Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Managing design complexity: using stochastic optimization in the production of computer graphics

This thesis examines the automated design of computer graphics. We present a methodology that emphasizes optimization, problem representation, stochastic search, and empirical analysis. Two problems are considered, which together encompass and exemplify both 2D and 3D graphics production: label placement and motion synthesis for animation. Label placement is the problem of annotating various informational graphics with textual labels, subject to constraints that respect proper label-feature associativity, label and feature obscuration, and aesthetically desirable label positions. Examples of label placement include applying textual labels to a geographic map, or item tags to a scatterplot. Motion synthesis is the problem of composing a visually plausible motion for an animated character, subject to animator-imposed constraints on the form and characteristics of the desired motion. For each problem we propose new solution methods that utilize efficient problem representations combined with stochastic optimization techniques. We demonstrate that these methods offer significant advantages over competing solutions in terms of ease-of-use, visual quality, and computational efficiency. Taken together, these results also demonstrate an effective approach for continued progress in automating graphical design, which should be applicable to a wide range of graphical design applications beyond the two considered here.
An Empirical Examination of the Antecedents and Consequences of Contribution Patterns in Crowd-Funded Markets

Crowd-funded markets have recently emerged as a novel source of capital for entrepreneurs. As the economic potential of these markets is now being realized, they are beginning to go mainstream, a trend reflected by the explicit attention crowdfunding has received in the American Jobs Act as a potential avenue for economic growth, as well as the recent focus that regulators such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission have placed upon it. Although the formulation of regulation and policy surrounding crowd-funded markets is becoming increasingly important, the behavior of crowdfunders, an important aspect that must be considered in this formulation effort, is not yet well understood. A key factor that can influence the behavior of crowd funders is information on prior contribution behavior, including the amount and timing of others’ contributions, which is published for general consumption. With that in mind, in this study, we empirically examine social influence in a crowd-funded marketplace for online journalism projects, employing a unique data set that incorporates contribution events and Web traffic statistics for approximately 100 story pitches. This data set allows us to examine both the antecedents and consequences of the contribution process. First, noting that digital journalism is a form of public good, we evaluate the applicability of two competing classes of economic models that explain private contribution toward public goods in the presence of social information: substitution models and reinforcement models. We also propose a new measure that captures both the amount and the timing of others’ contribution behavior: contribution frequency (dollars per unit time). We find evidence in support of a substitution model, which suggests a partial crowding-out effect, where contributors may experience a decrease in their marginal utility from making a contribution as it becomes less important to the recipient. Further, we find that the duration of funding and, more importantly, the degree of exposure that a pitch receives over the course of the funding process, are positively associated with readership upon the story’s publication. This appears to validate the widely held belief that a key benefit of the crowdfunding model is the potential it offers for awareness and attention-building around causes and ventures. This last aspect is a major contribution of the study, as it demonstrates a clear linkage between marketing effort and the success of crowd-funded projects.
Boundary Reflection Matrix in Perturbative Quantum Field Theory

We study boundary reflection matrix for the quantum field theory defined on a half line using Feynman’s perturbation theory. The boundary reflection matrix can be extracted directly from the two-point correlation function. This enables us to determine the boundary reflection matrix for affine Toda field theory with the Neumann boundary condition modulo ‘a mysterious factor half’. jideog.kim@durham.ac. uk On leave of absence from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Generalized multipartitioning for multi-dimensional arrays

Multipartitioning is a strategy for parallelizing computations that require solving 1D recurrences along each dimension of a multi-dimensional array. Previous techniques for multipartitioning yielded efficient parallelizations over 3D domains only when the number of processors was a perfect square. This paper considers the general problem of computing multipartitionings for d-dimensional data volumes on an arbitrary number of processors. We describe an algorithm that computes an optimal multipartitioning on to all of the processors for this general case. Finally, we describe how we extended Rice University's dHPF (data-parallel High Performance Fortran) compiler to generate code that exploits generalized multipartitioning and show that the compiler's generated code for the NAS (Numerical Aerospace Simulation) SP (Scalar Pentadiagonal) computational fluid dynamics benchmark achieves scalable high performance.
Exposure and Support of Latent Social Networks among Learning Object Repository Users

