Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Open University ’ s repository of research publications and other research outputs Distilling Privacy Requirements for Mobile Applications

As mobile computing applications have become commonplace, it is increasingly important for them to address end-users’ privacy requirements. Privacy requirements depend on a number of contextual socio-cultural factors to which mobility adds another level of contextual variation. However, traditional requirements elicitation methods do not sufficiently account for contextual factors and therefore cannot be used effectively to represent and analyse the privacy requirements of mobile end users. On the other hand, methods that do investigate contextual factors tend to produce data that does not lend itself to the process of requirements extraction. To address this problem we have developed a Privacy Requirements Distillation approach that employs a problem analysis framework to extract and refine privacy requirements for mobile applications from raw data gathered through empirical studies involving end users. Our approach introduces privacy facets that capture patterns of privacy concerns which are matched against the raw data. We demonstrate and evaluate our approach using qualitative data from an empirical study of a mobile social networking application.
Stylonurine eurypterids from the Strud locality (Upper Devonian, Belgium): new insights into the ecology of freshwater sea scorpions

Abstract The Upper Famennian (Upper Devonian) Strud locality has yielded very abundant and diversified flora as well as vertebrate and arthropod faunas. The arthropod fauna, mostly recovered from fine shales deposited in a calm, confined floodplain habitat including temporary pools, has delivered a putative insect and various crustaceans including eumalacostracans and notostracan, spinicaudatan and anostracan branchiopods. Here we present the Strud eurypterids, consisting of semi-articulated juvenile specimens assigned to Hardieopteridae recovered from the pool and floodplain deposits, as well as larger isolated fragments of potential adults recovered from stratigraphically lower, coarser dark sandy layers indicative of a higher-energy fluvial environment. The Strud fossils strongly suggest that, as proposed for some Carboniferous eurypterids, juvenile freshwater eurypterids inhabited sheltered nursery pools and migrated to higher-energy river systems as they matured.
The Jan Mayen microplate complex and the Wilson cycle

Abstract The opening of the North Atlantic region was one of the most important geodynamic events that shaped the present day passive margins of Europe, Greenland and North America. Although well-studied, much remains to be understood about the evolution of the North Atlantic, including the role of the Jan Mayen microplate complex. Geophysical data provide an image of the crustal structure of this microplate and enable a detailed reconstruction of the rifting and spreading history. However, the mechanisms that cause the separation of microplates between conjugate margins are still poorly understood. We assemble recent models of rifting and passive margin formation in the North Atlantic and discuss possible scenarios that may have led to the formation of the Jan Mayen microplate complex. This event was probably triggered by regional plate tectonic reorganizations rejuvenating inherited structures. The axis of rifting and continental break-up and the width of the Jan Mayen microplate complex were controlled by old Caledonian fossil subduction/suture zones. Its length is related to east–west-oriented deformation and fracture zones, possibly linked to rheological heterogeneities inherited from the pre-existing Precambrian terrane boundaries.
Concentration of EPA and DHA from Refined Salmon Oil by Optimizing the Urea–Fatty Acid Adduction Reaction Conditions Using Response Surface Methodology

This research focused on obtaining eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, 20:5 n-3) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 22:6 n-3) (EPA+DHA) concentrates from refined commercial salmon oil (RCSO). Independent variables of the complexation process were optimized by means of the application of response surface methodology (RSM) in order to obtain the maximum content of such fatty acids (FAs). As a result of employing the optimized conditions for all the variables (6.0, urea:FA content ratio; −18.0 °C, crystallization temperature; 14.80 h, crystallization time; 500 rpm, stirring speed), high contents of EPA and DHA could be obtained from RCSO, achieving increases of 4.1 and 7.9 times in the concentrate, with values of 31.20 and 49.31 g/100 g total FA, respectively. Furthermore, a 5.8-time increase was observed for the EPA + DHA content, which increased from 13.78 to 80.51 g/100 g total FA. It is concluded that RCSO can be transformed into a profitable source of EPA and DHA (EPA+DHA), thus leading to a product with higher commercial value.
Biometric Palmprint identification via efficient texture features fusion

Recently, personal identification, which is based on the palmprint texture features analysis, has widely attracted the attention of several researchers and has gained a great popularity in the pattern recognition field. In this paper, we present a novel methodology based on texture information extracted from palmprint. Firstly, we propose an algorithm to robustly locate the Region Of Interest (ROI) of the hand. Secondly, we combine multiple descriptors to extract the palmprint texture information, which are Gray-Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) and the Gabor filters using feature level fusion. These descriptors have been broadly applied in various tasks, specifically in the image processing domain to analyze the image texture. Then, we apply the generalized discriminant analysis (GDA) to reduce the length of the feature vectors and their redundancies. Finally, we classify these final resulting features by developing the SVM method which supports several kernel functions to reach a best recognition rate. We have conducted extensive experiments on the “CASIA-Palmprint” and “PolyU-palmprint” datasets. The obtained results of the proposed approach provide promising results compared to other well-known state-of-the-art approaches.
Triangular Relationship between Sleep Spindle Activity, General Cognitive Ability and the Efficiency of Declarative Learning

