Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Proxy-Based Security-Feedback Trust Model in MP2P Network

Trust problem is a key issue for Mobile P2P (MP2P) network security. In MP2P network, terminals addressing mode, communication way and display identifier are different to traditional P2P network. Some security issues such as: malicious slander and collusion, free ride phenomenon, are even more serious compared to traditional P2P network. Aimed at these above issues, a Proxy-based Security-Feedback Trust Model (PSTM) is proposed. Different types of terminals access to different proxy servers to shield the discrepancy between different terminal equipments on MP2P equipment access network layer. Meanwhile, proxy servers can reduce the problem of single point failure with method of trust related tables backup and recovery. Certificate Feedback Raters identification and qualification through security resource-selection protocol then integrate trust information according to similarity of terminal and resource types with weight. Furthermore, set global contribution value and evaluation value in multi-granularity trust computation to motivate mobile peers honest feedbacks. Divide mobile peers direct trust value into peer-oriented and resource-oriented values to make trust feedbacks more authentic. Simulation experiments show that PSTM can reduce malicious slander and collusion effectively. It also can restrain self-ish peers free ride behaviors and increase successful cooperation rate of high-contributed nodes in MP2P network.
A Binary Quantized Digital Phase Locked Loop: A Graphical Analysis

A non-uniform sampling digital phase locked loop (DPLL), with a hard limiter as quantizer, is analyzed by a graphical method in the case of phase and frequency step inputs and no noise. The cycle slipping and the limit cycles phenomena are investigated. An upper-bound to the model gain and, consequently, to the pull-in range is obtained. Also a closed-form expression of acquisition time is derived. Moreover, using a random-walk model, the stationary phase error variance, the mean acquisition time and the mean first slip time have been evaluated. Some two channel configurations are proposed, which allow us to obtain a faster acquisition. Finally the problems relevant to the practical implementation of the loop are analyzed.
When a missing verb makes a French sentence more acceptable

Using an off-line complexity judgement task, Gibson and Thomas (1999) demonstrated that people found sentences with double centre-embedded relative clauses as easy to understand when the second verb phrase (VP) was omitted as when there were the three required verb phrases. This paper reports a self-paced reading experiment testing this syntactic illusion in French language. The results showed that readers rated the sentences where the second VP was omitted as easier to understand than the grammatical versions, even though the reading time of the last VP was longer for the ungrammatical version. The overall results support theories predicting that the sentence acceptability rating can be enhanced when a syntactically required word with an excessive integration cost is removed. The results are consistent with resource-based theories of sentence processing.
Why Aren't E-Books Gaining More Ground in Academic Libraries? E-Book Use and Perceptions: A Review of Published Literature and Research

E-books have yet to assume a significant place in academic library collections. This article focuses on extracting common themes from the literature that might help the reader better understand why e-books have not yet become the cornerstone of the academic library. Patrons do not use e-books because they find the experience of using e-books incongruous with their experience of using other electronic resources, and many of the unexpected limitations they encounter when using e-books are not inherent to the format. Most often, they are purposefully imposed limitations tied to digital rights management techniques. Librarians do not purchase e-books because the titles they want to acquire are often not available electronically, because they are priced or packaged in a way that makes them less appealing than their print counterparts, or because acquiring e-books does not easily integrate into their normal acquisitions workflow.
Toward the establishment of design guidelines for effective 3D perspective interfaces

The propagation of information operation technologies, with correspondingly vast amounts of complex network information to be conveyed, significantly impacts operator workload. Information management research is rife with efforts to develop schemes to aid operators to identify, review, organize, and retrieve the wealth of available data. Data may take on such distinct forms as intelligence libraries, logistics databases, operational environment models, or network topologies. Increased use of taxonomies and semantic technologies opens opportunities to employ network visualization as a display mechanism for diverse information aggregations. The broad applicability of network visualizations is still being tested, but in current usage, the complexity of densely populated abstract networks suggests the potential utility of 3D. Employment of 2.5D in network visualization, using classic perceptual cues, creates a 3D experience within a 2D medium. It is anticipated that use of 3D perspective (2.5D) will enhance user ability to visually inspect large, complex, multidimensional networks. Current research for 2.5D visualizations demonstrates that display attributes, including color, shape, size, lighting, atmospheric effects, and shadows, significantly impact operator experience. However, guidelines for utilization of attributes in display design are limited. This paper discusses pilot experimentation intended to identify potential problem areas arising from these cues and determine how best to optimize perceptual cue settings. Development of optimized design guidelines will ensure that future experiments, comparing network displays with other visualizations, are not confounded or impeded by suboptimal attribute characterization. Current experimentation is anticipated to support development of cost-effective, visually effective methods to implement 3D in military applications.
An Inventory of Learning at a Distance in Economics

