Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A new evolutionary programming approach based on simulated annealing with local cooling schedule

The NPOSA (New Population-Oriented Simulated Annealing) technique is introduced as an efficient global search tool to solve optimization problems. Unlike the conventional simulated annealing or its hybrid algorithms, each individual in the population can intelligently plan its own annealing schedule in an adaptive fashion to the given problem at hand. This not only enhances the search speed but furthermore yields a solution near the global optimum. This technique has been applied to solve the traveling salesman problem (TSP) for combinatorial optimization, as well as a continuous function optimization problem, to demonstrate its validity and effectiveness.
Integrating design stage of fuzzy systems using genetic algorithms

The authors propose an automatic fuzzy system design method that uses a genetic algorithm and integrates three design stages. The method determines membership functions, the number of fuzzy rules, and the rule-consequent parameters at the same time. Because these design stages may not be independent, it is important to consider them simultaneously to obtain optimal fuzzy systems. The method includes a genetic algorithm and a penalty strategy that favors systems with fewer rules. The method was applied to the classic inverted-pendulum control problem and has been shown to be practical through a comparison with another method. <<ETX>>
The Behavior Language: User''s Guide

The Behavior Language is a rule-based real-time parallel robot programming language originally based on ideas from [Brooks 86], [Connell 89], and [Maes 89]. It compiles into a modified and extended version of the subsumption architecture [Brooks 86] and thus has backends for a number of processors including the Motorola 68000 and 68HC11, the Hitachi 6301, and Common Lisp. Behaviors are groups of rules which are activatable by a number of different schemes. There are no shared data structures across behaviors, but instead all communication is by explicit message passing. All rules are assumed to run in parallel and asynchronously. It includes the earlier notions of inhibition and suppression, along with a number of mechanisms for spreading of activation.
Pasifika Tertiary Students' Use of Information and Communication Technologies

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are pervasive in our daily lives. In New Zealand tertiary education institutions, the adoption of ICT is widespread. Meanwhile, Pasifika students’ participation in tertiary education has been increasing. Yet, for this group of students, academic success has been a concern to successive governments, tertiary institutions, and Pasifika peoples. ICT may offer an opportunity to improve Pasifika students’ academic achievement. The study is premised on the belief that positive learning experiences will lead to improved academic outcomes. Consequently, the study explored ways of using ICT to enhance Pasifika students’ learning experiences. Adopting an interpretivist approach, the case study investigated the ICT skills and the use of ICT for learning enhancements of a group of Pasifika students at a New Zealand institute of technology. Over a period of eighteen months, data was gathered through talanoa, participant observation, and the researcher’s reflective journal. The three method approach enabled data triangulation. Data analysis adhered to the theoretical propositions of the study. Among the key findings, is the disturbing realization that Pasifika students’ ICT skill levels were not at the level assumed by the institution. The main uses of ICT by the Pasifika students in this study were for personal communication and entertainment. The students’ use of ICT for educational purposes was limited due to the mismatch of their ICT skills and those required by the institution. Inadvertently, this has further disadvantaged the students’ learning experiences. The study concludes by offering an ICT skills development framework for use with Pasifika students. Moreover, the study proposes a number of recommendations for practice, policy, and further research.
Speech sounds and features

This is a representative collection of the work of one of the world's leading scholars in the area of speech acoustics. It follows the development over the past 15 years of research presented in the author's previous publications on speech analysis, feature theory, and applications to language descriptions. Most of the articles have had very restricted distribution--many appearing only in the Quarterly Progress Reports issued by Dr. Fant's laboratory. The first part of the book covers manifold aspects of speech analysis such as instrumental techniques, spectrum data, formant statistics with an emphasis on Swedish vowels and stops, speaker dependencies, normalization procedures, production theory, and coarticulation. The second part analyzes established feature systems and suggests revisions and general discussions on the concept of distinctive features, perception, and the applicability of feature theory to automatic speech recognition. Articles in this part of the book are especially valuable because they represent Dr. Fant's work on "inherent" features and their phonetic correlates as it has evolved since his collaboration in 1952 with Roman Jakobson and Morris Halle. Speech Sounds and Features is the fourth volume in the series Current Studies in Linguistics.
FPGA implemented fast two's complement serial-parallel multiplier with PCI interface

