Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Introducing Engineering Students to Intellectual The Teaching and Practice of Peer Feedback in the Professional Communication Classroom

A rich discussion of collaboration as integral to writing in academia and the workplace has been on-going for some time among writing instructors and researchers (e.g. Bruffee, 1984; Dias and Paré, 2000; Ede & Lunsford, 1992; McGroarty & Zhu, 1997; Thralls, 1992; Reither & Vipond, 1989). The outcomes of this discussion have convinced some writing instructors to promote peer feedback as one of the forms of collaborative writing in the classroom (e. g., Perry & Collins, 1998; Schriver, 1993; Sitko, 1993;Villamil & De Guerrero, 1998). In this paper we report on the preliminary stages of a longitudinal study of the role and place of peer feedback in the development of students’ writing. The site of our research is a mandatory undergraduate communication course that we teach to engineering students at a Canadian University. In this course the student to instructor ratio often reaches 130 to 1, where students are divided into sections of 25-30, and where one instructor teaches 4-5 sections. This high number of students is of particular concern in a communication course, in which students need to continuously practise written and oral communication strategies by interacting with each other and their instructors. The major goal of this course is to facilitate the acquisition of domain-specific communication strategies1 necessary for students to successfully communicate in engineering, both in writing and orally. To help students to acquire these domain-specific communication strategies and, therefore, to
A study of Internet usage in Nigerian universities: a case study of Obafemi Awolowo University

A method and device for indicating alignment of a pair of headlights. A pair of elongated members are removably mounted by suction cups to the forward-looking faces of a pair of headlights. Each elongated member includes a sight-line scope which is used to visually observe a lateral aim mark on the elongated member mounted to the opposite headlight. The vertical aim of each headlight is adjusted until the bubble levels on the members are properly centered. The lateral aim of each headlight is adjusted until the lateral aim mark on one elongated member is properly centered relative to the sight-line scope provided on the opposite elongated member.
A 1.8-GHz self-calibrated phase-locked loop with precise I/Q matching

A 1.8 GHz phase-locked loop (PLL) with a self-calibration circuit implemented in 0.35 /spl mu/m CMOS process is presented. The calibration circuit continuously adjusts the delay mismatches among the delay cells in a ring-type voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) and automatically cancels the phase offsets in the multi-phase clock signals generated from the VCO. An edge-combining fractional-N frequency synthesizer with the self-calibrated PLL has been implemented and successfully eliminates -13 dBc fractional spur due to the delay mismatches in the VCO.
Review paper The role of gut microbiota in weight management by non-invasive interventions and bariatric surgery

Obesity has become an emerging global issue responsible for an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Gut microbiota is one of biological factors involved in the pathogenesis of obesity and metabolic disorders. Microbiome alteration has been associated with chronic endotoxemia and microinflammation, insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia – factors playing an important role in the development of metabolic disorders such as non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), diabetes mellitus (DM) and dyslipidemia. Bariatric interventions are an important part of obesity treatment. Surgical interventions are the most effective procedures. Endoscopy assisted techniques (intragastric balloon or duodenal-endoluminal sleeve) are also very promising, clinically tested procedures. Dietary interventions changing gut microbiota are more frequently used. However, our knowledge about the mechanisms of weight loss triggered by these interventions is incomplete. Recent experimental and clinical studies provide novel data that bariatric surgery modulates intestinal microbiome and changes its potential of energy harvest in the gut. Surgically altered microbiota in the short term exert profound but beneficial metabolic effects in humans. However, long-term consequences of such modulation are unknown. Recent data from randomized clinical trials support the notion that dietary interventions and supplementation of pre- and probiotics favorably modulate gut microbiota and augment weight loss after bariatric procedures.
A Review of Visual Tracking

This report contains a review of visual tracking in monocular video sequences. For the purpose of this review, the majority of the visual trackers in the literature are divided into three tracking categories: discrete feature trackers, contour trackers, and region-based trackers. This categorization was performed based on the features used and the algorithms employed by the various visual trackers. The first class of trackers represents targets as discrete features (e.g. points, sets of points, lines) and performs data association using a distance metric that accommodates the particular feature. Contour trackers provide precise outlines of the target boundaries, meaning that they must not only uncover the position of the target, but its shape as well. Contour trackers often make use of gradient edge information during the tracking process. Region trackers represent the target with area-based descriptors that define its support and attempt to locate the image region in the current frame that best matches an object template. Trackers that are not in agreement with the abovementioned categorization, including those that combine methods from the three defined classes, are also considered in this review. In addition to categorizing and describing the various visual trackers in the literature, this review also provides a commentary on the current state of the field as well as a comparative analysis of the various approaches. The paper concludes with an outline of open problems in visual tracking.
Stepping Up the Cybersecurity Game: Protecting Online Services from Malicious Activity

