source exactly or within a few hops in different network topologies. We compare rumor centrality to another common network centrality notion known as distance centrality. We prove that on trees, the rumor center and distance center are equivalent, but on general networks, they may differ. Indeed, simulations show that rumor centrality outperforms distance centrality in finding virus sources in networks which are not tree-like.


Rumor centrality: a universal source detector

We consider the problem of detecting the source of a rumor (information diffusion) in a network based on observations about which set of nodes possess the rumor. In a recent work [10], this question was introduced and studied. The authors proposed rumor centrality as an estimator for detecting the source. They establish it to be the maximum likelihood estimator with respect to the popular Susceptible Infected (SI) model with exponential spreading time for regular trees. They showed that as the size of infected graph increases, for a line (2-regular tree) graph, the probability of source detection goes to 0 while for d-regular trees with d ≥ 3 the probability of detection, say αd, remains bounded away from 0 and is less than 1/2. Their results, however stop short of providing insights for the heterogeneous setting such as irregular trees or the SI model with non-exponential spreading times.
 This paper overcomes this limitation and establishes the effectiveness of rumor centrality for source detection for generic random trees and the SI model with a generic spreading time distribution. The key result is an interesting connection between a multi-type continuous time branching process (an equivalent representation of a generalized Polya's urn, cf. [1]) and the effectiveness of rumor centrality. Through this, it is possible to quantify the detection probability precisely. As a consequence, we recover all the results of [10] as a special case and more importantly, we obtain a variety of results establishing the universality of rumor centrality in the context of tree-like graphs and the SI model with a generic spreading time distribution.


Learning to Discover Social Circles in Ego Networks

Our personal social networks are big and cluttered, and currently there is no good way to organize them. Social networking sites allow users to manually categorize their friends into social circles (e.g. ‘circles’ on Google+, and ‘lists’ on Facebook and Twitter), however they are laborious to construct and must be updated whenever a user’s network grows. We define a novel machine learning task of identifying users’ social circles. We pose the problem as a node clustering problem on a user’s ego-network, a network of connections between her friends. We develop a model for detecting circles that combines network structure as well as user profile information. For each circle we learn its members and the circle-specific user profile similarity metric. Modeling node membership to multiple circles allows us to detect overlapping as well as hierarchically nested circles. Experiments show that our model accurately identifies circles on a diverse set of data from Facebook, Google+, and Twitter for all of which we obtain hand-labeled ground-truth.


Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks

Networks of coupled dynamical systems have been used to model biological oscillators, Josephson junction arrays,, excitable media, neural networks, spatial games, genetic control networks and many other self-organizing systems. Ordinarily, the connection topology is assumed to be either completely regular or completely random. But many biological, technological and social networks lie somewhere between these two extremes. Here we explore simple models of networks that can be tuned through this middle ground: regular networks ‘rewired’ to introduce increasing amounts of disorder. We find that these systems can be highly clustered, like regular lattices, yet have small characteristic path lengths, like random graphs. We call them ‘small-world’ networks, by analogy with the small-world phenomenon, (popularly known as six degrees of separation). The neural network of the worm Caenorhabditis elegans, the power grid of the western United States, and the collaboration graph of film actors are shown to be small-world networks. Models of dynamical systems with small-world coupling display enhanced signal-propagation speed, computational power, and synchronizability. In particular, infectious diseases spread more easily in small-world networks than in regular lattices.


Link Prediction via Matrix Factorization

We propose to solve the link prediction problem in graphs using a supervised matrix factorization approach. The model learns latent features from the topological structure of a (possibly directed) graph, and is shown to make better predictions than popular unsupervised scores. We show how these latent features may be combined with optional explicit features for nodes or edges, which yields better performance than using either type of feature exclusively. Finally, we propose a novel approach to address the class imbalance problem which is common in link prediction by directly optimizing for a ranking loss. Our model is optimized with stochastic gradient descent and scales to large graphs. Results on several datasets show the efficacy of our approach.


