Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Query sampling for learning data fusion

Data fusion is to merge the results of multiple independent retrieval models into a single ranked list. Several earlier studies have shown that the combination of different models can improve the retrieval performance better than using any of the individual models. Although many promising results have been given by supervised fusion methods, training data sampling has attracted little attention in previous work of data fusion. By observing some evaluations on TREC and NTCIR datasets, we found that the performance of one model varied largely from one training example to another, so that not all training examples were equivalently effective. In this paper, we propose two novel approaches: greedy and boosting approaches, which select effective training data by query sampling to improve the performance of supervised data fusion algorithms such as BayesFuse, probFuse and MAPFuse. Extensive experiments were conducted on five data sets including TREC-3,4,5 and NTCIR-3,4. The results show that our sampling approaches can significantly improve the retrieval performance of those data fusion methods.
A Just-In-Time Architectural Knowledge Sharing Portal

In recent years, management of architectural knowledge has become a more prominent theme in software architecture research. Although various specialized tools have been proposed for use in the architecting process, observations show that architects in industry have yet to meet a tool environment that matches their knowledge needs. In order to discover what architectural knowledge needs architects have, we conducted a study in a large organization. In this study we discovered that architects are especially in need for 'just-in-time architectural knowledge'. To fulfill this need we designed and implemented an architectural knowledge sharing portal. Our portal's integrated functionality supports architects in their decision-making process, by providing easy access to the right architectural knowledge at any given point in time.
Chinese Character Deformation Based on Smoke Simulation

Artistic effects of Chinese character deformation have been attracting more and more attention, especially in the fields of films, TV programs and games. In this paper, we introduce a fast and effective Chinese character deformation method based on smoke simulation. During the smoke simulation, an external force field is generated according to current state frame by frame and this force field controls the motion of the smoke. The inputs are user-specified Chinese character figures which are used as key frames, and our method produces a smoke sequence gradually deforming from one character to the next.
Overview of the Third Text REtrieval Conference (TREC-3)

From the Publisher: Held in Gaithersburg, MD, August November 2-4, 1994. The conference was co-sponsored by the National Inst. of Standards & Technology (NIST) & the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) & was attended by 150 people involved in the 32 participating groups. Evaluates new technologies in text retrieval. Includes 34 papers: indexing structures, fragmentation schemes, probabilistic retrieval, latent semantic indexing, interactive document retrieval, & much more. Numerous graphs, tables & charts.
Thirty-year persistence of obesity after presentation to a pediatric obesity clinic

Background: Few large, long-term studies are available on the relationship between childhood and adult obesity. Aim: The present study examined the 30-year association between childhood and adult obesity in a large sample of girls with essential and uncomplicated obesity. Subjects and methods: 318 girls who had visited our Pediatric Obesity Clinic between January 1972 and December 1974 were re-contacted between January 2002 and December 2005. All had undergone an assessment of weight, height and pubertal status at the baseline visit. Anthropometry was performed again on those who agreed to take part in the follow-up visit. The women's general practitioners were also asked to compile a health questionnaire. Hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, hypertriglyceridemia and diabetes were defined according to current guidelines. Rates are expressed as number of cases per 1000 person-years (PY). Multivariable Poisson regression was used to identify predictors of persistent obesity. Results: 224 (70%) of the 318 girls took part to the 30-year follow-up study. They had the same baseline anthropometry of those not available at follow-up. Sixteen per cent of them were still obese at the 30-year follow-up, giving a persistence rate of obesity of 5.2 × 1000 PY. Tanner stages ≥1 [rate = ratios (RR) from 4.73 to 7.74 for different stages, p ≤ 0.021] and Z-score of BMI (RR = 2.72 for one SDS, p = 0.019) were independent predictors of obesity persistence. Having a university degree vs. an elementary degree was instead protective (RR = 0.32, p = 0.009). The most prevalent complication was hypertriglyceridemia (8.8 × 1000 PY), followed by hypercholesterolemia (rate = 8.4 × 1000 PY), hypertension (rate = 5.2 × 1000 PY) and diabetes mellitus (rate = 1.0 × 1000 PY). Conclusion: The study reinforces the notion that obesity should be prevented at an early age and shows that adolescents with severe obesity and low educational degree are at greater risk of becoming obese adults.
Structural Inferences from First-Price Auction Experiments