Although immense efforts have been invested in the construction of hun- dreds of learning object repositories, the degree of reuse of learning resources main- tained in such repositories is still disappointingly low. As the reasons for this obser- vation are not well understood, we carried out an empirical investigation with the objectives to identify recurring patterns in the retrieval and (re-) use of learning re- sources and to design and test social networking functionality supporting communi- ties of practice. The outcomes of this project, which are reported here, aim to affect the design of a new generation of learning object repositories, like CampusContent, that tries to eliminate deficits of current repositories and involve recent contributions in the area of social software. Object of our investigation was LON-CAPA, a cross- institutional learning content management and assessment system used since 2000. We analyzed hundreds of thousands of log data collected over a period of three years and detected various kinds of latent relationships among LON-CAPA users, such as the co-occurrence of learning resources from independent authors in instructional mate- rials. To understand the rationale behind these findings, we conducted a study with LON-CAPA users. One section of the questionnaire asked for people's opinion about the expected benefit of community support. Nearly 80% of the study participants said that the formation of communities of practice (CoP) would be an asset to LON-CAPA. More than 80% would be ready to provide their profiles for matching up with CoPs and serve the community by spending time on the evaluation of resources they had used. Finally we sketch a faceted search functionality we designed to support CoPs among LON-CAPA users. This functionality is currently tested with two CoPs.
Subcritical -bootstrap percolation models have non-trivial phase transitions

We prove that there exist natural generalizations of the classical bootstrap percolation model on Z 2 that have non-trivial critical probabilities, and moreover we characterize all homogeneous, local, monotone models with this property.VanEnter (1987) (in the case d = r = 2) and Schonmann (1992) (for all d (cid:2) r (cid:2) 2) proved that r -neighbour bootstrap percolation models have trivial critical probabilities on Z d for every choice of the parameters d (cid:2) r (cid:2) 2: that is, an initial set of density p almost surely percolates Z d for every p > 0. These results eﬀectively ended the study of bootstrap percolation on inﬁnite lattices. Recently Bollob´as, Smith and Uzzell introduced a broad class of percolation models called U -bootstrap percolation, which includes r -neighbour bootstrap percolation as a special case. They divided two-dimensional U -bootstrap percolation models into three classes – subcritical, critical and supercritical – and they proved that, like classical 2-neighbour bootstrap percolation, critical and supercritical U -bootstrap percolation models have trivial critical probabilities on Z 2 . They left open the question as to what happens in the case of subcritical families. In this paper we answer that question: we show that every subcriti- cal U -bootstrap percolation model has a non-trivial critical probability on Z 2 . This is new except for a certain ‘degenerate’ subclass of symmetric models that can be coupled from below with oriented site percolation. Our results re-open the study of critical probabilities in bootstrap percolation on inﬁnite lattices, and they allow one to ask many questions of subcritical bootstrap percolation models that are typically asked of site or bond percolation.
Adaptive Filtered-x Algorithms for Room Equalization Based on Block-Based Combination Schemes

Room equalization has become essential for sound reproduction systems to provide the listener with the desired acoustical sensation. Recently, adaptive filters have been proposed as an effective tool in the core of these systems. In this context, this paper introduces different novel schemes based on the combination of adaptive filters idea: a versatile and flexible approach that permits obtaining adaptive schemes combining the capabilities of several independent adaptive filters. In this way, we have investigated the advantages of a scheme called combination of block-based adaptive filters which allows a blockwise combination splitting the adaptive filters into nonoverlapping blocks. This idea was previously applied to the plant identification problem, but has to be properly modified to obtain a suitable behavior in the equalization application. Moreover, we propose a scheme with the aim of further improving the equalization performance using the a priori knowledge of the energy distribution of the optimal inverse filter, where the block filters are chosen to fit with the coefficients energy distribution. Furthermore, the biased block-based filter is also introduced as a particular case of the combination scheme, especially suited for low signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) or sparse scenarios. Although the combined schemes can be employed with any kind of adaptive filter, we employ the filtered-x improved proportionate normalized least mean square algorithm as basis of the proposed algorithms, allowing to introduce a novel combination scheme based on partitioned block schemes where different blocks of the adaptive filter use different parameter settings. Several experiments are included to evaluate the proposed algorithms in terms of convergence speed and steady-state behavior for different degrees of sparseness and SNRs.
BUDAYA DAN KOMUNIKASI KESEHATAN (Studi Pandangan Kesehatan Pada Masyarakat Sunda Dalam Tradisi Makan Lalapan)