In this paper, a new design of serial-parallel multipliers based on the modified Booth algorithm is proposed. The proposed multiplier implementation on a PCI initiator/target interface card (where a single chip design, XC4010E, is used to implement a PCI local bus interface, revision 2.1, protocol and timing compliance) is demonstrated. The flexible design of the PCI-interface can be easily adapted for specific interface requirements. This interface card can be used for different DSP applications. The multiplier is compared with one proposed recently in terms of speed and hardware, and is shown to be faster (for large multipliers, it tends to provide double speed), and having a lower area x time/sup 2/ complexity. An implementation using a FPGA-based PCI-interface card has been made for an 8/spl times/8 multiplier. The design was tested using simulation software.
Dynamic Control of Unreliable Flexible Servers: The 'W' Network and Beyond

Assigning partially flexible resources (servers) effectively to various jobs (customers or products) in real-time is a fundamental problem in many applications such as service centers, manufacturing systems, and communication networks. Although the potential benefits of using flexible servers to improve the performance of such systems is generally acknowledged, policies for controlling such networks in real-time to extract this potential benefit are not well understood. We address this problem in a general framework where servers are heterogeneous and also subject to stochastic disruptions. We consider the average holding cost as the performance criterion, and first analyze parallel queueing systems with general structures. To gain more insights, we then focus on a structure with two servers and three customer classes forming a "W. " In this structure, servers are trained to serve a shared task in addition to their fixed (specialized) task. We find that the "W" design is highly ecient; it requires only a small amount of cross-training, but performs almost as well as a fully cross-trained system. We then show that (even allowing disruptions) a version of the cµ rule, which prioritizes serving the "fixed task before the shared," is optimal under some conditions. However, our results show that, in general, the optimal policy is complex, and not well-structured for implementation in practice. Hence, we propose a powerful and yet very simple policy to control the servers in parallel queueing systems. This new heuristic (which can be implemented in any parallel queueing system) eectively combines the intuition underlying two widely used policies: (1) the load balancing objective in serving the Longest Queue (LQ), and (2) the greedy cost minimization emphasis of the cµ rule. Our proposed control policy, termed as "LEWC," defines a simple and intuitive measure of workload costs and assigns each server to the queue with the Largest Expected Workload Cost (LEWC) among its skill set. Our extensive numerical tests show that the proposed policy performs well in comparison with three key policies: optimal, cµ and LQ. LEWC is also a very robust policy which makes it suitable for strategic design purposes.
Characteristics of MOSFET with non-overlapped source-drain to gate region

A MOSFET structure with non-overlapped source-drain to gate region was proposed to overcome the challenges in sub-0.1 /spl mu/m CMOS device. Key device characteristics were investigated by extensive simulation study. Fringing gate electric field through the dielectric spacer induces inversion layer in the non-overlap region to act as extended S/D region. Electrons were induced reasonably under the spacer. Internal physics and speed characteristics were studied with the non-overlap distance. The proposed structure had good subthreshold slope and DIBL characteristics compared to those of overlapped structure.
The Structure of Written Communication: Studies in Reciprocity between Writers and Readers

Writing: Philosophical Assumptions Inherent in Current Cognitive Models of Writing. Reciprocity as a Principle of Discourse. What Writers Do. M. Nystrand, A. Doyle, and M. Himley, A Critical Examination of the Doctrine of Autonomous Texts. Necessary Text Elaborations. Learning to Write: M. Himley, Genre as Generative: One Perspective on One Child's Early Writing Growth. Where do the Spaces Go? The Development of Word Segmentation in the Bissex Texts. Learning to Write by Talking about Writing: A Summary of Research on Intensive Peer Review in Expository Writing Instruction at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. References. Index.
Dynamic Sliding Mode Control Based on Multi-Model Switching Laws for the Depth Control of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