LHCP and RHCP Substrate Integrated Waveguide Antenna Arrays for Millimeter-Wave Applications

Left-hand and right-hand circularly polarized (LHCP and RHCP) substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) antenna arrays are presented at the 28-GHz band for millimeter-wave (mm-wave) applications. Two types of circularly polarized (CP) antenna elements are designed to achieve respective LHCP and RHCP performance. Eight-element LHCP and RHCP antenna arrays have been implemented with feeding networks and measured. Based on the measurement, the LHCP and RHCP antenna arrays have impedance bandwidths of 1.54 and 1.7 GHz within $| S_{\rm{11}}| < - \text{10 dB}$, whereas 3-dB axial-ratio bandwidths are 1.1 and 1.3 GHz, respectively. Each of the fabricated LHCP and RHCP antenna arrays is accomplished with a gain up to 13.09 and 13.52 dBi. Most of the measured results are validated with the simulated ones. The proposed CP antenna arrays can provide low-cost, broadband characteristics, and high-gain radiation performance with CP properties for mm-wave applications.


A Review of Substrate Integrated Waveguide End-Fire Antennas

Substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) is a planar waveguide structure, which offers the advantages of low profile, ease of fabrication, low insertion loss, and compatibility with other planar circuits. SIW end-fire antennas have drawn broad interests due to the potential applications in aircraft, missile, and radar systems. However, this planar structure suffers from narrow bandwidth due to severe impedance mismatch at the radiating aperture. Meanwhile, the narrow radiating aperture of SIW end-fire antennas also deteriorates the radiation performance. This paper presents a detailed review upon the most recent research efforts concerning the improvement of antenna performances. They are discussed and classified into three different categories from the aspect of polarization properties: horizontally polarized, vertically polarized, and circularly polarized SIW end-fire antennas. Some practical difficulties for the development of SIW end-fire antennas are pointed out and effective approaches are also provided. A wide variety of antenna examples are presented with respect to theoretical and experimental results.


Feature Mining for Localised Crowd Counting

This paper presents a multi-output regression model for crowd counting in public scenes. Existing counting by regression methods either learn a single model for global counting, or train a large number of separate regressors for localised density estimation. In contrast, our single regression model based approach is able to estimate people count in spatially localised regions and is more scalable without the need for training a large number of regressors proportional to the number of local regions. In particular, the proposed model automatically learns the functional mapping between interdependent low-level features and multi-dimensional structured outputs. The model is able to discover the inherent importance of different features for people counting at different spatial locations. Extensive evaluations on an existing crowd analysis benchmark dataset and a new more challenging dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.


Trajectory Bundling for Animated Transitions

Animated transition has been a popular design choice for smoothly switching between different visualization views or layouts, in which movement trajectories are created as cues for tracking objects during location shifting. Tracking moving objects, however, becomes difficult when their movement paths overlap or the number of tracking targets increases. We propose a novel design to facilitate tracking moving objects in animated transitions. Instead of simply animating an object along a straight line, we create "bundled" movement trajectories for a group of objects that have spatial proximity and share similar moving directions. To study the effect of bundled trajectories, we untangle variations due to different aspects of tracking complexity in a comprehensive controlled user study. The results indicate that using bundled trajectories is particularly effective when tracking more targets (six vs. three targets) or when the object movement involves a high degree of occlusion or deformation. Based on the study, we discuss the advantages and limitations of the new technique, as well as provide design implications.


A Taxonomy of Domain-Specific Aspect Languages

Domain-Specific Aspect Languages (DSALs) are Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) designed to express crosscutting concerns. Compared to DSLs, their aspectual nature greatly amplifies the language design space. We structure this space in order to shed light on and compare the different domain-specific approaches to deal with crosscutting concerns. We report on a corpus of 36 DSALs covering the space, discuss a set of design considerations, and provide a taxonomy of DSAL implementation approaches. This work serves as a frame of reference to DSAL and DSL researchers, enabling further advances in the field, and to developers as a guide for DSAL implementations.


