Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Publication of the Association of Management IS / IT REQUIREMENTS ELICITATION AND SPECIFICATION PROCEDURE ASSESSMENT WITHIN A UK GOVERNMENT SERVICE ORGANIZATION

Requirements engineering is concerned with the identification of the goals to be achieved by the envisioned IS/IT system. The processes involved include three interrelated functions: requirements elicitation, specification and validation. This study represents an exposition of requirements elicitation/specification concepts and challenges targeting the Government Sector. Groups of Project Managers, Business Analysts and users of IS/IT systems have been surveyed and interviewed and the data on 19 projects is analyzed to ascertain experiences and problems when eliciting and specifying requirements. A 17 factor assessment model is suggested and used for evaluation of the requirements specification documents of the project cases studied. The research concludes that there is considerable doubt within the Government Sector studied as to why it is necessary to produce a requirements specification in the first instance. The design and implementation of an IS/IT system can only be as good as the statement of requirements and a lot more resources and attention need to be channeled to this very important task of requirement specification as part of the project management process.
Algebraic-geometric codes on the erasure channel

This paper investigates the use of algebraic-geometric codes for data transmission over a packet network, by comparing their encoding/decoding speeds to those of the ubiquitous Reed-Solomon Codes. We take advantage of the fact that AG codes allow the construction of longer codes over a given alphabet, which in turn means we can create an [n, k]-code over a smaller field in which the encoding/decoding algorithms run faster. We also obtain some probabilistic bounds on the overheads required for the codes we use.
A combinatorial, strongly polynomial-time algorithm for minimizing submodular functions

This paper presents a combinatorial polynomial-time algorithm for minimizing submodular functions, answering an open question posed in 1981 by Grotschel, Lov asz, and Schrijver. The algorithm employs a scaling scheme that uses a ow in the complete directed graph on the underlying set with each arc capacity equal to the scaled parameter. The resulting algorithm runs in time bounded by a polyno- mial in the size of the underlying set and the length of the largest absolute function value. The paper also presents a strongly polynomial version in which the number of steps is bounded by a polynomial in the size of the underlying set, independent of the function values.
Autonomous underwater vehicles in Arctic marine operations: Arctic marine research and ice monitoring

This thesis considers autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) in Arctic marine operations. It focuses on their use as a sensor platform in ice monitoring operations and the use of AUVs for Arctic marine research. Arctic AUV operations pose several challenges compared to standard AUV operations, including the presence of drifting sea-ice and navigational challenges in the polar regions. These are some of the issues addressed in this thesis. Chapter 2 introduces historic Arctic AUV operations, and it presents experiences and lessons learned through these campaigns. Challenges related to communication, navigation, fail-safes, and deployment and recovery, with a focus on Arctic operations are discussed. This chapter also motivates and assess the use of AUVs as a sensor platform for ice monitoring operations. A conceptual guidance and navigation system for Arctic AUVs is presented at the end of the chapter. Field work and experiments are important to test theory, but also to build experience and acquire knowledge. Chapter 3 presents two Arctic AUV deployments using the NTNU REMUS 100 AUV and the experiences learned from these operations. Two experiments demonstrating the use of unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) as a support tool for AUVs in the Trondheimsfjord are also presented, along with a motivation for the use of such platforms in Arctic marine research. Since Arctic AUV operations are considered as high risk, with significant costs associated, an Arctic AUV simulator environment has been developed, as presented in Chapter 4. The simulator consists of seven modules, where the modules defining the default guidance and control system, as well as the numerical AUV model, are similar to a regular AUV simulator. In addition, an ice drift model is provided to simulate drifting and rotating ice features. A multibeam echosounder (MBE) simulator is used to sense the ice topography, given as a digital elevation map (DEM). To achieve drift and rotation of the sensed terrain, the final module in the Arctic AUV simulator is a relative position and velocity module, which provides input to the MBE simulator. A special consideration has been given to iceberg mapping using AUVs in this thesis, as the detailed topography of icebergs are important to develop iceberg trajectory models, as well as decision support in iceberg management operations (e.g., iceberg towing). Chapter 5 details a guidance system for determining the main particulars of an iceberg that relies on MBE measurements to determine the location of the edge of the iceberg. The guidance system is implemented as a state machine, starting in an iceberg detection mode. Once an iceberg is detected, an edge-detection algorithm is used to determine the location of the edge relative to
GPU-based Particle Systems for Illustrative Volume Rendering