We use structural methods to assess equilibrium models of bidding with data from first-price auction experiments. We identify conditions to test the Nash equilibrium models for homogenous and for heterogeneous constant relative risk aversion when bidders private valuations are independent and uniformly drawn. The outcomes of our study indicate that behavior may have been affected by the procedure used to conduct the experiments and that the usual Nash equilibrium model for heterogeneous constant relative risk averse bidders does not consistently explain the observed overbidding. From an empirical standpoint, our analysis shows the possible drawbacks of overlooking the homogeneity hypothesis when testing symmetric equilibrium models of bidding and it puts in perspective the sensitivity of structural inferences to the available information.
User sentiment detection: a YouTube use case

In this paper we propose an unsupervised lexicon-based approach to detect the sentiment polarity of user comments in YouTube. Polarity detection in social media content is challenging not only because of the existing limitations in current sentiment dictionaries but also due to the informal linguistic styles used by users. Present dictionaries fail to capture the sentiments of community-created terms. To address the challenge we adopted a data-driven approach and prepared a social media specific list of terms and phrases expressing user sentiments and opinions. Experimental evaluation shows the combinatorial approach has greater potential. Finally, we discuss many research challenges involving social media sentiment analysis.
Learning Semantic-Level Information Extraction Rules by Type-Oriented ILP

This paper describes an approach to using semantic representations for learning information extraction (IE) rules by a type-oriented inductive logic programming (ILP) system. NLP components of a machine translation system are used to automatically generate semantic representations of text corpus that can be given directly to an ILP system. The latest experimental results show high precision and recall of the learned rules.
The impact of human development on natural disaster fatalities and damage: panel data evidence

Abstract Countries with high levels of human development should be able to reduce the impact of natural disasters in terms of the total numbers of people killed and affected, and damage. In this study we investigate the impact of human development indicators such as income per capita and human capital (education level) on natural disaster fatalities (total deaths, total affected and total economic losses) in 79 selected countries. Using dynamic panel data analysis, we found that the level of economic development plays an important role in mitigating the impact of natural disasters such as droughts, earthquakes, extreme temperatures, floods, storms, volcanoes, landslides and wildfires. Other factors that are found to determine the number of natural disaster fatalities include population, population density, unemployment, investment, government consumption, openness, education and corruption. Using the dynamic panel data model, we found that education, investment, government consumption and openness display an inverse relationship, while population and population density have a direct positive relationship.
Analytical Credit VAR with Stochastic Probabilities of Default and Recoveries

We extend the model presented in Bonollo et al. by introducing a multiscenario framework that allows for a richer and more realistic specification, including non-static (stochastic) probabilities of default and losses given default. Though more complex from a computational point of view, the model with scenarios is still tractable analytically, yielding results in closed form expressions. The approximated value at risk has been calculated by generalizing the procedure exposed in Bonollo et al. for the single scenario case, in the presence of granularity in the exposures, sector concentration and contagion. The outcome is not simply a weighted sum of the VaRs in the individual scenarios, but results in a more involved function of the single scenarios’ parameters. The theoretical model description is complemented with an in-depth numerical analysis.
The Changing Nature of the Travel Agency Industry : Technological and Agency Theory Issues

The travel agency industry is characterized by many small businesses that have recently been under pressure from changing external factors including those in the technological and competitive environments as well as from the “customers” on both sides of their transactions -their clients and the service providers. This paper provides a theoretical basis and empirical support for six traditional roles performed by the travel agent that are firmly grounded in classical and neoclassical organizational theory. These roles include Clearinghouse, Information Source, Specialist, Negotiator/Mediator, Scout and Cost Reducer. These roles are being challenged, ironically by new technology, specifically the Internet. The irony of this is that the travel industry has traditionally been a major innovator in the use of technology through their use of computerized reservation systems.
Identifiability of linear mixed effects models