Author(s): Stringhini, Gianluca | Advisor(s): Kruegel, Christopher | Abstract: The rise in popularity of online services such as social networks,web-based emails, and blogs has made them a popular platform for attackers.Cybercriminals leverage such services to spread spam, malware, and stealpersonal information from their victims.In a typical cybercriminal operation, miscreants first infect their victims' machines with malicious software and have themjoin a botnet, which is a network of compromised computers. In the second step,the infected machines are often leveraged to connect to legitimate onlineservices and perform malicious activities.As a consequence, online services receive activity from both legitimate and malicious users. However, while legitimate users use these services for thepurposes they were designed for, malicious parties exploit them for theirillegal actions, which are often linked to an economic gain. In this thesis, I showthat the way in which malicious users and legitimate ones interact with Internetservices presents differences. I then develop mitigation techniques thatleverage such differences to detect and block malicious parties that misuseInternet services.As examples of this research approach, I first study the problem of spammingbotnets, which are misused to send hundreds of millions of spam emails tomailservers spread across the globe. I show that botmasters typically split alist of victim email addresses among their bots, and that it is possible toidentify bots belonging to the same botnet by enumerating the mailservers thatare contacted by IP addresses over time. I developed a system, calledBotMagnifier, which learns the set of mailservers contacted by the bots belongingto a certain botnet, and finds more bots belonging to that same botnet.I then study the problem of misused accounts on online social networks. I firstlook at the problem of fake accounts that are set up by cybercriminals to spreadmalicious content. I study the modus operandi of the cybercriminalscontrolling such accounts, and I then develop a system to automatically flag asocial network accounts as fake. I then look at the problem of legitimateaccounts getting compromised by miscreants, and I present COMPA, a system thatlearns the typical habits of social network users and considers messages thatdeviate from the learned behavior as possible compromises. As a last example, I present EvilCohort, a system that detects communities ofonline accounts that are accessed by the same botnet. EvilCohort works byclustering together accounts that are accessed by a common set of IP addresses,and can work on any online service that requires the use of accounts (socialnetworks, web-based emails, blogs, etc.).
Working in tandem with editing tools: iterative meaning-making in filmmaking practices

This article analyses how novice users explore the interface of sophisticated editing software ( Final Cut Express) when working with filters and special effects. Inspired by a multimodal and phenomenological perspective, the author seeks to elaborate a sociocultural approach in order to scrutinize these editing practices by using mediated action as a unit of analysis. The aim of the article is to understand how the editing software and its users work in tandem during the editing practice. The findings indicate that feedback from the software in the filmmaking process becomes a resource in the semiotic work of rethinking the visuals and soundtrack in the editing practices. As a result, the novice students could address more precisely how they wanted to communicate a specific scene visually and aurally.
[A lower adherence to Mediterranean diet is associated with a poorer self-rated health in university population].

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE A higher adherence to Mediterranean diet is considered as a protective factor against the large number of deaths attributable to the main chronic degenerative diseases in developed countries. Self-rated health is established as a good indicator of population health status and as a predictor of mortality. Studies exploring the relationship between the adherence to Mediterranean diet and self-rated health are scarce, especially, in young adults. Our aim was to explore the factors related, specially the adherence to a priori-defined Mediterranean diet with self-rated health in a cohort of Spanish university students. METHODS We analyzed data from 1110 participants of Spanish DiSA-UMH (Dieta, Salud y Antropometría en universitarios de la Universidad Miguel Hernández) study. Diet was assessed using a validated food frequency questionnaire and the adherence to Mediterranean diet was calculated using the relative Mediterranean Diet Score (rMED; score range: 0-18) according to the consumption of 9 dietary components. Self-rated health was gathered from the question: "In general, how do you consider your health to be? (Excellent, good, fair, poor, very poor). Information on sociodemographic and lifestyle characteristics was also collected. Multinomial logistic regression (using relative risk ratio, RRR) was used to analyze the association between the adherence to Mediterranean diet (low rMED: 0-6 points; medium: 7-10 points; high: 11-18 points) and self-rated health (Excellent (reference), good and fair/ poor/very poor). RESULTS A low, medium or high adherence to Mediterranean diet conformed to 26.8%, 58.7% and 14.4% of participants, which of them reported an excellent (23.1%), good (65.1%) and fair/poor or very poor health, respectively. In multivariate analysis, a lower adherence to Mediterranean diet was significantly (p.
Verifying path loss and delay spread predictions of a 3D ray tracing propagation model in urban environment