Illustrative techniques are generally applied to produce stylized renderings. Various illustrative styles have been applied to volumetric data sets, producing clearer images and effectively conveying visual information. We adopt user-configurable particle systems to produce stylized renderings from the volume data, imitating traditional pen-and-ink drawings. In the following, we present an interactive GPU-based illustrative framework, called VolFlies- GPU, for rendering volume data, exploiting parallelism in both graphics hardware and particle systems. We achieve real-time interaction and prompt parametrization of the illustrative styles, using an intuitive GPGPU paradigm that delivers the computational power to drive our particle system and visualization algorithms.
Personalized Micro-Learning Support Based on Process Mining

Micro-Learning is a new leaning paradigm based on microblogging, e-mail or SMS, in which an integral learning resource consists of a series of micro learning units that are dispersed via the services of Internet, and can be used to help users learn at anywhere with a short-term. But the problem is that most of the micro learning units are disorganized. Therefore, it is a critical issue how to organize these micro learning units, in order to make them easier to be used and learned. In this study, we propose an approach based on process mining to organize the learning units according to the situation of users. Firstly, the successful micro-learning processes are extracted from the access logs. And then, the learning process map named navigation map is created based on the domain knowledge and the access sequence of users. Secondly, according to the similarity of access behavior, a reference user group is extracted dynamically for a target user. Based on the dynamic Bayesian network, the navigation map is then used to calculate the posterior probabilities of learning units. Finally, on the basis of posterior probabilities, a learning unit can be recommended for the target user to learn as the next step. The results are provided to the target user gradually, until the target user finish the whole course by the guide of learning process at his/her fragmented time.
Learning of Visuomotor Transformations for Vectorial Planning of Reaching Trajectories

The planning of visually guided reaches is accomplished by independent specification of extent and direction. We investigated whether this separation of extent and direction planning for well practiced movements could be explained by differences in the adaptation to extent and directional errors during motor learning. We compared the time course and generalization of adaptation with two types of screen cursor transformation that altered the relationship between hand space and screen space. The first was a gain change that induced extent errors and required subjects to learn a new scaling factor. The second was a screen cursor rotation that induced directional errors and required subjects to learn new reference axes. Subjects learned a new scaling factor at the same rate when training with one or multiple target distances, whereas learning new reference axes took longer and was less complete when training with multiple compared with one target direction. After training to a single target, subjects were able to transfer learning of a new scaling factor to previously unvisited distances and directions. In contrast, generalization of rotation adaptation was incomplete; there was transfer across distances and arm configurations but not across directions. Learning a rotated reference frame only occurred after multiple target directions were sampled during training. These results suggest the separate processing of extent and directional errors by the brain and support the idea that reaching movements are planned as a hand-centered vector whose extent and direction are established via learning a scaling factor and reference axes.
QoS Support in a MANET Based on OLSR and CBQ

Mobile ad-hoc networks constitute a popular subject for research as devices and wireless communication technologies are became widespread and ubiquitous. With the expanding range of applications of MANETs, supporting the quality of service (QoS) in these networks is becoming a real need. This paper provides a solution for QoS support taking into account radio interferences. We note that, because of the ad-hoc networks characteristics, we cannot provide a hard quality of service to QoS flows, but only a service differentiation between different flow types. This QoS support is based on the OLSR routing protocol and the CBQ scheduling. Simulation results show that flows with QoS requirements receive the requested bandwidth and Best Effort flows share the remaining bandwidth. Moreover, mobility is supported.
Is planting trees the solution to reducing flood risks?