In mixed effects model, observations are a function of fixed and random effects and an error term. This structure determines a very specific structure for the variances and covariances of these observations. Unfortunately, the specific parameters of this variance/covariance structure might not be identifiable. Nonidentifiability can lead to complications in numerical estimation algorithms or worse, to incorrect or ambiguous inference. We study the identifiability of normal linear mixed effects models. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions of identifiability and we study identifiability in some commonly used variance-covariance structures. The results are particularly timely, given the recent interest in linear mixed effects models within the longitudinal and functional data analysis literature. With that in mind, we extend our discussion to identifiability in models for scalar responses depending on function-valued covariates.
High performance fair bandwidth allocation algorithm for resilient packet ring

IEEE is currently standardizing a new high-speed backbone technology for MANs - the Resilient Packet Ring (RPR). A key performance objective of RPR is to achieve high utilization, spatial reuse, and fairness simultaneously. However, the algorithms proposed in current draft standards have some critical limitations. As shown in an unbalanced traffic scenario, the draft RPR algorithm will suffer from dramatic bandwidth oscillations within nearly the entire range of the link capacity. In this paper, we propose a new dynamic bandwidth allocation algorithm called Distributed Bandwidth Reallocated in Rings (DBRR), which is based on approximately virtual-time. It shows that with fairness information propagated along the ring, each node can remotely approximate the ideal fair rate for its own traffic at each downstream link, and the whole ring can obtain maximum spatial reuse and nearly lossless throughput.
Structures, strain analyses, and 40Ar/39Ar ages of blueschist‐bearing Heilongjiang Complex (NE China): Implications for the Mesozoic tectonic evolution of NE China

The high‐pressure Heilongjiang Complex belongs to a Jurassic accretionary complex in Yilan area, NE China. The complex is located in the junction of three orogenic systems in the NE Asia: the E‐W‐striking Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB), the N‐S‐striking Paleo‐Pacific system, and the ENE‐WSW‐striking Mongol‐Okhotsk system. Thus, a detailed tectono‐metamorphic analysis coupled with accurate radiometric dating of the Heilongjiang Complex provided in this study represent important evidence for understanding the complex interactions between the three orogenic systems in the Late‐Palaeozoic to Mesozoic. New structural and microstructural data combined with the strain analysis highlight the presence of three distinct deformation events affecting the high‐pressure Heilongjiang Complex. The first deformation event D1 is related to development of blueschist facies prolate to plane strain fabrics that were subsequently reworked by the blueschist‐amphibolite facies event D2 that transposed all previous structures by the main west‐dipping schistosity. This planar fabric was folded by upright F3 folds and heterogeneously reworked by greenschist facies E‐W‐striking vertical cleavage during large scale N‐S shortening. Each deformation event was related to specific strain fabrics and metamorphic conditions highlighting dynamic evolution of the subduction complex during burial, exhumation, and final shortening. The first D1 event is related to westward directed prograde constrictional flow and progressive dismembering of competent mafic, ultramafic layers, and quartzites in highly stretched meta‐sedimentary matrix. This mélange was folded by recumbent detachment folds resulting in emplacement of the exhumed unit progressively reaching amphibolite facies conditions atop of W‐WSW‐dipping channel. This event is associated with dominant flattening implying increasing mechanical coupling between the colliding Songliao and Jiamusi blocks. Subsequently, the accreted subduction complex was reworked during N‐S‐directed horizontal shortening. This event was associated with an important post‐buckle flattening of fold limbs and rotation of competent blocks with inherited D1 and D2 strain ellipsoids along F3 fold axes. Our new 40Ar‐39Ar plateau ages on muscovite and phengite (173–177 Ma), together with previous radiometric data, are interpreted as reflecting exhumation of subduction channel during the blueschist‐amphibolite facies event while the N‐S shortening (D3) probably operated in Late Jurassic as indicated by some previously published cooling ages (~140–160 Ma). The westward‐oriented subduction and exhumation fabrics of the high‐pressure Heilongjiang accretionary complex followed by N‐S‐directed upright folding are interpreted to reflect transition from E‐W Pacific subduction regime to N‐S‐directed shortening related to the closure of the Mongol‐Okhotsk Ocean.
Physical rate and contention window based admission control (PRCW) for 802.11 WLANs