Convolutional face finder: a neural architecture for fast and robust face detection

In this paper, we present a novel face detection approach based on a convolutional neural architecture, designed to robustly detect highly variable face patterns, rotated up to /spl plusmn/20 degrees in image plane and turned up to /spl plusmn/60 degrees, in complex real world images. The proposed system automatically synthesizes simple problem-specific feature extractors from a training set of face and nonface patterns, without making any assumptions or using any hand-made design concerning the features to extract or the areas of the face pattern to analyze. The face detection procedure acts like a pipeline of simple convolution and subsampling modules that treat the raw input image as a whole. We therefore show that an efficient face detection system does not require any costly local preprocessing before classification of image areas. The proposed scheme provides very high detection rate with a particularly low level of false positives, demonstrated on difficult test sets, without requiring the use of multiple networks for handling difficult cases. We present extensive experimental results illustrating the efficiency of the proposed approach on difficult test sets and including an in-depth sensitivity analysis with respect to the degrees of variability of the face patterns.


Markov Logic Mixtures of Gaussian Processes: Towards Machines Reading Regression Data

We propose a novel mixtures of Gaussian processes model in which the gating function is interconnected with a probabilistic logical model, in our case Markov logic networks. In this way, the resulting mixed graphical model, called Markov logic mixtures of Gaussian processes (MLxGP), solves joint Bayesian non-parametric regression and probabilistic relational inference tasks. In turn, MLxGP facilitates novel, interesting tasks such as regression based on logical constraints or drawing probabilistic logical conclusions about regression data, thus putting “machines reading regression data” in reach.


On the Spectral Bias of Neural Networks

Neural networks are known to be a class of highly expressive functions able to fit even random input-output mappings with 100% accuracy. In this work we present properties of neural networks that complement this aspect of expressivity. By using tools from Fourier analysis, we show that deep ReLU networks are biased towards low frequency functions, meaning that they cannot have local fluctuations without affecting their global behavior. Intuitively, this property is in line with the observation that over-parameterized networks find simple patterns that generalize across data samples. We also investigate how the shape of the data manifold affects expressivity by showing evidence that learning high frequencies gets easier with increasing manifold complexity, and present a theoretical understanding of this behavior. Finally, we study the robustness of the frequency components with respect to parameter perturbation, to develop the intuition that the parameters must be finely tuned to express high frequency functions.


Structured light in scattering media

Virtually all structured light methods assume that the scene and the sources are immersed in pure air and that light is neither scattered nor absorbed. Recently, however, structured lighting has found growing application in underwater and aerial imaging, where scattering effects cannot be ignored. In this paper, we present a comprehensive analysis of two representative methods - light stripe range scanning and photometric stereo - in the presence of scattering. For both methods, we derive physical models for the appearances of a surface immersed in a scattering medium. Based on these models, we present results on (a) the condition for object detectability in light striping and (b) the number of sources required for photometric stereo. In both cases, we demonstrate that while traditional methods fail when scattering is significant, our methods accurately recover the scene (depths, normals, albedos) as well as the properties of the medium. These results are in turn used to restore the appearances of scenes as if they were captured in clear air. Although we have focused on light striping and photometric stereo, our approach can also be extended to other methods such as grid coding, gated and active polarization imaging.


Conceptualizing Sources in Online News

This study attempts a new conceptualization of communication “sources” by proposing a typology of sources that would apply not only to traditional media but also to new online media. Ontological rationale for the distinctions in the typology is supplemented by psychological evidence via an experiment that investigated the effects of different types of source attributions upon receivers’ perception of online news content. Participants (N = 48) in a 4-condition, between-participants experiment read 6 identical news stories each through an online service. Participants were told that the stories were selected by 1 of 4 sources: news editors, the computer terminal on which they were accessing the stories, other audience members (or users) of the online news service, or (using a pseudo-selection task) the individual user (self). After reading each online news story, all participants filled out a paperand-pencil questionnaire indicating their perceptions of the story they had just read. In confirmation of the distinctions made in the typology, attribution of identical content to 4 different types of online sources was associated with significant variation in news story perception. Theoretical implications of the results as well as the typology are discussed.


Conceptualising user hedonic experience

For many years, the approach taken towards technology design focused on supporting the effective, efficient, and satisfying use of it. The way people use technology has shifted from merely using it to enjoying using it. This paper describes an early approach to understanding user experience in context of technologies (e.g. digital cameras, PDAs, and mobile phones), as well as in more general context such as physical activities e.g. exercising, orienteering, and walking, and in context of diaries. The focus of this paper is on hedonic user experience; that is pleasure, enjoyment, excitement, and fun in the context of technology. This study provides insights into factors contributing to and influencing such experiences and the relationships between them.