Flood risk and associated impacts are major societal and policy concerns following widespread flooding in December 2015, which cost the UK economy an estimated £5 billion. Increasing advocacy for alternatives to conventional hard engineering solutions is accompanied by demands for evidence. This study provides a systematic review and meta‐analysis of direct evidence for the effect of tree cover on channel discharge. The results highlighted a deficiency in direct evidence. From 7 eligible studies of 156 papers reviewed, the results show that increasing tree cover has a small statistically significant effect on reducing channel discharge. Meta‐analysis reveals that tree cover reduces channel discharge (standardised mean difference −0.35, 95%CI, −0.71 to 0.00), but the effect was variable (I2 = 81.91%), the potential for confounding was high, and publication bias is strongly suspected (Egger Test z = 3.0568, p = .002). Due to the lack of direct evidence the overall strength of evidence is low, indicating high uncertainty. Further primary research is required to understand reasons for heterogeneity and reduce uncertainty. A Bayesian network parameterised with data from the meta‐analysis supports investment in integrated catchment management, particularly on infrastructure density and water storage (reservoirs), for effective responses to flood risk.
Cell-Free Massive MIMO: Uniformly great service for everyone

We consider the downlink of Cell-Free Massive MIMO systems, where a very large number of distributed access points (APs) simultaneously serve a much smaller number of users. Each AP uses local channel estimates obtained from received uplink pilots and applies conjugate beamforming to transmit data to the users. We derive a closed-form expression for the achievable rate. This expression enables us to design an optimal max-min power control scheme that gives equal quality of service to all users. We further compare the performance of the Cell-Free Massive MIMO system to that of a conventional small-cell network and show that the throughput of the Cell-Free system is much more concentrated around its median compared to that of the smallcell system. The Cell-Free Massive MIMO system can provide an almost 20-fold increase in 95%-likely per-user throughput, compared with the small-cell system. Furthermore, Cell-Free systems are more robust to shadow fading correlation than smallcell systems.
NF-κB and COX-2 expression in nonmalignant endometrial lesions and cancer.

OBJECTIVES To examine the immunohistochemical expression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) in benign endometrial polyps (EPs), endometrial hyperplasia (EH), endometrial intraepithelial neoplasia (EIN), and endometrioid endometrial cancer (EC). METHODS The immunohistochemical expression of COX-2 and NF-κB was performed using an Aperio Scanscope XT automated system in 218 patients with endometrioid EC and 107 patients with nonmalignant endometrial lesions: 53 with benign EPs, 37 with EH, and 17 with EIN. RESULTS COX-2 and NF-κB p50 expression were significantly lower in EC compared with nonmalignant lesions. We observed significant decreased NF-κB p65 expression in EC vs EPs (P < .001) and EH (P = .014) as well as in EIN vs. EPs (P = .01). For patients with EC, COX-2 correlated positively with NF-κB p65 and NF-κB p50 (P < .001). Grade 3 tumors had a higher mean expression of NF-κB p65 (P = .03). NF-κB p50, NF-κB p65, and COX-2 expression had no impact on survival. CONCLUSIONS We conclude that COX-2 and NF-κB expression are lower in EC compared with nonmalignant endometrial lesions. COX-2 and NF-κB expression have no prognostic value in EC.
Comparison of Direct Spectrophotometric Determinations of Bilirubin with Candidate Reference Method in Sera of Newborns

