Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Self adaptive BCI as service-oriented information system for patients with communication disabilities

A new service-oriented information architecture is presented that can help the communication-disabled to socialize in their private and public environment. The service is designed for physically handicapped people who cannot communicate without expensive custom-made tools. Statistics show that, e.g., in Belgium 1∶500 persons suffer from some form of motor or speech disability, mostly due to stroke (aphasia patients). Patients with severe motor or speech disabilities need expensive tailor-made made devices and individualized protocols to communicate. About 1∶6000 do have problems with information exchange in their daily practice, such as patients with severe autistic disorders, and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Locked-in Syndrome (LIS) and Speech and Language Impaired (SLI) patients, and their communication is often limited to care takers and family, because the interaction with other people through electronic systems often fails. In fact, all these disabled yearn to basically participate in our society. Enhancing the amount of adapted devices and personal care takers has huge consequences and is mostly unfeasible by firm limits in specialists, infrastructure and budget. The quality of life can be graded up by a service-oriented information architecture that supports an on-line Mind Speller®, i.e., a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) that enables subjects to spell text on a computer screen, and potentially have it voiced, without muscular activity, to assist or enable patients to communicate, but also to provide speech revalidation, as in autism spectrum disorder patients. The Mind Speller® operates non-invasively by detecting P300 signals in their EEG. With the support of predictive text algorithms, the mind spelled characters will be words and sentences, and even stories (story telling), enabling the communication-disabled to participate in either the physical environment as - by the Internet - the global digital world.
OU Analyse: analysing at-risk students at The Open University

The OU Analyse project aims at providing early prediction of ‘at-risk’ students based on their demographic data and their interaction with Virtual Learning Environment. Four predictive models have been constructed from legacy data using machine learning methods. In Spring 2014 the approach was piloted and evaluated on two introductory university courses with about 1500 and 3000 students, respectively. Since October 2014 the predictions have been extended to include 10+ courses of different level. The OU Analyse dashboard has been implemented, for presenting predictions and providing a course overview and a view of individual students.
Effects of part-task and whole-task instructional approaches and learner levels of expertise on learner performance of a complex cognitive task

The study investigated the effects of two instructional approaches (part-task vs. whole-task) and levels of learner expertise (novice vs. advanced) on learner acquisition and transfer of a complex cognitive skill (e.g., preparing a grade book in Excel). In addition, the study examined the effects of these variables on learners' cognitive load, instructional efficiencies, time on task and their attitudes towards the instruction. Fifty-one undergraduate students (pre-service teachers) in four sections of an Introduction to Educational Technology course participated in the study. Two sections were assigned to each of the two instructional approaches. In the part-task condition, a complex skill was decomposed into a series of smaller tasks, each of which was demonstrated and practiced separately; the whole skill was practiced at the end of instruction after practicing part skill. In the whole-task condition, which was based on the 4C/ID-model (van Merrienboer, 1997), learners were exposed to the entire complex skill right from the beginning of the instruction and were required to practice performing a series of whole tasks. Two 60-minute instructor-led lessons were designed and developed for this study. In each treatment group, the two lessons were presented on the same day, with a five minute break separating the two lessons. The results indicated that there were statistically significant differences between the two treatment groups (whole-task > part-task) on (a) whole-task performance, (b) far-transfer performance, (c) instructional efficiency on the whole-task performance, and (d) instructional efficiency on the far-transfer performance. However, no significant differences were found for (a) cognitive load, (b) time spent on the whole-task test, (c) time spent on the far-transfer test, and (d) attitudes toward instruction. In terms of the levels of learner expertise, the results yielded no interaction among the groups on any of the dependent measures described above; in many cases, however, there were significant differences between the novice and advanced learners, with the advanced learners demonstrating (a) higher scores on the far-transfer test, (b) higher efficiency on the whole-task test, (c) higher efficiency on the far-transfer test, (d) less time spent on the part-task test, and (e) more confidence toward the instruction.
Early development of text writing in two contrasting orthographies : English and Spanish