Factorized Geometrical Autofocus for Synthetic Aperture Radar Processing

This paper describes a factorized geometrical autofocus (FGA) algorithm, specifically suitable for ultrawideband synthetic aperture radar. The strategy is integrated in a fast factorized back-projection chain and relies on varying track parameters step by step to obtain a sharp image; focus measures are provided by an object function (intensity correlation). The FGA algorithm has been successfully applied on synthetic and real (Coherent All RAdio BAnd System II) data sets, i.e., with false track parameters introduced prior to processing, to set up constrained problems involving one geometrical quantity. Resolution (3 dB in azimuth and slant range) and peak-to-sidelobe ratio measurements in FGA images are comparable with reference results (within a few percent and tenths of a decibel), demonstrating the capacity to compensate for residual space variant range cell migration. The FGA algorithm is finally also benchmarked (visually) against the phase gradient algorithm to emphasize the advantage of a geometrical autofocus approach.


It's More than Just Sharing Game Play Videos! Understanding User Motives in Mobile Game Social Media

As mobile gaming has become increasingly popular in recent years, new forms of mobile game social media such as GameDuck that share mobile gameplay videos have emerged. In this work, we set out to understand the user motives of GameDuck by leveraging the Uses and Gratification Theory. We first explore the major motive themes from users' responses (n=138) and generate motivation survey items. We then identify the key motivators by conducting exploratory factor analysis of the survey results (n=354). Finally, we discuss how this new social media relates to existing systems such as Twitch.


Enterprise Architecture design for ensuring strategic business IT alignment (integrating SAMM with TOGAF 9.1)

Strategic business IT (Information Technology) alignment is one of the main objectives that is achieved from the implementation of Enterprise Architecture (EA) in an organization. EA helps organizations to define architecture of business, information systems and technology that capable for aligning business strategy with IT organizations, through the development of business models, business strategy, business processes and organizations that aligned with infrastructure, applications and IT organizations. A good design of Enterprise Architecture should consider various viewpoints of IT alignment with the organization's business needs. This paper provides a solution how to design Enterprise Architecture which provides guarantee for strategic business IT alignment that is designed through the integration of SAMM component with TOGAF 9.1 metamodel.


Machine learning - a probabilistic perspective

“Kevin Murphy excels at unraveling the complexities of machine learning methods while motivating the reader with a stream of illustrated examples and real-world case studies. The accompanying software package includes source code for many of the figures, making it both easy and very tempting to dive in and explore these methods for yourself. A must-buy for anyone interested in machine learning or curious about how to extract useful knowledge from big data.” John Winn, Microsoft Research


Algorithms for the variable sized bin packing problem

In this paper, we consider the variable sized bin packing problem where the objective is to minimize the total cost of used bins when the cost of unit size of each bin does not increase as the bin size increases. Two greedy algorithms are described, and analyzed in three special cases: (a) the sizes of items and bins are divisible, respectively, (b) only the sizes of bins are divisible, and (c) the sizes of bins are not divisible. Here, we say that a list of numbers a1; a2; . . . ; am are divisible when aj exactly divides aj 1, for each 1 < j6m. In the case of (a), the algorithms give optimal solutions, and in the case of (b), each algorithm gives a solution whose value is less than 11 9 CðB Þ þ 4 9 , where CðB Þ is the optimal value. In the case of (c), each algorithm gives a solution whose value is less than 3 2 CðB Þ þ 1. 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.


IoT system for Human Activity Recognition using BioHarness 3 and Smartphone

This paper presents an Internet of Things (IoT) approach to Human Activity Recognition (HAR) using remote monitoring of vital signs in the context of a healthcare system for self-managed chronic heart patients. Our goal is to create a HAR-IoT system using learning algorithms to infer the activity done within 4 categories (lie, sit, walk and run) as well as the time consumed performing these activities and, finally giving feedback during and after the activity. Alike in this work, we provide a comprehensive insight on the cloud-based system implemented and the conclusions after implementing two different learning algorithms and the results of the overall system for larger implementations.