Bilirubin was determined by direct spectrophotometry and by the candidate reference method of Doumas et al. (Clin. Chem. (1985) 31; 1789-1798) in a group of more than 230 newborns, and the results were compared. Direct spectrophotometry by Vink et al. (Clin. Chem. (1988) 34; 67-70) gives the following regression equation in comparison with the reference method: y = 0.967x + 6.57 with r = 0.9874. Comparison of direct spectrophotometry at 463 and 582 nm (for the simultaneous determination bilirubin and HbO2) with the reference method gave the following regression equation: y = 0.971x + 8.16 with r = 0.9814. Two methods of direct two-wavelength spectrophotometry showed statistically insignificant differences, using significance levels p = 0.05 and p = 0.01, in comparison with the reference method. In our group of newborns we determined serum HbO2 concentrations from 0.2 g/l (as a 0.025 fractile) to 2.6 g/l (as a 0.975 fractile) with a median value of 0.76 g/l. In a micromodification, the reference method is insensitive to HbO2 in concentrations of up to 5 g/l. Both direct spectrophotometric methods are insensitive to HbO2 concentrations up to 25 g/l. Direct spectrophotometric methods give results identical to those of the reference method and therefore are very suitable for use in neonatology.
Nobody ever got fired for buying a cluster

In the last decade we have seen a huge deployment of cheap clusters to run data analytics workloads. The conventional wisdom in industry and academia is that scaling out using a cluster is better for these workloads than scaling up by adding more resources to a single server. Popular analytics infrastructures such as Hadoop are aimed at such a cluster scale-out environment, and in today’s world nobody gets fired for adopting a cluster solution. Is this the right approach? Our measurements as well as other recent work shows that the majority of real-world analytic jobs process less than 100GB of input, but popular infrastructures such as Hadoop/MapReduce were originally designed for petascale processing. We claim that a single “scale-up” server can process each of these jobs and do as well or better than a cluster in terms of performance, cost, power, and server density. Is it time to consider the “common case” for “big data” analytics to be the single-server rather than the cluster case? If so, this has implications for data center hardware as well as software architectures. Unfortunately widely used platforms such as Hadoop perform poorly in a scale-up configuration. We describe several modifications to the Hadoop runtime to address this problem. These changes are transparent, do not require any changes to application code, and do not compromise scale-out performance. However they do significantly improve Hadoop’s scale-up performance. We present a broad evaluation across 11 representative Hadoop jobs that shows scale-up to be competitive in all cases and significantly better in some cases, than scale-out. Our evaluation considers raw performance, as well as performance per dollar and per watt.
Local Pinning of Networks of Multi-Agent Systems With Transmission and Pinning Delays

We study the stability of networks of multi-agent systems with local pinning strategies and two types of time delays, namely the transmission delay in the network and the pinning delay of the controllers. Sufficient conditions for stability are derived under specific scenarios by computing or estimating the dominant eigenvalue of the characteristic equation. In addition, controlling the network by pinning a single node is studied. Moreover, perturbation methods are employed to derive conditions in the limit of small and large pinning strengths. Numerical algorithms are proposed to verify stability, and simulation examples are presented to confirm the efficiency of analytic results.
Visceral Periadventitial Adipose Tissue Regulates Arterial Tone of Mesenteric Arteries

Periadventitial adipose tissue produces vasoactive substances that influence vascular contraction. Earlier studies addressed this issue in aorta, a vessel that does not contribute to peripheral vascular resistance. We tested the hypothesis that periadventitial adipose tissue modulates contraction of smaller arteries more relevant to blood pressure regulation. We studied mesenteric artery rings surrounded by periadventitial adipose tissue from adult male Sprague-Dawley rats. The contractile response to serotonin, phenylephrine, and endothelin I was markedly reduced in intact vessels compared with vessels without periadventitial fat. The contractile response to U46619 or depolarizing high K+-containing solutions (60 mmol/L) was similar in vessels with and without periadventitial fat. The K+ channel opener cromakalim induced relaxation of vessels precontracted by serotonin but not by U46619 or high K+-containing solutions (60 mmol/L), suggesting that K+ channels are involved. The intracellular membrane potential of smooth muscle cells was more hyperpolarized in intact vessels than in vessels without periadventitial fat. Both the anticontractile effect and membrane hyperpolarization of periadventitial fat were abolished by inhibition of delayed-rectifier K+ (Kv) channels with 4-aminopyridine (2 mmol/L) or 3,4-diaminopyridine (1 mmol/L). Blocking other K+ channels with glibenclamide (3 &mgr;mol/L), apamin (1 &mgr;mol/L), iberiotoxin (100 nmol/L), tetraethylammonium ions (1 mmol/L), tetrapentylammonium ions (10 &mgr;mol/L), or Ba2+ (3 &mgr;mol/L) had no effect. Longitudinal removal of half the perivascular tissue reduced the anticontractile effect of fat by almost 50%, whereas removal of the endothelium had no effect. We suggest that visceral periadventitial adipose tissue controls mesenteric arterial tone by inducing vasorelaxation via Kv channel activation in vascular smooth muscle cells.
Introducing Scalileo: a Java based scaling framework