Quality of service (QoS) is a key problem in wireless environments where bandwidth is scarce and channel conditions are time varying and sometimes implies highly packet losses. IEEE 802.11b/g/a wireless LAN (WLAN) are the most widely used WLAN standards today, and the IEEE 802.11e QoS enhancement standard exists and introduces QoS support for multimedia applications. This paper presents a class based admission control algorithm for 802.11e based wireless local area networks. The strengths of our admission control is dynamicity and flexibility of the algorithm, which adapts to the situation of the BSS, like global load, number of best effort AC, and position of QSTA by report of QAP, thing that have never been taken together, but each solutions have used a point of sight separately. Thus it achieves higher throughput than other admission control for 802.11 e. The idea which consists of changing parameters [AIFSN, CWmin and CWmax] of best effort flows, for decreasing collisions, is used, so we think that it is an efficient way to protect QoS flows from best effort flows, and to allow reducing then number of collisions. So we increase AIFSN [best effort flow], CWmin and CWmax only at 70% of load of network, to prevent starvations of best effort flows, and so we increase rate utilization of channel. We also use the current rate transmission of QSTAs, according to their positions, instead of the minimum rate transmission used by standard 802.11e, for calculate the load of network and derived the TXOPi necessary for all the stations, with i=1 to number of active stations. The 802.11e standard starves the low priority traffic in case of high load, and leads to higher collision rates, and did not make a good estimate of weight of queues, so there is an unbalance enters the flows with high priorities. A discussion is presented in detail using simulation-based evaluations, with an aim of comparing results of our admission control algorithm, with the 802.11e standard and the FHCF algorithm. Results reveal an improvement of the network load and a decrease of the number of collisions.
Crossing the Gulf of Aden : a case study of the refugee and migrant flow from Yemen to Puntland, Somalia

Since 2015, there has been a Saudi-led coalition displacing Yemenis within the country and across international borders. Qualitative research was conducted on this case study of Yemeni refugees who migrated across the Gulf of Aden into Puntland, Somalia. The purpose of this research is to explore migration determinants of the migrants on that particular migration flow. The rationale for this study emanates from the research objective to increasing understanding of migration factors and flows of a contemporary refugee crisis contributes to knowledge on migration. Primary Data for this research was collected from in-depth interviewing from a purposefully selected sample of Yemeni migrants. Subsequently, the data assessed using micro, meso and macro level of analysis to understand the main migration determinants. Findings from the research indicate that interactions of local-level factors influence people’s migration decisions and strategies in combination with a range of political, economic and social factors and process that ultimately shape migration outcome, flow, and destination.
Topological Properties of the Core Group in Online Communities

Online communities are self-organized networks with a clear core-periphery structure, where most of the contributions are due to a small group of users known as the core group. Although several methods for detecting the core-periphery structure have been proposed, all of them assume a pre-defined structure of the core group. However, online communities exhibit a wide variety of organizations and shapes, and the patterns of behavior of the core group is continuously changing. This paper investigates the relationship between the global parameters of the community and those of the core group. Findings reveal that the behavior of the core group determines the global structure of the community and therefore, the identification of the core group should consider the global characteristics of the network in which they are contributing.
Activity Recognition Using , Smartphone Based , Accelerometer Sensors