This manuscript presents an improved control algorithm, called Dynamic Sliding Mode Control based on Multiple Models Switching Laws (DSMC-MMSL), for the control of the depth of the studied Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) system, the diving plane controller of which faces disturbances arising from the coupled states. The diving plane model is strongly coupled with the state variables, such as surge speeds and course angles. To achieve the desired dynamic performance, the proposed algorithm consists of two parts: the diving plane control part and the pitch control part, which is used to avoid large pitch angles. Some direct switching control laws are used for the two parts to avoid some impulse phenomena on the control executions. The error-states exponential decay is recommended to eliminate the chattering on the sliding surface. The DSMC-MMSL controller was successfully implemented and experimentally validated with the studied AUV system designed and built by Shenyang Institute of Automation. The results of some lake trials demonstrated that the depth control performances of the AUV system were as desired, and that the AUV system was robust enough for the coupled state variables under the DSMC-MMSL algorithm control.
Auditory-visual cross-modal perception phenomena

Abstract : The quality of realism in virtual environments is typically considered to be a function of visual and audio fidelity mutually exclusive of each other. However, the virtual environment participant, being human, is multi-modal by nature. Therefore, in order to more accurately validate the levels of auditory and visual fidelity required in a virtual environment, a better understanding is needed of the intersensory or cross modal effects between the auditory and visual sense modalities. To identify whether any pertinent auditory visual cross modal perception phenomena exist, 108 subjects participated in three main experiments which were completely automated using HTML, Java, and JavaScript computer programming languages. Visual and auditory display quality perception were measured intramodally and intermodally by manipulating visual display pixel resolution and Gaussian white noise level and by manipulating auditory display sampling frequency and Gaussian white noise level. Statistically significant results indicate that: (1) medium or high quality auditory displays coupled with high quality visual displays increase the quality perception of the visual displays relative to the evaluation of the visual display alone, and (2) low quality auditory displays coupled with high quality visual displays decrease the quality perception of the auditory displays relative to the evaluation of the auditory display alone. These findings strongly suggest that the quality of realism in virtual environments must be a function of both auditory and visual display fidelities inclusive of each other.
Some Reflections on Politeness Strategies among Shona Speaking Couples of Zimbabwe

Abstract Gender equality has been a topical issue internationally with many organizations advocating equality between males and females as crucial for development but, ironically, cases of gender-based violence are on the rise in African societies. Based on the hypothesis that mis-communication is one of the major causes of gender-based violence, this paper explores politeness strategies used by Shona speaking couples. The conflict resolution strategies employed include the use of proverbs, modal verbs, enclitics, tag questions, totems, hedges, silence and the inclusive pronunciation. The researchers seek to demonstrate culture-specific polite strategies that have the potential to curtail aggression between interactional parties, especially how they enhance smooth communication, obviate crisis and disruption and maintain social equilibrium and friendly relations. This paper underscores the importance of communication and recourse to traditional linguistic practices, as strategies for reducing cases of domestic violence involving spouses.
Ha-Hi-Hun plays Chopin's Etude

A new framework called two-stage performance rendering was proposed in order to make it realize incremental, interactive, and local rendering through direct instructions issued by a user. The first stage translates a user’s instruction into the deviations of the onset time, duration, and amplitude of structurally important notes. The second stage spreads the deviations over surrounding notes. Ha-Hi-Hun is a prototype performance rendering system having the framework.
How Do People View Multi-Component Animated Maps?

Abstract Quite a few examples in the cartographic and information visualisation literature suggest that multi-component animated maps may be appropriate for examining complex spatio-temporal phenomena. Such space–time visualisations typically consist of multiple dynamic map or data windows, linked by means of interactive tools. Little empirical evidence exists, however, providing support of the potential advantages of such complex visual space–time displays. This research aimed at filling this gap. An empirical study was carried out to obtain insight on how multi-component animated maps are used to explore dynamic spatio-temporal phenomena. We examined which particular components attract users’ attention and in what sequence, and whether display effectiveness can be characterized by users’ viewing behaviours. Based on behavioural data collected with the eye-tracking method, we find that component size, and employed dynamic variables attracted users’ attention most. We are also able to identify visual behaviour patterns that result in performance differences between participants, using multi-component animated map. Finally, we highlight component layout design issues that should be further examined empirically, in order to reduce potential split attention effects.
A Novel Content Based Image Retrieval using Variance Color Moment