Scalability is a major concern of internet based applications. Access peaks that overload the application are a financial risk. Therefore, systems are built to scale. They are usually configured to be able to process peaks at any give moment. This can be very inefficient. Yet, there are various ways to improve efficiency. One reasonable approach is to scale applications according to their current workload. This requires the possibility to scale a system up and down. In this paper we present a scaling framework for Java applications. It allows not only autonomic scaling, but also migration of distributed applications. We will then show how energy efficiency can be increased by scaling applications. To present an example we have used our framework to autonomically scale a web server cluster.
Two Sp1/Sp3 Binding Sites in the Major Immediate-Early Proximal Enhancer of Human Cytomegalovirus Have a Significant Role in Viral Replication

ABSTRACT We previously demonstrated that the major immediate early (MIE) proximal enhancer containing one GC box and the TATA box containing promoter are minimal elements required for transcription and viral replication in human fibroblast cells (H. Isomura, T. Tsurumi, M. F. Stinski, J. Virol. 78:12788-12799, 2004). After infection, the level of Sp1 increased while Sp3 remained constant. Here we report that either Sp1 or Sp3 transcription factors bind to the GC boxes located at approximately positions −55 and −75 relative to the transcription start site (+1). Both the Sp1 and Sp3 binding sites have a positive and synergistic effect on the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) major immediate-early (MIE) promoter. There was little to no change in MIE transcription or viral replication for recombinant viruses with one or the other Sp1 or Sp3 binding site mutated. In contrast, mutation of both the Sp1 and Sp3 binding sites caused inefficient MIE transcription and viral replication. These data indicate that the Sp1 and Sp3 binding sites have a significant role in HCMV replication in human fibroblast cells.
Does Frequency-Dependent Selection with Complex Dominance Interactions Accurately Predict Allelic Frequencies at the Self-Incompatibility Locus in Arabidopsis halleri?

Abstract Frequency-dependent selection is a major force determining the evolutionary dynamics of alleles at the self-incompatibility locus (S-locus) in flowering plants. We introduce a general method using numerical simulations to test several alternative models of frequency-dependent selection on S-locus data from sporophytic systems, taking into account both genetic drift and observed patterns of dominance interactions among S-locus haplotypes (S-haplotypes). Using a molecular typing method, we estimated S-haplotype frequencies in a sample of 322 adult plants and of 245 offspring obtained from seeds sampled on 22 maternal plants, collected in a single population of Arabidopsis halleri (Brassicaceae). We found eight different S-haplotypes and characterized their dominance interactions by controlled pollinations. We then compared the likelihood of different models of frequency-dependent selection: we found that the observed haplotype frequencies and observed frequency changes in one generation best fitted a model with (1) the observed dominance interactions and (2) no pollen limitation. Overall, our population genetic models of frequency-dependent selection, including patterns of dominance interactions among S-haplotypes and genetic drift, can reliably predict polymorphism at the S-locus. We discuss how these approaches allow detecting additional processes influencing the evolutionary dynamics of the S-locus, such as purifying selection on linked loci.