Analysis and Design of an Input-Series Two-Transistor Forward Converter For High-Input Voltage Multiple-Output Applications

In this paper, an input-series two-transistor forward converter is proposed and investigated, which is aimed at high-input voltage multiple-output applications. In this converter, all of the switches are operating synchronously, and the input voltage sharing (IVS) of each series-module is achieved automatically by the coupling of primary windings of the common forward integrated transformer. The active IVS processes are analyzed based on the model of the forward integrated transformer. Through the influence analysis when the mismatches in various series-modules are considered, design principles of the key parameters in each series-module are discussed to suppress the input voltage difference. Finally, a 96-W laboratory-made prototype composed of two forward series-modules is built, and the feasibility of the proposed method and the theoretical analysis are verified by the experimental results.


Task-Driven Feature Pooling for Image Classification

Feature pooling is an important strategy to achieve high performance in image classification. However, most pooling methods are unsupervised and heuristic. In this paper, we propose a novel task-driven pooling (TDP) model to directly learn the pooled representation from data in a discriminative manner. Different from the traditional methods (e.g., average and max pooling), TDP is an implicit pooling method which elegantly integrates the learning of representations into the given classification task. The optimization of TDP can equalize the similarities between the descriptors and the learned representation, and maximize the classification accuracy. TDP can be combined with the traditional BoW models (coding vectors) or the recent state-of-the-art CNN models (feature maps) to achieve a much better pooled representation. Furthermore, a self-training mechanism is used to generate the TDP representation for a new test image. A multi-task extension of TDP is also proposed to further improve the performance. Experiments on three databases (Flower-17, Indoor-67 and Caltech-101) well validate the effectiveness of our models.


Channel Attention and Multi-level Features Fusion for Single Image Super-Resolution

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have demonstrated superior performance in super-resolution (SR). However, most CNN-based SR methods neglect the different importance among feature channels or fail to take full advantage of the hierarchical features. To address these issues, this paper presents a novel recursive unit. Firstly, at the beginning of each unit, we adopt a compact channel attention mechanism to adaptively recalibrate the channel importance of input features. Then, the multi-level features, rather than only deep-level features, are extracted and fused. Additionally, we find that it will force our model to learn more details by using the learnable upsampling method (i.e., transposed convolution) only on residual branch (instead of using it both on residual branch and identity branch) while using the bicubic interpolation on the other branch. Analytic experiments show that our method achieves competitive results compared with the state-of-the-art methods and maintains faster speed as well.


Kolmogorov's theorem and multilayer neural networks

-Taking advantage of techniques developed by Kolmogorov, we give a direct proof of the universal approximation capabilities of perceptron type networks with two hidden layers. From our proof we derive estimates of numbers of hidden units based on properties of the function being approximated and the accuracy of its approximation. Keywords--Feedforward neural networks, Multilayer perceptron type networks, Sigmoidal activation function, Approximations of continuous functions, Uniform approximation, Universal approximation capabilities, Estimates of number of hidden units, Modulus of continuity.


Dynamic Bin Packing for On-Demand Cloud Resource Allocation

Dynamic Bin Packing (DBP) is a variant of classical bin packing, which assumes that items may arrive and depart at arbitrary times. Existing works on DBP generally aim to minimize the maximum number of bins ever used in the packing. In this paper, we consider a new version of the DBP problem, namely, the MinTotal DBP problem which targets at minimizing the total cost of the bins used overtime. It is motivated by the request dispatching problem arising from cloud gaming systems. We analyze the competitive ratios of the modified versions of the commonly used First Fit, Best Fit, and Any Fit packing (the family of packing algorithms that open a new bin only when no currently open bin can accommodate the item to be packed) algorithms for the MinTotal DBP problem. We show that the competitive ratio of Any Fit packing cannot be better than μ + 1, where μ is the ratio of the maximum item duration to the minimum item duration. The competitive ratio of Best Fit packing is not bounded for any given μ. For First Fit packing, if all the item sizes are smaller than 1/β of the bin capacity (β> 1 is a constant), the competitive ratio has an upper bound of β/β-1·μ+3β/β-1 + 1. For the general case, the competitive ratio of First Fit packing has an upper bound of 2μ + 7. We also propose a Hybrid First Fit packing algorithm that can achieve a competitive ratio no larger than 5/4 μ + 19/4 when μ is not known and can achieve a competitive ratio no larger than μ + 5 when μ is known.