Today, as the creation and digitization of images and image retrieval have become easier, huge image databases have become more popular. The area of retrieve images based on the visual content of the query picture intensified recently, which demands on the quite wide methodology spectrum on the area of image processing. Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) has therefore evolved into necessity. Due to the increased garbage value it is very important to design a CBIR system to retrieve images from the database in a very efficient manner. In this paper we are going to propose a color image retrieval method based on the primitives of color moments. At the starting stage the image is divided into four segments. Then the color moments of all segments are extracted and clustered into four classes. At the next stage we will consider the mean moments of each class as a primitive of the image. All the primitives are used as features and each class mean is merged into a single class mean. The distance between the input query image mean with the corresponding database images are calculated by using SAD method. The analysis results proved that the CBIR using our new method has the better performance than the existing method.
A trace-driven analysis of the unix 4

Abstract : We analyzed the UNIX 4.2BSD file system by recording activity in trace files and writing programs to analyze the traces. The trace analysis shows that the average file system bandwidth needed per user is low (a few hundred bytes per second). Most of the files accessed are short, are open a short time, and are accessed sequentially. Most new information is deleted or overwritten within a few minutes of its creation. We wrote a simulator that uses the traces to predict the performance of caches for disk blocks. The moderate-sized caches used in UNIX reduce disk traffic by about 50%, but larger caches (several megabytes) can achieve much greater reductions, eliminating 90% or more of all disk traffic. With those large caches, large block sizes (16 kbytes or more) result in the fewest disk accesses.
Academic writing for graduate students : essential tasks and skills

Like its predecessor, the third edition of Academic Writing for Graduate Students explains understanding the intended audience, the purpose of the paper, and academic genres; includes the use of task-based methodology, analytic group discussion, and genre consciousness-raising; shows how to write summaries and critiques; features ""language focus"" sections that address linguistic elements as they affect the wider rhetorical objectives; and helps students position themselves as junior scholars in their academic communities. Among the many changes in the third edition: * newer, longer, and more authentic texts and examples * greater discipline variety in texts (added texts from hard sciences and engineering) * more in-depth treatment of research articles * greater emphasis on vocabulary issues * revised flow-of-ideas section * additional tasks that require students to do their own research * more corpus-informed content The Commentary has also been revised and expanded.
Adaptive space-time feedforward/feedback detection for CDMA

We investigate linear and nonlinear minimum mean-square error (MMSE) multiuser detectors for high data rate wireless code-division multiple access (CDMA) networks. The reverse link spacetime detectors comprise an antenna array followed by a feedforward filter (FFF) which processes parallel chip matched filter (CMF) output samples and a feedback filter (FBF) which processes detected symbols of all in-sector users. We explore adaptation issues, calculate outage probabilities, and isolate the effects of antenna, diversity, and interference suppression gains for Rayleigh and Ricean multipath fading channels with varying timing control.
Distributed representations and nested compositional structure

Distributed representations are attractive for a number of reasons. They offer the possibility of representing concepts in a continuous space, they degrade gracefully with noise, and they can be processed in a parallel network of simple processing elements. However, the problem of representing nested structure in distributed representations has been for some time a prominent concern of both proponents and critics of connectionism (Fodor and Pylyshyn 1988; Smolensky 1990; Hinton 1990). The lack of connectionist representations for complex structure has held back progress in tackling higher-level cognitive tasks such as language understanding and reasoning. In this thesis I review connectionist representations and propose a method for the distributed representation of nested structure, which I call "Holographic Reduced Representations" (HRRs). HRRs provide an implementation of Hinton's (1990) "reduced descriptions". HRRs use circular convolution to associate atomic items, which are represented by vectors. Arbitrary variable bindings, short sequences of various lengths, and predicates can be represented in a fixed-width vector. These representations are items in their own right, and can be used in constructing compositional structures. The noisy reconstructions extracted from convolution memories can be cleaned up by using a separate associative memory that has good reconstructive properties. Circular convolution, which is the basic associative operator for HRRs, can be built into a recurrent neural network. The network can store and produce sequences. I show that neural network learning techniques can be used with circular convolution in order to learn representations for items and sequences. One of the attractions of connectionist representations of compositional structures is the possibility of computing without decomposing structures. I show that it is possible to use dot-product comparisons of HRRs for nested structures to estimate the analogical similarity of the structures. This demonstrates how the surface form of connectionist representations can reflect underlying structural similarity and alignment.