EEG sleep spindle activity (SpA) during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep has been reported to be associated with measures of intelligence and overnight performance improvements. The reticular nucleus of the thalamus is generating sleep spindles in interaction with thalamocortical connections. The same system enables efficient encoding and processing during wakefulness. Thus, we examined if the triangular relationship between SpA, measures of intelligence and declarative learning reflect the efficiency of the thalamocortical system. As expected, SpA was associated with general cognitive ability, e.g. information processing speed. SpA was also associated with learning efficiency, however, not with overnight performance improvement in a declarative memory task. SpA might therefore reflect the efficiency of the thalamocortical network and can be seen as a marker for learning during encoding in wakefulness, i.e. learning efficiency.
A low-complexity matched filter detector with parallel interference cancellation for massive MIMO systems

With a large number of antennas at the transmitter and receiver, massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems can achieve substantially high spectral efficiency as well as high stability and reliability. Nevertheless, one of the major challenges for its practical use is its computational complexity for symbol detection that grows exponentially with the number of antennas. In this work, we focus on a low complexity implementation of massive MIMO detector based on matched filter (MF) detection with parallel interference cancellation (PIC). In general, MF-based detector performs poorly in the high SNR region. Nevertheless, with the help of powerful channel coding such as low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes and the well-designed PIC, the resulting error performance of the proposed MF-PIC can approach or even outperform the conventional minimum mean square error (MMSE)-based detector with much less complexity. Furthermore, due to its parallel structure, low latency implementation based on parallel architecture is possible and thus is suitable for practical massive MIMO systems.
Survey on MapReduce and Scheduling Algorithms in Hadoop

: W e are living in the data world. It is not easy to measure the total volume of data stored electronically. They are in the unit of zettabytes or exabytes referred as Big Data. It can be unstructured, structured or semi structured, they are not convenient to store as well as process with normal data management methods and with machine having limited computational power. Hadoop system is used to process large datasets with efficient and inexpensive manner. MapReduce program is used to collect data as per the request. To process large volume of data proper scheduling is required to achieve greater performance. The objective of the research is to study MapReduce and analyze different scheduling algorithms that can be used to achieve better performance in scheduling.
Enhanced Latent Fingerprint Segmentation through Dictionary Based Approach

— The accuracy of latent finger print matching compared to roll and plain finger print matching is significantly lower due to background noise, poor ridge quality and overlapping structured noise in latent images. In this paper the proposed algorithm is dictionary-based approach for automatic segmentation and enhancement towards the goal of achieving “lights out” latent identifications system. Total variation decomposition model with L1 fidelity regularization in latent finger print image remove background noise. A coarse to fine strategy is used to improve robustness and accuracy. It improves the computational efficiency of the algorithm.
Graphene nanoribbons in criss-crossed electric and magnetic fields

Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) in mutually perpendicular electric and magnetic fields are shown to exhibit dramatic changes in their band structure and electron-transport properties. A strong electric field across the ribbon induces multiple chiral Dirac points, closing the semiconducting gap in armchair GNRs. A perpendicular magnetic field induces partially formed Landau levels as well as dispersive surface-bound states. Each of the applied fields on its own preserves the even symmetry Ek=E−k of the sub-band dispersion. When applied together, they reverse the dispersion parity to be odd, which gives Ee,k=−Eh,−k, and mix the electron and hole sub-bands within the energy range corresponding to the change in potential across the ribbon. This leads to oscillations of the ballistic conductance within this energy range. The broken time-reversal symmetry provides dichroism in the absorption of the circularly polarized light. As a consequence, one can observe electrically enhanced Faraday rotation, since the edges of the ribbon provide formation of the substantial density of states.
A soft-error hardened latch scheme for SoC in a 90 nm technology and beyond