Culture is communication and communication is culture. Humans learn culture through communication. At the same time communication is a reflection of human culture. Culture is a subjective and objective element created by humans that increased survival of life and resulted in the satisfaction of actors in ecological niches. Cultures are spread among those who can communicate with each other because they have the same language and live at the same time and place. Culture can be learned, passed down from generation to generation. Culture can be learned through fairy tales, legends and myths. It is similar in a view of Sundanese public health on the tradition of eating fresh vegetables. This study aims to describe the public health view of Sundanese in the tradition of eating fresh vegetables. The research method used qualitative approach. Technique of collecting data was done by interview process and literature study. This study was conducted in Sumedang area of West Java. The results show that the healthy view in the tradition of eating fresh vegetables in Sundanese society is passed down from generation to generation and obtained through informal learning process, formal learning, fairy tales, and myths.
No Association of SERPINE1 −675 Polymorphism With Sepsis Susceptibility

AbstractThe serine protease inhibitor clade E member 1 (SERPINE1) gene has been suggested to exert great influence on the development of sepsis. But there is little overlap in the results of association between SERPINE1 −675 4G/5G polymorphism and sepsis.To get a more precise estimation of this association, we conducted a meta-analysis with a relatively larger sample size including 1806 cases and 2239 controls. Odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) was used to evaluate the relationship between −675 4G/5G polymorphism and sepsis susceptibility. Subgroup analyses were conducted based on ethnicity and source of controls.The results showed that there was no association of the SERPINE1 polymorphism and sepsis susceptibility (5G5G vs 4G4G: OR = 0.87, CI = 0.75–1.03; 5G5G+4G5G vs 4G4G: OR = 0.93, CI = 0.84–1.02; 5G5G vs 4G4G+4G5G: OR = 0.96, CI = 0.83–1.11; 5G vs 4G: OR = 0.94, CI = 0.86–1.01; 4G5G vs 4G4G: OR = 0.90, CI = 0.80–1.01). Nor did any subgroup analysis indicate a significant association.In conclusion, −675 4G/5G polymorphism in the SERPINE1 gene may not be associated with the risk of sepsis.
Soft state of Cygnus X‐1: stable disc and unstable corona

Two-component X-ray spectra (soft multicolour black-body and harder power law) are frequently observed from accreting black holes. These components are presumably associated with the different parts of the accretion flow (optically thick and optically thin respectively) in the vicinity of the compact source. Most of the aperiodic variability of the X-ray flux on the short time-scales is associated with the harder component. We suggest that drastically different amplitudes of variability of these two components are simply related to the very different viscous time-scales in the geometrically thin and geometrically thick parts of the accretion flow. In the geometrically thin discs, variations of viscosity or mass accretion rate occurring at large radius from the black hole on the local dynamical or thermal time-scales do not cause any significant variations of the mass accretion rate at smaller radii because of a very long diffusion time. Any variations on the time-scales shorter than the diffusion time-scale are effectively dampened. On the contrary such variations can easily survive in the geometrically thick flows and as a result the mass accretion rate in the innermost region of the flow will reflect modulations of the mass accretion rate added to the flow at any distance from the black hole. Therefore if primary instabilities operate on the short time-scales then the stability of the soft component (originating from the geometrically thin and optically thick flow) and variability of the hard component (coming from the geometrically thick and optically thin flow) are naturally explained. For Cygnus X-1, the overall shape of the power density spectra (PDS) in the soft and hard spectral states can be qualitatively explained if the geometrically thin disc is sandwiched by the geometrically thick corona extending in a radial direction up to a large distance from the compact object. In the hard state the thin disc is truncated at some distance from the black hole followed by the geometrically thick flow. The break in the PDS is then associated with the characteristic frequencies in the accretion flow at the thin disc truncation radius.
A seismic approach to testing different formation channels of subdwarf B stars

Context. There are many unknowns surrounding the formation of subdwarf B stars, and di erent formation channels are considered to be possible. Nevertheless, seismic models up to date assume that an sdB star is a post-helium-flash-core surrounded by a thin inert layer of hydrogen. Aims. We examine an alternative formation channel, in which the sdB star originates from a massive (> 2 M ) Red Giant with a non-degenerate He-core. Although these sdB stars may evolve through the same region of the logg Te diagram as the canonical post-flash sdB stars, their interior structure is rather di erent. We are interested in how this a ects their pulsation modes and whether this can be observed. Methods. Using detailed stellar evolution calculations we construct sdB models from both formation channels. The iron enhancement in the driving region due to di usion, which causes the excitation of the modes, is approximated by a Gaussian increase. The pulsation modes and frequencies are calculated with a non-adiabatic pulsation code. Results. A detailed comparison of two sdB models from di erent channels, but with same logg and Te , shows that the mode excitation is significantly di erent. The excited frequencies are smaller for the post-flash sdB star than for the post-non-degenerate sdB star. This is a direct result of the di ering chemical compositions in the envelope. A more general comparison between two grids of models, tells us that for most post-non-degenerate sdB stars, their excited frequencies cannot be well-matched with the frequencies, excited or non-excited, of a post-flash sdB star. In the rare event that an acceptable seismic match is found, additional information, such as mode identification and logg and Te determinations, allows us to discriminate between the two formation channels.
Transcriptional activators differ in their responses to overexpression of TATA-box-binding protein