Página II (b) Ramo do Conhecimento: Data Mining I was born in Madeira in 1986 having lived there until 2004 when I moved to Porto to study economics and then Data Mining in the Faculty of Economics of Porto (FEP). In Madeira I took part of several groups connected to outdoor activities: member of the first paintball team in Madeira, member of MadeiraEcoChallenges: a group created to organize eco-friendly activities as bike tourism (Porto-Algarve 2006 edition), trekking (crossing Madeira by walk in 2008) and other activities related to nature. During the bachelor period in Porto I developed a particular will to learn how to model complex problems and that was one of the major reasons to take part of the master in Data Analysis and Decision Support Systems. During this period I have also been a member of this institution choir, eCOROmia, a great school in terms of human relations and public performances. It is also with big pleasure that I am a member of the Pedagogic board of FEP having the opportunity to take part in very important implementations in FEP in these past year and half. After almost 7 years living in the beautiful city of Porto I moved to Leiden where I plan to stay for the next years to improve my knowledge in the Data Mining with the Pattern recognition group of LIACS and living the Dutch dream: " going by bike to work ". Acknowledgments Writing the acknowledgments is the nicest part! A lot of people helped me in this work directly and indirectly and I will try to thank to them all even if they don´t appear here. This work is the result of a partnership between the master I took part (MADSAD) and LIACS. I have to start thanking the Professor Carlos Soares for pushing forward this partnership. My both supervisors, Professor João Gama and João Moreira I thank their patience, encouragement and share of knowledge in this last year; I hope we can continue this relation in the future improving this work. To Arno Knobbe, my supervisor in Leiden a special thanks for receiving me, making me part of your group, encouraging the share of knowledge and giving me a opportunity for my life; I hope our expectations come truth in the close future. To all the rest of the and the unpronounceable Wouter Duivesteijn thank you for your daily support sharing …
Simultaneous determination of the accuracy and precision of closed-circuit cardiac output rebreathing techniques.

Foreign and soluble gas rebreathing methods are attractive for determining cardiac output (Q(c)) because they incur less risk than traditional invasive methods such as direct Fick and thermodilution. We compared simultaneously obtained Q(c) measurements during rest and exercise to assess the accuracy and precision of several rebreathing methods. Q(c) measurements were obtained during rest (supine and standing) and stationary cycling (submaximal and maximal) in 13 men and 1 woman (age: 24 +/- 7 yr; height: 178 +/- 5 cm; weight: 78 +/- 13 kg; Vo(2max): 45.1 +/- 9.4 ml.kg(-1). min(-1); mean +/- SD) using one-N(2)O, four-C(2)H(2), one-CO(2) (single-step) rebreathing technique, and two criterion methods (direct Fick and thermodilution). CO(2) rebreathing overestimated Q(c) compared with the criterion methods (supine: 8.1 +/- 2.0 vs. 6.4 +/- 1.6 and 7.2 +/- 1.2 l/min, respectively; maximal exercise: 27.0 +/- 6.0 vs. 24.0 +/- 3.9 and 23.3 +/- 3.8 l/min). C(2)H(2) and N(2)O rebreathing techniques tended to underestimate Q(c) (range: 6.6-7.3 l/min for supine rest; range: 16.0-19.1 l/min for maximal exercise). Bartlett's test indicated variance heterogeneity among the methods (P < 0.05), where CO(2) rebreathing consistently demonstrated larger variance. At rest, most means from the noninvasive techniques were +/-10% of direct Fick and thermodilution. During exercise, all methods fell outside the +/-10% range, except for CO(2) rebreathing. Thus the CO(2) rebreathing method was accurate over a wider range (rest through maximal exercise), but was less precise. We conclude that foreign gas rebreathing can provide reasonable Q(c) estimates with fewer repeat trials during resting conditions. During exercise, these methods remain precise but tend to underestimate Q(c). Single-step CO(2) rebreathing may be successfully employed over a wider range but with more measurements needed to overcome the larger variability.