Current thinking about writing considers spelling skills to be a crucial factor in its development. However, most research evidence to date comes from studies in English, which has a highly inconsistent orthography. Since the rate of spelling development is affected by degrees of orthographic consistency, cross-linguistic investigations are thus needed to determine whether English-based assumptions may be extended to more consistent orthographies. This work reports the results of a longitudinal investigation of early writing development from a cross-linguistic viewpoint. The writing development of children learning to write in English, a very inconsistent orthography, and children learning to write in Spanish, a very consistent orthography, was contrasted. Specifically, the studies included in this thesis explored the extent to which orthographic complexity moderated gains in a number of microstructural writing features, as well as whether it shaped the relationships between different levels of text construction. Finally, preschool-Year 2 predictors of writing outcomes were explored. The results showed that orthographic complexity moderates gains in wordlevel features of text writing, but, beyond the word level, both language groups showed remarkably similar performances. Spelling was found to contribute to development in the amount of text produced (text length) over a relatively short period of time. Moreover, the underlying factors driving the development of writing were common until the middle or end of Year 1. In short, orthographic consistency seems to moderate word-level writing, but has a reduced effect in text-level performance. The discussion considers the implications for models of writing development and the divide between word- and text-level writing performance.
Applications and Challenges for Sentiment Analysis : A Survey

With rapid development of Web 2.0 applications such as microbloging, social networks, e-commerce sites, news portals and web-forums reviews, comments, recommendations, ratings and feedbacks are generated by users. This user generated content can be about products, people, events, etc. This information is very useful for businesses, governments and individuals. While this content meant to be helpful, bulk of this user generated content require the use of automated techniques for mining and analyzing because manual analysis are difficult for such a huge content. Sentiment analysis is the automated mining of attitudes, opinions, and emotions from text, speech, and database sources through Natural Language Processing (NLP). This paper presents a survey on the Sentiment analysis applications and challenges with their approaches and techniques.
Linear Quadratic Control: An Introduction

From the Publisher: The purpose of this book is to provide an introduction to linear quadratic theory beyond the typical chapter on the subject found in texts on optimal or multivariable control. Of course, as an introductory text, the material here is not as detailed as that found in advanced books devoted exclusively to the subject.
Classroom Exercises for Grid Services

Grid protocols and technologies are being adopted in a wide variety of academic, government, and industry research laboratories, and there is a growing body of research-oriented literature in Grid computing. However, there is a need for educational material that is suitable for classroom use. The goal of this paper is to develop and evaluate a suite of classroom exercises for use in a graduate or advanced undergraduate course. The exercises build on basic knowledge of operating systems concepts at the undergraduate level. This paper presents our design of the exercises. We evaluate the effectiveness of one exercise extensively and provide suggestions to educators about how to effectively use the Globus Toolkit 3 in a classroom setting.
Retrieval of Trademark and Gray-Scale Images Using Global Similarity

Abstract : Content-based image retrieval is an important area of research. Here, a method to characterize visual appearance for determining global similarity in images is described. Images are filtered with Gaussian derivatives and geometric features are computed from the filtered images. The geometric features used here are curvature and phase. Two images may be said to be similar if they have similar distributions of such features. Global similarity may, therefore, be deduced by comparing histograms of these features. This allows for rapid retrieval. The system's performance on a database of about 1500 grey-level images and another database of 2000 trademark images is shown. It is also shown that the approach is scalable and examples of query results on a database of more than 63000 trademark images are provided.
The Phenomenological Theory of Linear Viscoelastic Behavior: An Introduction

One of the principal objects of theoretical research in any department of knowledge is to find the point of view from which the subject appears in its greatest simplicity. J. Willard Gibbs This book is an outgrowth of lectures I have given, on and off over some sixteen years, in graduate courses at the California Institute of Technology, and, in abbreviated form, elsewhere. It is, nevertheless, not meant to be a textbook. I have aimed at a full exposition of the phenomenological theory of linear viscoelastic behavior for the use of the practicing scientist or engineer as well as the academic teacher or student. The book is thus primarily a reference work. In accord with the motto above, I have chosen to describe the theory of linear viscoelastic behavior through the use of the Laplace transformation. The treatment oflinear time-dependent systems in terms of the Laplace transforms of the relations between the excitation add response variables has by now become commonplace in other fields. With some notable exceptions, it has not been widely used in viscoelasticity. I hope that the reader will find this approach useful.
Attitudes towards English usage in the late modern period : the case of phrasal verbs