In this paper, we proposed a soft-error hardened latch (SEH-latch) scheme that has an error correction function in the fine process. To achieve this, we designed two types of SEH-latch circuits and a standard latch circuit using 130 nm 2-well, and also 90 nm 2-well CMOS processes. The proposed circuit demonstrated 2-order higher immunity through a radiation test using /spl alpha/-particles, and 1-order higher immunity through neutron irradiation.
Implications of conservation agriculture narratives on environmental conservation in Chibombo,Zambia

iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . v LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES . ix ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS . x CHAPTER ONE . 1 1.0 INTRODUCTION. 1 1.1 Background to the study . 1 1.2 Statement of the problem . 3 1.3 Aim . 3 1.4 Objectives. 4 1.5 Research questions . 4 1.6 Significance of the study . 4 1.7 Organization of the thesis . 5 CHAPTER TWO . 6 2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW . 6 2.1 Development of Conservation Agriculture . 6 2.2 Environmental Narratives. 8 2.3. Conservation Agriculture . 10 2.3. 1 Sustainability aspects of conservation agriculture system . 10 2.3. 2. Conservation agriculture and soil moisture conservation. 11 2.3. 3 Conservation agriculture and weed pressure . 12
Predictability of Distrust with Interaction Data

Trust plays a crucial role in helping users collect reliable information in an online world, and has attracted more and more attention in research communities lately. As a conceptual counterpart of trust, distrust can be as important as trust. However, distrust is rarely studied in social media because distrust information is usually unavailable. The value of distrust has been widely recognized in social sciences and recent work shows that distrust can benefit various online applications in social media. In this work, we investigate whether we can obtain distrust information via learning when it is not directly available, and propose to study a novel problem - predicting distrust using pervasively available interaction data in an online world. In particular, we analyze interaction data, provide a principled way to mathematically incorporate interaction data in a novel framework dTrust to predict distrust information. Experimental results using real-world data show that distrust information is predictable with interaction data by the proposed framework dTrust. Further experiments are conducted to gain a deep understand on which factors contribute to the effectiveness of the proposed framework.
Automatic registration of 3D datasets using Gaussian fields

In this paper we introduce a new 3D automatic registration method based on Gaussian fields and energy minimization. The method defines a simple C/sup /spl infin// energy function, which is convex in a large neighborhood of the alignment parameters; allowing for the use of powerful standard optimization techniques. We show that the size of the region of convergence can be significantly extended reducing the need for close initialization and overcoming local convergence problems of the standard iterative closest point (ICP) algorithms. Furthermore, the Gaussian criterion can be evaluated with linear computational complexity using fast Gauss transform methods, allowing for an efficient implementation of the registration algorithm. Experimental analysis of the technique using real world datasets shows the usefulness as well as the limits of the approach.
The landscape setting of bog bodies: Interdisciplinary research into the site location of Yde Girl, The Netherlands

Past studies of archaeological bog finds, such as bog bodies, wooden trackways and a wide variety of other materials, are characterized by a strong focus on material culture. Their original environmental and cultural context has received far less attention. This paper centres on the original landscape setting of bog bodies. Interdisciplinary reconstructions of the physical and cultural landscape at the time of deposition can lead to significant new and more detailed insights into the context and meaning of this remarkable phenomenon. We aim to show the value of such interdisciplinary research by reconstructing the original physical and cultural landscape setting of the most iconic bog body of The Netherlands: Yde Girl. This approximately 16-year-old girl was killed about 2000 years ago and deposited in a bog south of the modern-day village of Yde (province of Drenthe). Our interdisciplinary research team used a combination of research methods from physical geography, geomorphology, palynology and archaeology to analyse both the site itself and its wider environment. This kind of integrated, detailed landscape research on bog bodies has hardly been done yet. We expect that our research design, methodology and results may also be applied in future research of other bog bodies. Furthermore, they may inspire research on other types of archaeological find categories from peatlands.
Polymorphisms of COMT Val158Met and DAT1 3′-UTR VNTR in Illicit Drug Use and Drug-Related Psychiatric Disorders

To investigate the involvement of COMT Val158Met and DAT1 3′-UTR VNTR genotypes in the pathogenesis of illicit drug use and drug-induced psychotic disorders (DIP), 187 substance users and 386 normal controls were recruited from Northern Taiwan. Substance users and normal controls significantly differed in allele frequencies of COMT Val158Met (p = 0.039) but not in allele frequencies of DAT1 3′-UTR VNTR (p = 0.879). However, neither allele frequencies of COMT Val158Met nor allele frequencies of DAT1 3′-UTR VNTR were associated with DIP. The findings should be confirmed in further studies of a larger sample size and a more homogenous patient group.
[Treating patients with acute myeloid leukemias (AML) according to the protocol of the AML-01.10 Russian multicenter randomized trial: the coordinating center's results].