In this paper path loss and delay spread predictions of a 3D ray tracing software are compared to wideband radio channel measurements made in Helsinki city center. Measurements were carried out in the 2 GHz band by using a wideband radio channel sounder, which gives out complex channel impulse responses. Reference delay spreads were obtained from power delay profiles, and path losses were available after appropriate cable calibration measurements. Comparisons between measurement and propagation predictions were made in cases where a realistic directional BS antenna was placed (a) slightly below the rooftop level and (b) slightly above the rooftop level. For propagation modeling a fully 3D ray optical model was used.
How to Prove a Theorem So No One Else Can Claim It

Goldwasser, Micali, and Rackoff [GMR] define for us what it means for a theorem to have a "zero-knowledge proof. " In brief, a zero-knowledge proof is an interactive probabilistic protocol that gives highly convincing (but not absolutely certain) evidence that a theorem is true and that the prover knows a proof (a "standard" proof in a given logical system), while providing not a single additional bit of information about the proof. GMR formalize this idea. We do not. Nevertheless, we hope that the reader who has not read their paper will still understand our proofs. Goldreich, Micali, and Wigderson [GMW] take another leap forward. They show that if one makes a reasonable assumption (that one-way functions exist), then it is possible to convert any standard constructive proof of any of the theorems in a large natural class of theorems into a zero-knowledge proof that the theorem is true. GMW start by considering a particular NP-complete problem: Graph 3-Colorability. Instance. A graph G. Question. Can G be "properly" 3-colored (each node colored by one of 3 given colors so that no two adjacent nodes receive the same color). GMW show that a "prover" who knows how to 3-color a particular graph G can convince a verifier that (1) G is 3-colorable, and (2) the prover knows a 3-coloring, without giving away any additional information. In particular, the prover does not give away the slightest clue how to 3-color G.
A machine learning approach to DNA shotgun sequence assembly

School of Electrical and Information Engineering Engineering and the Build Environment Master of Science in Engineering A Machine Learning Approach to DNA Shotgun Sequence Assembly by Radu-Ionut Constantinescu DNA sequencing and assembly is becoming increasingly prevalent in the field of bioinformatics. It is used in a variety of fields such as forensics and genetic engineering in order to sequence DNA of a species or specific individuals. The high computational complexity associated with DNA sequencing and assembly makes the process expensive to implement. In order to help reduce this complexity, a read grouping machine learning approach, which breaks the problem of assembly into multiple smaller sub-problems, is proposed. The shotgun sequencing process was performed on a 50456 base pair portion of the Drosophila Melanogaster (fruit fly) genome. The sequencing and assembly process was simulated under varying conditions of read size, coverage depth and sequencing error rates. The greedy and de Bruijn algorithms were first implemented as stand-alone assemblers and their performance was compared. Thereafter, a neural network system was implemented together with each of the two assemblers in order to investigate the effects a read grouping approach has on assembly performance. The performance of each of the four assemblers was then compared in terms of computational complexity and assembly accuracy using information theoretic principles along with a proposed coverage metric. It was found that the simulation time of the stand-alone greedy assembler was significantly improved when combined with the neural network read grouping approach. However, due to the higher relative complexity associated with the neural network training and grouping process, the same can not be said about the de Bruijn assembler. In order for the de Bruin assembler to benefit from this “divide and conquer” approach, faster grouping techniques need to be implemented.
An Adaptive Image Quality Assessment Algorithm

An improved algorithm for image quality assessment is presented. First a simple model of human visual system, consisting of a nonlinear function and a 2-D filter, processes the input images. This filter has one user-defined parameter, whose value depends on the reference image. This way the algorithm can adapt to different scenarios. In the next step the average value of locally computed correlation coefficients between the two processed images is found. This criterion is closely related to the way in which human observer assesses image quality. Finally, image quality measure is computed as the average value of locally computed correlation coefficients, adjusted by the average correlation coefficient between the reference and error images. By this approach the proposed measure differentiates between the random and signal dependant distortions, which have different effects on human observer. Performance of the proposed quality measure is illustrated by examples involving images with different types of degradation.
Social Interaction in Games