Phrasal verbs are an intrinsic part of Late Modern English, and are found in both informal and colloquial language (check out, listen up) and more formal styles (a thesis might set out some problems and then sum up the main points). They are highly productive: 'up' can be added to almost any verb to signify goal or end-point (read up, finish up, eat up, meet up, fatten up); and once a phrasal verb has been coined, a conversion often follows (for example, the verb 'phone in' was first recorded in 1946, and the noun 'phone-in' in 1967; 'dumb down' was coined in 1933, and we read of 'dumbed-down' material in 1982). Perhaps because of their pervasiveness, phrasal verbs are frequently criticized (although occasionally praised) in Late Modern English texts about language. The purpose of this thesis is to examine such attitudes in three strands. Firstly, over one hundred language texts (grammars, dictionaries, and usage manuals, among others, from 1750 to 1970) were examined to discover how phrasal verbs were recognized and classified in Late Modern English. Secondly, these materials were analyzed in order to find out how attitudes towards phrasal verbs in English developed in relation to broader attitudes towards language in the Late Modern period. Thirdly, phrasal verb usage in A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers, a corpus of British and American English from 1650 to 1990, was analyzed to determine how such attitudes affect usage. It will be shown that attitudes towards phrasal verbs reflect various strands of language ideology, including opinions about Latinate as opposed to native vocabulary; ideals relating to etymology, polysemy, and redundancy; reactions to neologisms; and attitudes towards language variety. Furthermore, it will be suggested that in the case of certain redundant combinations such as 'return back' and 'raise up', proscriptions of phrasal verbs did have an effect on their usage in the Late Modern period.
The semantics of grammar

“The semantics of grammar” presents a radically semantic approach to syntax and morphology. It offers a methodology which makes it possible to demonstrate, on an empirical basis, that syntax is neither “autonomous” nor “arbitrary”, but that it follows from “semantics”. It is shown that every grammatical construction encodes a certain semantic structure, which can be revealed and rigorously stated, so that the meanings encoded in grammar can be compared in a precise and illuminating way, within one language and across language boundaries. The author develops a semantic metalanguage based on lexical universals or near-universals (and, ultimately, on a system of universal semantic primitives), and shows that the same semantic metalanguage can be used for explicating lexical, grammatical and pragmatic aspects of language and thus offers a method for an integrated linguistic description based on semantic foundations. Analyzing data from a number of different languages (including English, Russian and Japanese) the author explores the notion of ethnosyntax and, via semantics, links syntax and morphology with culture. She attemps to demonstrate that the use of a semantic metalanguage based on lexical universals makes it possible to rephrase the Humboldt-Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in such a way that it can be tested and treated as a program for empirical research.
Using contour as a mid-level representation of melody

by Adam Taro Lindsay S.B. , Cognitive Science S.B. , Music Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1994) Submitted to the Program in Media Arts and Sciences, School of Architecture and Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Media Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology September 1996 © Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1996. All rights reserved.
Narrative comprehension: semantic and syntactic summary production

OF THE DISSERTATION NARRATIVE COMPREHENSION: SEMANTIC AND SYNTACTIC SUMMARY PRODUCTION by Jane F. Devick Florida International University, 1996 Professor Nancy Marshall, Major Professor The purpose of this research was to examine from a syntactic and narrative structure perspective two narrative summary types: a summary with a length constraint and an unconstrained summary. In addition, this research served to develop a multidimensional theory of narrative comprehension. College freshmen read two short stories written by written by Sake and were asked to write a constrained summary for one text and an unconstrained summary for the other text. Following this the subjects completed a metacognitive questionnaire. The summaries were analyzed to examine transitivity features and narrative structure features. The metacognitive questionnaires were examined to extract information about plot structure, differences between one and two episode stories, and to gain insight into the strategies used by subjects in producing both summary types. A Paired ttest conducted on the data found that there was a significant transitivity feature mean difference between a constrained summary and an unconstrained summary indicating that the number of transitivity features produced from each summary type were task dependent. Chi-square tests conducted on the data found that there were proportional differences in usage between plot features and thematic abstract units in an unconstrained summary and a constrained summary indicating that plot features and thematic abstract units produced from each summary type were task dependent. Qualitative analyses indicated that setting, goal, and resolution are typical within plot organization, there are summary production differences between one and two episode narratives, and subjects do not seem to be aware of summary production strategies. The results of this research have implications for comprehension and writing instruction.
Learning and Inference in Computational Systems Biology