This article examines the variety of institutions offering economics courses via the Internet in the fall 2000 semester and the methods of instruction used in those courses. Both 2- and 4-year colleges offer courses via the Internet and in about equal numbers. Research universities lag behind teaching institutions in web course offerings. Most institutions teaching economics via the Internet are located in metropolitan areas with 250,000 inhabitants or more, and very few courses are offered by institutions in the plains states. Streaming audio and video are relatively uncommon, used in less than 20% of the courses, but 76% involved what the instructor considered to be active learning techniques. There is no statistically significant correlation between use of active learning techniques and use of streamed video or audio.
The role of local and global syntactic structure in language production: Evidence from syntactic priming

Experimental research has provided evidence for an autonomous stage of syntactic processing during language production. We report eight syntactic priming experiments that investigated whether this stage uses the same procedures to produce phrases with a particular structure when they appear in different syntactic contexts. Experiments 1–3 demonstrated syntactic priming for verb phrase structure in main clauses, irrespective of whether the global structure of the prime and target sentences varied. Experiments 4–6 demonstrated syntactic priming for verb phrase structure in subordinate clauses, both when prime and target were both subordinate clauses, and when one was a subordinate clause and the other was a main clause. Experiments 7 and 8 directly compared syntactic priming between main and subordinate clauses with priming between main clauses and priming between subordinate clauses. We interpret these results as evidence that the processor uses the same procedures to build syntactic structure in different syntactic contexts.
Understanding users’ switching from online stores to mobile stores

Compared to online stores, mobile stores as an emerging application have received less adoption among users. This may be for the reason that they are locked into the relationship with online stores and are unwilling to switch from online stores to mobile stores. From a dual perspective of enablers and inhibitors, this research examined user switching from online stores to mobile stores. Enablers include trust transfer and flow, whereas the inhibitor is switching barrier. The results indicate that user switching receives a dual influence from both enablers and inhibitors. Among them, trust transfer has the largest effect on switching intention. These results imply that service providers need to be concerned with both aspects of enablers and inhibitors in order to facilitate user switching from online stores to mobile stores.
Delay-lock phase-locked tracking of PN signals (DPTL)

A novel pseudonoise (PN) code tracking loop, 'delay-lock phase-locked tracking loop (DPTL)' is described. As a PN code synchronization system, a delay-lock loop (DLL) has been widely used. It is known that the 1 Delta -DLL's tracking performance as high SNR is good, while the 2 Delta -DLL is superior to the 1 Delta -DLL at low SNR. However, the tracking point of the 2 Delta -DLL widely sways near zero point. So, the authors propose a novel PN code tracking loop, which consists of a DLL followed by a phase-locked loop (PLL) to reduce jitter of on-time signal of the DLL; they call this system delay-lock phase-locked tracking loop (DPTL). They evaluate the performance of the DPTL by theory and computer simulation. Moreover, they also evaluate the performance of the DPTL using an improved DLL (IDLL) whose phase comparator characteristics is extended as a DLL (this system is called EDPTL). The following results are obtained: (1) The DPTL is superior to DLL for jitter property and in-lock rate, (2) The EDPTL has the highest in-lock rate performance of the DPTLs under the large noise environment and improves about 2.5(dB) compared with the 1 Delta -DLL and about 1.5(dB) compared with the 2 Delta -DLL. <<ETX>>
Do Initial Training Courses Have an Impact on University Teaching? The Evidence From Two Evaluative Studies of One Course

Initial training courses for teachers in higher education are now widespread in many countries and about to be given increased importance in the UK by the new Institute for Teaching and Learning but there appears to have been virtually no research into their effectiveness. This paper summarizes evidence from two evaluative studies of the initial training course at Oxford Brookes University, UK, and concludes that some claims can be made for the course's effectiveness.
Rain attenuation statistics useful for the design of mobile satellite communication systems

We have investigated how rain attenuation statistics, necessary to design fixed satellite systems working at frequencies greater than 10 GHz, are transformed to those applicable to the design of mobile satellite systems working in the same frequency bands and weather conditions in the special case of vehicles driven in zig-zag patterns to simulate city streets. The vehicles' speed has been modeled as a lognormal random variable, a mathematical model derived from measurements performed in freeways or in city traffic. We have used a large number of rain-rate time series collected in Italy (Gera Lario and Fucino) and in Canada (Montreal) to simulate rain-rate spatial fields and radio links at 19.77 GHz along a 30.6/spl deg/ slant path. The simulations have shown that a receiving or transmitting terminal moving in zig-zag patterns may experience, in the long term and for a given attenuation, a smaller outage probability, compared to the fixed terminal. For a given rain attenuation, the ratio between the outage probability of the mobile system and that of the fixed system (probability extrapolation factor /spl xi/) is estimated to be around 0.2-0.3 in the optimistic case in which the probability of encountering rain is the same for all observers (fixed or in motion)-a less optimistic estimate shows that the probability of encountering rain might be twice as large and that, as a consequence, the values of /spl xi/ mentioned must be doubled. Conservative values of /spl xi/ can be calculated by using average values of rain storm speed and vehicles and average distances covered in the rain by fixed and mobile terminals. The results are less sensitive to changes in the geometrical or other parameters of the simulations.
Virtual Clock: A New Traffic Control Algorithm for Packet Switching Networks