Adaptation of Word Vectors using Tree Structure for Visual Semantics

We propose a framework of word-vector adaptation, which makes vectors of visually similar concepts close to each other. Here, word vectors are real-valued vector representation of words, e.g., word2vec representation. Our basic idea is to assume that each concept has some hypernyms that are important to determine its visual features. For example, for a concept Swallow with hypernyms Bird, Animal and Entity, we believe Bird is the most important since birds have common visual features with their feathers etc. Adapted word vectors are obtained for each word by taking a weighted sum of a given original word vector and its hypernym word vectors. Our weight optimization makes vectors of visually similar concepts close to each other, by giving a large weight for such important hypernyms. We apply the adapted word vectors to zero-shot learning on the TRECVID 2014 semantic indexing dataset. We achieved 0.083 of Mean Average Precision, which is the best performance without using TRECVID training data to the best of our knowledge.


Humanoid robot HRP-3

In this paper, the development of humanoid robot HRP-3 is presented. HRP-3, which stands for Humanoid Robotics Platform-3, is a human-size humanoid robot developed as the succeeding model of HRP-2. One of features of HRP-3 is that its main mechanical and structural components are designed to prevent the penetration of dust or spray. Another is that its wrist and hand are newly designed to improve manipulation. Software for a humanoid robot in a real environment is also improved. We also include information on mechanical features of HRP-3 and together with the newly developed hand. Also included are the technologies implemented in HRP-3 prototype. Electrical features and some experimental results using HRP-3 are also presented.


Modeling and Simulation of Electric and Hybrid Vehicles

This paper discusses the need for modeling and simulation of electric and hybrid vehicles. Different modeling methods such as physics-based Resistive Companion Form technique and Bond Graph method are presented with powertrain component and system modeling examples. The modeling and simulation capabilities of existing tools such as Powertrain System Analysis Toolkit (PSAT), ADvanced VehIcle SimulatOR (ADVISOR), PSIM, and Virtual Test Bed are demonstrated through application examples. Since power electronics is indispensable in hybrid vehicles, the issue of numerical oscillations in dynamic simulations involving power electronics is briefly addressed


A Matlab-based modeling and simulation package for electric and hybrid electric vehicle design

This paper discusses a simulation and modeling package developed at Texas A&M University, V-Elph 2.01. VElph facilitates in-depth studies of electric vehicle (EV) and hybrid EV (HEV) configurations or energy management strategies through visual programming by creating components as hierarchical subsystems that can be used interchangeably as embedded systems. V-Elph is composed of detailed models of four major types of components: electric motors, internal combustion engines, batteries, and support components that can be integrated to model and simulate drive trains having all electric, series hybrid, and parallel hybrid configurations. V-Elph was written in the Matlab/Simulink graphical simulation language and is portable to most computer platforms. This paper also discusses the methodology for designing vehicle drive trains using the V-Elph package. An EV, a series HEV, a parallel HEV, and a conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) driven drive train have been designed using the simulation package. Simulation results such as fuel consumption, vehicle emissions, and complexity are compared and discussed for each vehicle.


PSIM-based modeling of automotive power systems: conventional, electric, and hybrid electric vehicles

Automotive manufacturers have been taking advantage of simulation tools for modeling and analyzing various types of vehicles, such as conventional, electric, and hybrid electric vehicles. These simulation tools are of great assistance to engineers and researchers to reduce product-development cycle time, improve the quality of the design, and simplify the analysis without costly and time-consuming experiments. In this paper, a modeling tool that has been developed to study automotive systems using the power electronics simulator (PSIM) software is presented. PSIM was originally made for simulating power electronic converters and motor drives. This user-friendly simulation package is able to simulate electric/electronic circuits; however, it has no capability for simulating the entire system of an automobile. This paper discusses the PSIM validity as an automotive simulation tool by creating module boxes for not only the electrical systems, but also the mechanical, energy-storage, and thermal systems of the vehicles. These modules include internal combustion engines, fuel converters, transmissions, torque couplers, and batteries. Once these modules are made and stored in the library, the user can make the car model either a conventional, an electric, or a hybrid vehicle at will, just by dragging and dropping onto a schematic blank page.