AIM To make a randomized comparison of 2 consolidation treatment options (two patient groups): 2 cycles of cytarabine in average (Ig/m2 in Group 2) and standard (100 mg/mi2 in Group 1) doses in combination with idarubicin (8-12 mg/m2) and mitoxantrone (10 mg/m2), after two 7+3 induction cycles of daunorubicin (60 mg/mi2) and subsequent 6 cycles of maintenance therapy. SUBJECTS AND METHODS In January 2010 to October 2013, a Russian multicenter trial was conducted to treat patients with acute myeloid leukemias (AML) in accordance with the AML-01.10 protocol (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01587430). The trial enrolled 243 AML patients from 21 centers, including 71 patients (median age 38 years) from the State Hematology Center, Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation; 35 and 36 patients were randomized to Groups 1 and 2, respectively. The randomized groups were balanced by basic clinical and laboratory parameters. Favorable, intermediate, and high cytogenetic prognoses were in 14 (21.9%), 40 (62.5%), and 10 (15.6%) patients, respectively. RESULTS Prior to treatment, 2 patients died; one patient refused treatment. Fifty-eight (85.3%) of the 68 patients achieved complete remission (CR); early deaths was in 2 (2.9%) and resistance in 8 (11.8%). Four (6.9%) patients died during CR. Protocol deviations (doses, intervals, and the number of cycles) were recorded in 12 (20.7%) of the 58 patients. Other 8 (11.8%) patients were switched to low-dose cytarabine because of complications, withdrawn from the protocol and not included into the analysis of randomized comparison. Twenty allogeneic bone marrow transplantations (allo-BMT) (7 related, 12 unrelated, and 1 haploidentical) were performed; of them 15 allo-BMTs were done during first CR. In the 68 patients, 3-year overall survival (OS) was 45.6%; relapse-free survival (RFS) was 41.5%. OS was 64.6% in Group 1 and 58.3% in Group 2; RFS was 62 and 38.8% in Groups 1 and 2, respectively (p>0.5). In the favorable, intermediate, and high prognosis groups, OS was 79.5, 60, and 31.1% and RFS was 81.8, 41.3, and 33.3%, respectively (p=0.1). The consolidation treatment option unchanged survival rates in the above risk groups. Unachieved CR after the first cycle considerably decreased RFS (33.9% versus 60%) and served as an indication for allo-BMT during first CP (RFS without BMT was 0; that with BMT was 78%). CONCLUSION No differences were found between both consolidation options according to long-term results. Protocol deviations were recorded in one-third of the patients. While implementing the protocol, the efficiency of treatment was high. Allo-BMT during first CR substantially increased RFS if CP was not achieved after the first cycle.
Good features to map

In this paper visual homing is combined with an appearance model to obtain a navigation method that does not require estimates of the pose. The robot's current view is used to select a target from a collection of panoramic images that forms the map. This requires selecting features to find correspondences and in this paper some feature selection methods are evaluated to see which one is best suited for navigation.
AFLPs and Mitochondrial Haplotypes Reveal Local Adaptation to Extreme Thermal Environments in a Freshwater Gastropod

The way environmental variation shapes neutral and adaptive genetic variation in natural populations is a key issue in evolutionary biology. Genome scans allow the identification of the genetic basis of local adaptation without previous knowledge of genetic variation or traits under selection. Candidate loci for divergent adaptation are expected to show higher FST than neutral loci influenced solely by random genetic drift, migration and mutation. The comparison of spatial patterns of neutral markers and loci under selection may help disentangle the effects of gene flow, genetic drift and selection among populations living in contrasting environments. Using the gastropod Radix balthica as a system, we analyzed 376 AFLP markers and 25 mtDNA COI haplotypes for candidate loci and associations with local adaptation among contrasting thermal environments in Lake Mývatn, a volcanic lake in northern Iceland. We found that 2% of the analysed AFLP markers were under directional selection and 12% of the mitochondrial haplotypes correlated with differing thermal habitats. The genetic networks were concordant for AFLP markers and mitochondrial haplotypes, depicting distinct topologies at neutral and candidate loci. Neutral topologies were characterized by intense gene flow revealed by dense nets with edges connecting contrasting thermal habitats, whereas the connections at candidate loci were mostly restricted to populations within each thermal habitat and the number of edges decreased with temperature. Our results suggest microgeographic adaptation within Lake Mývatn and highlight the utility of genome scans in detecting adaptive divergence.
Bandwidth-Constrained Routing Problem in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

The bandwidth-constrained routing problem (BCRP) asks for a route that has sufficient bandwidth for data transmission. When BCRP is defined for wired networks, it can be solved in polynomial time. On the other hand, when it is defined for wireless ad hoc networks, it is NP-complete if the underlying MAC protocol is TDMA-based or CDMA-over-TDMA-based. In this paper, we show that BCRP is still NP-complete, even if CSMA-based or contention-based CDMA MAC prot.ocols are used. Besides, we show that BCRP is polynomial-time solvable if the channel model is collision-free and the scheduling policy is FIFO. In wireless ad hoc networks, no MAC protocol was designed before, which would lead to a polynomial-time solution to BCRP. The results of this paper suggest a design for MAC protocols that can support QoS routing well.