A challenging research issue in high speed networking is how to control the transmission rate of statistical data flows. This paper describes a new algorithm, VirtualClock, for data traffic control in high-speed networks. VirtualClock maintains the statistical multiplexing flexibility of pocket switching while ensuring each data flow its reserved average throughput rate at the same time. The algorithm has been tested through simulation.
Low complexity video coding using SMPTE VC-2

Low complexity video coding addresses different applications, and is complementary to, video coding for delivery to the end user. Delivery codecs, such as the MPEG/ITU standards, provide very high compression ratios, but require high complexity and high latency. Some applications, by contrast, need the opposite characteristics of low complexity and low latency at low compression ratios. This paper discusses the applications and requirements of low complexity coding and, after discussing the prior art, describes the standard VC-2 (SMPTE 2042) codec, which is a wavelet codec designed for low complexity and ultra-low latency. VC-2 provides a wide range of coding parameters and compression ratios, allowing it to address applications such as texture coding, lossless and high dynamic range coding. In particular this paper describes the results for the low complexity coding parameters of 2 and 3 level Haar and LeGall wavelet kernels, for image regions of 4x4 and 8x8 pixels with both luma/color difference signals and RGB. The paper indicates the quality that may be achieved at various compression ratios and also clearly shows the benefit of coding luma and color components rather than RGB.
Camera Models and Machine Perception

Abstract : The report developes a parametric model for a computer-controlled moveable camera on a pan-tilt head. The model expresses the transform relating object space to image space as a function of the control variables of the camera. We constructed a calibration system for measuring the model parameters which has a demonstrated accuracy more than adequate for our present needs. We have also identified the major source of error in model measurement to be undesired image motion and have developed means of measuring and compensating for some of it and eliminating other parts of it. The system can measure systematic image distortions if they become the major accuracy limitation. It has been shown how to generalize the model to handle small systematic errors due to aspects of pan-tilt head geometry not presently accounted for. The report demonstrates the model's application in stereo vision and have shown how it can be applied as a predictive device in locating objects of interest and centering them in an image. (Author)
Optometric low vision rehabilitation practice in Norway - public health care

The purpose was to describe the patient characteristics, the prescribing trends and habits among the public health care optometrists who perform low vision rehabilitation in Norway. Data were collected using a questionnaire to gather background details of the optometrist, and a practice registration form to register patient characteristics and information about the low vision device(s) prescribed. Both forms were distributed to 44 public health care optometrists. A total of 30 questionnaires and 20 practice registration forms were returned. This included data for 147 patients with visual impairment. Moderate to severe visual impairment according to The World Health Organization (WHO)’s definition (visual acuity ≤ 6/18) was present in 82 (59%) of the patients. Three out of four (75%) patients did not have sufficient vision for reading. Distance visual acuity was improved with best optical correction in 39 (28%) of the patients compared to the presenting visual acuity. The most frequently prescribed optical devices for near and distance vision were hand magnifiers and filters/tinted lenses respectively. Optometrists play an important role in vision rehabilitation of older people attending the low vision services. A number of the patients seen in low vision services are referred from non-eye care professionals and achieve improved vision with appropriate optical correction. Others are only mildly visually impaired with adequate optical correction alone. This indicates a potential to use general optometric practice as the first step for vision rehabilitation, as a number of people are only mildly visually impaired with adequate optical correction.
An Evaluation of a Decision Simulation as a Learning Environment

This paper presents the conclusions of a series of experiments to evaluate the use of a decision simulation game in a graduate business school curriculum. A brief description of the simulation model is followed by a discussion of how the game was first utilized. The first formal evaluation experiment and conclusions are then presented. The second and third decision simulation game sessions are then described to illustrate the evolution of curriculum design which includes a simulation decision game. The next section deals with the experiments planned to evaluate these game sessions. The final part presents the overall conclusions and describes the decision simulation game to be utilized in 1963. "Management Technology", ISSN 0542-4917, was published as a separate journal from 1960 to 1964. In 1965 it was merged into Management Science.
Structures Problem