Principles of object-oriented modeling and simulation with Modelica 2.1

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ADVISOR 2.1: a user-friendly advanced powertrain simulation using a combined backward/forward approach

-ADVISOR 2.1 is the latest version of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s advanced vehicle simulator. It was first developed in 1994 to support the U.S. Department of Energy hybrid propulsion system program, and is designed to be accurate, fast, flexible, easily sharable, and easy to use. This paper presents the model, focusing on its combination of forwardand backward-facing simulation approaches, and evaluates the model in terms of its design goals. ADVISOR predicts acceleration time to within 0.7% and energy use on the demanding US06 to within 0.6% for an underpowered series hybrid vehicle (0-100 km/h in 20 s). ADVISOR simulates vehicle performance on standard driving cycles between 2.6 and 8.0 times faster than a representative forward-facing vehicle model. Due in large part to ADVISOR’s powerful graphical user interface and Web presence, over 800 users have downloaded ADVISOR from 45 different countries. Many of these users have contributed their own component data to the ADVISOR library.


Marital status and health: United States, 1999-2002.

OBJECTIVE
This report presents prevalence estimates by marital status for selected health status and limitations, health conditions, and health risk behaviors among U.S. adults, using data from the 1999-2002 National Health Interview Surveys (NHIS).

METHODS
Data for the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population were collected using computer-assisted personal interviews (CAPI). The household response rate for the NHIS was 88.7%. This report is based on a total of 127,545 interviews with sample adults aged 18 years and over, representing an overall response rate of 72.4% for the 4 years combined. Statistics were age-adjusted to the 2000 U.S. standard population. Marital status categories shown in this report are: married, widowed, divorced or separated, never married, and living with a partner.

RESULTS
Regardless of population subgroup (age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, education, income, or nativity) or health indictor (fair or poor health, limitations in activities, low back pain, headaches, serious psychological distress, smoking, or leisure-time physical inactivity), married adults were generally found to be healthier than adults in other marital status categories. Marital status differences in health were found in each of the three age groups studied (18-44 years, 45-64 years, and 65 years and over), but were most striking among adults aged 18-44 years. The one negative health indicator for which married adults had a higher prevalence was overweight or obesity. Married adults, particularly men, had high rates of overweight or obesity relative to adults in other marital status groups across most population subgroups studied. Never married adults were among the least likely to be overweight or obese.


Synthetic therapeutic peptides: science and market.

The decreasing number of approved drugs produced by the pharmaceutical industry, which has been accompanied by increasing expenses for R&D, demands alternative approaches to increase pharmaceutical R&D productivity. This situation has contributed to a revival of interest in peptides as potential drug candidates. New synthetic strategies for limiting metabolism and alternative routes of administration have emerged in recent years and resulted in a large number of peptide-based drugs that are now being marketed. This review reports on the unexpected and considerable number of peptides that are currently available as drugs and the chemical strategies that were used to bring them into the market. As demonstrated here, peptide-based drug discovery could be a serious option for addressing new therapeutic challenges.


H-Ras transfers from B to T cells via tunneling nanotubes

Lymphocytes form cell–cell connections by various mechanisms, including intercellular networks through actin-supported long-range plasma membrane (PM) extensions, termed tunneling nanotubes (TNTs). In this study, we tested in vitro whether TNTs form between human antigen-presenting B cells and T cells following cell contact and whether they enable the transfer of PM-associated proteins, such as green fluorescent protein (GFP)-tagged H-Ras (GFP-H-Ras). To address this question, we employed advanced techniques, including cell trapping by optical tweezers and live-cell imaging by 4D spinning-disk confocal microscopy. First, we showed that TNTs can form after optically trapped conjugated B and T cells are being pulled apart. Next, we determined by measuring fluorescence recovery after photobleaching that GFP-H-Ras diffuses freely in the membrane of TNTs that form spontaneously between B and T cells during coculturing. Importantly, by 4D time-lapse imaging, we showed that GFP-H-Ras-enriched PM patches accumulate at the junction between TNTs and the T-cell body and subsequently transfer to the T-cell surface. Furthermore, the PM patches adopted by T cells were enriched for another B-cell-derived transmembrane receptor, CD86. As predicted, the capacity of GFP-H-Ras to transfer between B and T cells, during coculturing, was dependent on its normal post-transcriptional lipidation and consequent PM anchorage. In summary, our data indicate that TNTs connecting B and T cells provide a hitherto undescribed route for the transfer of PM patches containing, for example, H-Ras from B to T cells.