Psychophysiological methodology has been successfully applied to investigate media responses, including the experience of playing digital games. The approach has many benefits for a player experience assessment—it can provide detailed, unbiased, and time-accurate data without interrupting the gameplay. However, gaming can be a highly social activity. This article extends the methodological focus from single player to include multiple simultaneous players. A physiological metric for investigating social experience within a shared gaming context is introduced: Physiological linkage is measured by gathering simultaneous psychophysiological measurements from several players. The authors review how physiological linkage may be associated with social presence among participants in various gaming situations or social contexts. These metrics provide such information about the interaction among participants that is not currently available by any other method. The authors discuss various measures used to calculate linkage, the related social processes, and how to use physiological linkage in game experience research.
Improving Hash Join Performance By Exploiting Intrinsic Data Skew

Large relational databases are a part of all of our lives. The government uses them and almost any store you visit uses them to help process your purchases. Real-world data sets are not uniformly distributed and often contain significant skew. Skew is present in commercial databases where, for example, some items are purchased far more often than others. A relational database must be able to efficiently find related information that it stores. In large databases the most common method used to find related information is a hash join algorithm. Although mitigating the negative effects of skew on hash joins has been studied, no prior work has examined how the statistics present in modern database systems can allow skew to be exploited and used as an advantage to improve the performance of hash joins. This thesis presents Histojoin: a join algorithm that uses statistics to identify data skew and improve the performance of hash join operations. Experimental results show that for skewed data sets Histojoin performs significantly fewer I/O operations and is faster by 10 to 60% than standard hash join algorithms.
Adaptability and Replicability of Web-Facilitated, Hybrid, and Online Learning in an Undergraduate Exercise Psychology Course.

The study aims to examine the effectiveness of web-facilitated, hybrid, and online learning modalities among undergraduate students in a public institution so as to determine the adaptability and replicability of these three learning modalities. This is a quasi-experimental study. A total of 103 undergraduate exercise science majors participated in the study. Students’ learning outcomes were measured by mid-term exams, final exams, online journal entries, final course grades, and other in-class and online assignments, and compared among the webfacilitated, hybrid, and online course sections. The differences of the means of the three sections of the final exam, final course grade, and final letter grade were statistically significant. The mean scores of the final exam of the web-facilitated section were significantly higher than the means of both the hybrid and online sections. The means of the final course grade and final letter grade of the web-facilitated section were significantly higher than the means of the online section. Approximately 82.1% of the students in the web-facilitated section earned extra credits compared to about 37.5% of the students in the online section. Web-facilitated learning proved more desirable among undergraduate students than the other two modalities; hybrid learning, however, can serve as a viable alternative.
The influence of retrieval strategies on event-related potential correlates of recognition memory.

Scalp-recorded ERPs were employed in four experiments to explore the strategic control of recollection in a recognition exclusion task. For each experiment, the study phase comprised two study lists. The test required the endorsement of 'targets' from study list 2 and the rejection of 'non-targets' from study list 1 and 'new' items. Experiments 1-3 showed that the ERP signature for recollection, the 'left parietal old/new effect', was elicited by correctly rejected non-targets only when memory for targets was poor (cf. Herron & Rugg, 2003a). These findings support the proposal that, when there is good memory for targets, the adoption of a 'retrieval orientation' allows test cues to selectively probe memory for target source information. However, when target and non-target study tasks were identical (Experiment 4), left parietal effects were additionally found for non-targets despite high target accuracy. This indicates that the degree of similarity between target and non-target study contexts moderates the extent to which it is possible to focus retrieval attempts exclusively on target memories. However, when target and non-target study contexts were partially distinct (Experiment 4), a late posterior negativity was seen to attenuate an emerging left parietal effect for non-targets suggesting that non-target recollection was not completely precluded in this condition. Furthermore, the magnitude of the late posterior negativity was observed to correlate with the amount of contextual information associated with each item type that was irrelevant to the task demands. It was proposed that this negativity reflects processes acting upon a mismatch between the targeted memory representation and the contextual details that are actually retrieved. When such mismatches occur, an additional strategic control process, 'attentional suppression', may provide an account of how target memories can be successfully isolated from among competing alternatives.
State dependent routing for multirate loss networks

An approach to adaptive routing in multirate networks using a Markov decision theoretic framework which maintains low computational complexity while still providing quite accurate routing information is proposed. In this approach, each link is modeled as a birth-death process to reduce the state space size and a policy iteration applied to achieve better network performance. The results show that routing algorithms based on this approach yield better performance than least-load path routing (LLP) without incurring any significant increase in computational complexity. <<ETX>>