We investigated how overexpression of human TATA-box-binding protein (TBP) affects the action of estrogen receptor (ER) and compared the response with that of other activators. When ER activates a simple promoter, consisting of a response element and either the collagenase or tk TATA box, TBP overexpression potentiates transcription. TBP potentiates only estrogen-induced and not basal transcription and does so independent of spacing between response element and TATA box. TBP overexpression also reduces autoinhibition by overexpressed ER, suggesting that one target of the autoinhibition may be TBP itself. Both AF-1 and AF-2 domains of ER are potentiated by TBP, and each domain binds TBP in vitro. Like ER, chimeric GAL4/VP16 and GAL4/Tat activators are also potentiated by TBP, as is the synergistic activation by ER and GAL4/VP16 on a complex promoter. Unlike ER, GAL4/Sp1 and GAL4/NF-I become less potent when TBP is overexpressed. Furthermore, synergy between ER and Sp1 or between ER and NF-I, whether these are supplied by transfected GAL4 fusions or by the endogenous genes, is inhibited by TBP overexpression. Thus, ER resembles VP16 in response to TBP overexpression and is different from Sp1 and NF-I, which predominate over ER in setting the response on complex promoters.
Modeling of Jitter Characteristics for the Second Order Bang-Bang CDR

Bang-Bang clock and data recovery (BBCDR) circuits are hard nonlinear systems due to the nonlinearity introduced by the binary phase detector (BPD). The specification of the CDR frequency response is determined by jitter tolerance and jitter transfer. In this paper, jitter transfer and jitter tolerance of the second-order BBCDR are characterized by formulating the time domain waveforms. As a result, a new equation is presented to obtain corner frequency. Also, the jitter tolerance is expressed in closed form as a function of loop parameters. The proposed method is general enough to be used for designing BBCDR. The analysis is verified using behavioral simulations in MATLAB. Simulation results demonstrate the validity of the result obtained by analytical equations.
Reconnection in Marginally Collisionless Accretion Disk Coronae

We point out that a conventional construction placed on observations of accreting black holes, in which their nonthermal X-ray spectra are produced by inverse Comptonization in a coronal plasma, suggests that the plasma is marginally collisionless. Recent developments in plasma physics indicate that fast reconnection takes place only in collisionless plasmas. As has recently been suggested for the Sun’s corona, such marginal states may result from a combination of energy balance and the requirements of fast magnetic reconnection.
Ieee Transactions on Evolutionary Computation 1 Benefits of a Population: Five Mechanisms That Advantage Population-based Algorithms

—This paper identifies five distinct mechanisms by which a population-based algorithm might have an advantage over a solo-search algorithm in classical optimisation. These mechanisms are illustrated through a number of toy problems. Simulations are presented comparing different search algorithms on these problems. The plausibility of these mechanisms occurring in classical optimisation problems is discussed. The first mechanism we consider relies on putting together building blocks from different solutions. This is extended to include problems containing critical variables. The second mechanism is the result of focusing of the search caused by crossover. Also discussed in this context is strong focusing produced by averaging many solutions. The next mechanism to be examined is the ability of a population to act as a low-pass filter of the landscape, ignoring local distractions. The fourth mechanism is a population's ability to search different parts of the fitness landscape, thus hedging against bad luck in the initial position or the decisions it makes. The final mechanism is the opportunity of learning useful parameter values to balance exploration against exploitation.
Rural Employment Generation In India: A Critical View From Rajasthan

Rural employment generation was initiated in India through the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in 2005 and related NREGS schemes, to provide better social and food security to socially and economically depressed rural workers. By now, the implementation of this scheme is known to be not equally satisfactory throughout India, with significant variations in different states and localities. This article, based on intensive fieldwork over 1 year in remote villages of Deogarh and Bhim blocks of Rajasamand district, explores the functioning of the scheme in rural Rajasthan. It identifies three important roadblocks to effective NREGA implementation and analyses their impact: persistence of caste-based inequalities and social interactions among different groups of rural people, differential occupational interests of potential workers and lack of initiative of the respective panchayats.