Computational systems biology unifies the mechanistic approach of systems biology with the data-driven approach of computational biology. Computational systems biology aims to develop algorithms that uncover the structure and parameterization of the underlying mechanistic model--in other words, to answer specific questions about the underlying mechanisms of a biological system--in a process that can be thought of as learning or inference. This volume offers state-of-the-art perspectives from computational biology, statistics, modeling, and machine learning on new methodologies for learning and inference in biological networks.The chapters offer practical approaches to biological inference problems ranging from genome-wide inference of genetic regulation to pathway-specific studies. Both deterministic models (based on ordinary differential equations) and stochastic models (which anticipate the increasing availability of data from small populations of cells) are considered. Several chapters emphasize Bayesian inference, so the editors have included an introduction to the philosophy of the Bayesian approach and an overview of current work on Bayesian inference. Taken together, the methods discussed by the experts in Learning and Inference in Computational Systems Biology provide a foundation upon which the next decade of research in systems biology can be built. Florence d'Alch e-Buc, John Angus, Matthew J. Beal, Nicholas Brunel, Ben Calderhead, Pei Gao, Mark Girolami, Andrew Golightly, Dirk Husmeier, Johannes Jaeger, Neil D. Lawrence, Juan Li, Kuang Lin, Pedro Mendes, Nicholas A. M. Monk, Eric Mjolsness, Manfred Opper, Claudia Rangel, Magnus Rattray, Andreas Ruttor, Guido Sanguinetti, Michalis Titsias, Vladislav Vyshemirsky, David L. Wild, Darren Wilkinson, Guy Yosiphon
COMPARISON OF SOME RELIABILITY CHARACTERISTICS BETWEEN REDUNDANT SYSTEMS REQUIRING SUPPORTING UNITS FOR THEIR OPERATION

In this paper, two different systems both are requiring a supporting unit for their operation are studied. The first system consist of 3-out-of-4 subsystem requiring its support from 2-out-of-4 subsystem for its operation while the other system is two unit cold standby system where each unit is attached to its supporting unit for its operation. Each system is attended by two repairmen, one repairing the main unit and the other repairing the supporting unit. Explicit expressions for mean time to system failure (MTSF) and steady- state availability are developed. We analyzed the system by using linear differential equations. Effect of failure and repair rates on mean time to system failure and steady-state availability have also been discussed graphically. Comparisons are made graphically for specific values of parameters. Furthermore, we compare these reliability characteristics for the two models and found that model I is more reliable and efficient than the remaining models.
The impact of Automated Essay Scoring (AES) for improving English language learner's essay writing

The growing number of English Language Learners (ELLs) and globalized communications are factors making English writing instruction a critical educational concern in many countries around the world. While empirical research findings and language learning theories have suggested forms of instructive interactions for effective writing instruction, the considerable amount of time and effort required for this kind of feedback is daunting to instructors and difficult to maintain. One alternative to human feedback, the Automated Essay Scoring (AES) has gained the attention of educators as a formative assessment tool, providing assistive writing resources to teachers and students. This study examined the impact of AES on improving English writing quality across different levels of integration (No-AES, Optional-AES, and Integrated-AES ) in two English learning contexts (ESL and EFL). A total of 172 ELL students participated in this study. To examine the effectiveness of the intervention, students’ essays, student surveys, instructor interviews, and course documents were collected and analyzed. The results showed the type of AES integration significantly influenced the quality of an essay in terms of holistic quality and accuracy. The Integrated-AES group showed better performance in improving the quality of essays. The findings suggest that AES can effectively assist students’ writing when it is integrated with writing instruction as a formative assessment tool. Based on the findings, implications for writing instruction are suggested to teachers and administrators who are interested in AES integration, in addition to suggestions for AES development.
SALSA II: A fast transformational scheduler for high-level synthesis

An improved transformational approach to the scheduling problem in high-level synthesis is described. Based on an existing approach called SALSA, it uses an extended move set and lower bounds on resource costs to quickly find high-quality schedules of data-oriented control-data flow graphs. Results show the ability to find high-quality schedules for difficult scheduling problems in small amounts of CPU time. Results show that in contrast to other approaches, execution times can actually decrease as schedule length increases. <<ETX>>