SciMATE: A Novel MapReduce-Like Framework for Multiple Scientific Data Formats

Despite the popularity of MapReduce, there are several obstacles to applying it for developing scientific data analysis applications. Current MapReduce implementations require that data be loaded into specialized file systems, like the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), whereas with rapidly growing size of scientific datasets, reloading data in another file system or format is not feasible. We present a framework that allows scientific data in different formats to be processed with a MapReduce like API. Our system is referred to as SciMATE, and is based on the MATE system developed at Ohio State. SciMATE is developed as a customizable system, which can be adapted to support processing on any of the scientific data formats. We have demonstrated the functionality of our system by creating instances that can be processing NetCDF and HDF5 formats as well as flat-files. We have also implemented three popular data mining applications and have evaluated their execution with each of the three instances of our system.


Assessing the Impact of Real-time Ridesharing on Urban Traffic using Mobile Phone Data

Recently, smart-phone based technology has enabled ridesharing services to match customers making similar trips in realtime for a reduced rate and minimal inconvenience. But what are the impacts of such services on city-wide congestion? The answer lies in whether or not ridesharing adds to vehicle traffic by diverting non-driving trips like walking, transit, or cycling, or reduces vehicle traffic by diverting trips otherwise made in private, single occupancy cars or taxis. This research explores the impact of rideshare adoption on congestion using mobile phone data. We extract average daily origin-destination (OD) trips from mobile phone records and estimate the proportions of these trips made by auto and other non-auto travelers. Next, we match spatially and temporally similar trips, and assume a range of adoption rates for auto and non-auto users, in order to distill rideshare vehicle trips. Finally, for several adoption scenarios, we evaluate the impacts of congestion network-wide.


An overview of online trust: Concepts, elements, and implications

Lack of trust has been repeatedly identified as one of the most formidable barriers to people for engaging in e-commerce, involving transactions in which financial and personal information is submitted to merchants via the Internet. The future of e-commerce is tenuous without a general climate of online trust. Building consumer trust on the Internet presents a challenge for online merchants and is a research topic of increasing interest and importance. This paper provides an overview of the nature and concepts of trust from multi-disciplinary perspectives, and it reviews relevant studies that investigate the elements of online trust. Also, a framework of trust-inducing interface design features articulated from the existing literature is presented. The design features were classified into four dimensions, namely (1) graphic design, (2) structure design, (3) content design, and (4) social-cue design. By applying the design features identified within this framework to e-commerce web site interfaces, online merchants might then anticipate fostering optimal levels of trust in their customers. 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.


Exploring compassion: a meta-analysis of the association between self-compassion and psychopathology.

Compassion has emerged as an important construct in studies of mental health and psychological therapy. Although an increasing number of studies have explored relationships between compassion and different facets of psychopathology there has as yet been no systematic review or synthesis of the empirical literature. We conducted a systematic search of the literature on compassion and mental health. We identified 20 samples from 14 eligible studies. All studies used the Neff Self Compassion Scale (Neff, 2003b). We employed meta-analysis to explore associations between self-compassion and psychopathology using random effects analyses of Fisher's Z correcting for attenuation arising from scale reliability. We found a large effect size for the relationship between compassion and psychopathology of r=-0.54 (95% CI=-0.57 to -0.51; Z=-34.02; p<.0001). Heterogeneity was significant in the analysis. There was no evidence of significant publication bias. Compassion is an important explanatory variable in understanding mental health and resilience. Future work is needed to develop the evidence base for compassion in psychopathology, and explore correlates of compassion and psychopathology.