A second aspect of the same simulation was the need to generate a number of Nyquist plots, rapidly and easily, in order to determine the frequencies at which the system was unstable. To accomplish this objective, an automatic plotting circuit was incorporated in the analog program. Wayne Miessner described this technique, which makes use of the method of steepest descent and two properly chosen filters. It has the advantages of not requiring resolvers or division circuits for implementation.
Signals and Systems: Analysis Using Transform Methods and MATLAB

As in most areas of science and engineering, the most important and useful theories are the ones that capture the essence, and therefore the beauty, of physical phenomena. This is true of signals and systems. Signals and Systems: Analysis Using Transform Methods and MATLAB captures the mathematical beauty of signals and systems and offers a student-centered, pedagogically driven approach. The author has a clear understanding of the issues students face in learning the material and does a superior job of addressing these issues. The book is intended to cover a two-semester sequence in Signals and Systems for juniors in engineering.
Three-site space-diversity experiment at 20 GHz using ACTS in the Eastern United States

A three-site rain-fade space-diversity measurements experiment at 20 GHz has been in near continuous operation since September 1, 1994. Two receiver sites (at the Applied Phys. Laboratory ~APL\ of The Johns Hopkins University and COMSAT Laboratories) are located in Central Maryland, and the other is located in Virginia. The APL and COMSAT locations are separated by 33 km. The Virginia site is separated from APL by 44.5 km and from COMSAT by 30.5 km. Receivers at each of the sites measure the 20-GHz CW signal level from the radiating beacon onboard the geostationary Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS). Because of the lateral variability of rain, the likelihood is diminished that intense rain cells will simultaneously intersect all three Earth-satellite paths. There is also a reduced likelihood that intense rain will simultaneously intersect two Earth-satellite paths associated with different two-site scenarios. Hence, a substantially smaller rain-fade margin is required when the sites operate in a diversity mode (e.g., connected together such that the largest signal is used) vis-a-vis uncoupled single terminal operation. In this effort, we examine the efficacy of employing three-site and two-site space-diversity systems to reduce the required fade margin. Single- and joint-terminal rain-fade distributions are calculated for both the three-site and different combinations of two-site scenarios. Diversity gains, which give a measure of the reduced fade margin, are determined from these distributions. The distributions and diversity gains are also individually determined for two six-month periods of the year for which precipitation is predominantly convective or stratiform, respectively. Comparisons between measured diversity gains and those estimated using the model of the radiocommunications sector of the International Telecommunications Union are made.
MOOCS: digesting the facts

The techniques used in massive open online courses (MOOCs) are compared with supersizing in the fast food industry. Similarities include the profit motives, marketing techniques, criticisms, industry defences, and evolution of the two controversies. While fast food restaurants strategically increase the size of their meal courses and consumer base, MOOC providers increase the size of their student enrolments and the amounts of online course material they provide for the students to consume. In the two contexts, franchise owners and educational administrators deliver the supersized courses to their customers with apparent disregard for their widening negative effects. Educational institutions are encouraged to consider the ethics of these practices in order to prevent the unmonitored spread of junk education.
Fertility pregnancy and cancer.

This study describes the patterns of cervical and breast cancer among pregnant mothers who were treated at the NN Petrov Institute of Oncology in Russia during 1960-94. The sample included 476 patients admitted with invasive cervical cancer that was diagnosed during pregnancy or after birth or abortion. Findings were compared to a control group of 640 invasive cervical cancer patients and 240 breast cancer patients of reproductive age. 95.3% of cancers were malignant. 60.9% were tumors of the cervix breast and ovaries. The percentage of cervical cancer cases was 23.5% of reproductive age women. In 69% of the cervical cancer patients the depth of tumor growth into the stroma exceeded 1 cm compared to only 32% in the control group. Cervical stage I cancer during pregnancy spread to the regional lymph nodes twice as frequently as in the control group. Lymphatic metastases were greatest in patients with regional metastases during the second and third trimester or after birth. 21.4% of pregnant patients and 15.5% of nonpregnant patients had stage III cervical cancer. 5-year survival rates after prompt treatment was 58.4% compared to 78.8% for controls. 2% of breast cancer patients were pregnant at the time of diagnosis and most had the lobular form. Regional metastases were 1.5-2.0 times higher for breast cancer cases diagnosed during pregnancy compared to nonpregnant cases. The cancers diagnosed in the last two trimesters or during breast feeding tend to be aggravated. The 5-year survival rate is poor. The prognosis for the fetus is better if diagnosed in the third trimester but better for the mother if diagnosed in the first trimester. Pregnancy does not increase the risk of malignant tumors and is not likely to accelerate tumor growth. IUD contraception should be used by breast cancer patients post-treatment. Cervical cancer patients should begin contraceptive use about 2 years after favorable prognosis.