Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A quick sequential forward floating feature selection algorithm for emotion detection from speech

In this paper we present an improved Sequential Forward Floating Search algorithm. Subsequently, extensive tests are carried out on a selection of French emotional language resources well suited for a ﬁrst impression on general applicabil-ity. A detailed analysis is presented to test the various modiﬁcations suggested one-by-one. Our conclusion is that the modiﬁcation in the forward step result in a considerable improvement in speed ( ∼ 80%) while no considerable and systematic loss in quality is experienced. The modiﬁcations in the backward step seem to have only signiﬁcance when a higher number of features is achieved. The ﬁnal clariﬁcation of this issue remains the task of future work. As a result we may suggest a quick feature selection algorithm, which is practically more suitable for the state of the art, larger corpora and wider feature-banks. Our quick SFFS is general: it can also be used in any other ﬁeld of application.
Challenges in computing semantic relatedness for large semantic graphs

The research presented in this paper is part of an ongoing work to define semantic relatedness measures to any given semantic graph. These measures are based on a prior definition of a family of proximity algorithms that computes the semantic relatedness between pairs of concepts, and are parametrized by a semantic graph and a set of weighted properties. The distinctive feature of the proximity algorithms is that they consider all paths connecting two concepts in the semantic graph. These parameters must be tuned in order to maximize the quality of the semantic measure against a benchmark data set. From a previous work, the process of tuning the weight assignment is already developed and relies on a genetic algorithm. The weight tuning process, using all the properties in the semantic graph, was validated using WordNet 2.0 and the data set WordSim-353. The quality of the obtained semantic measure is better than those in the literature. However, this approach did not produce equally good results in larger semantic graphs such as WordNet 3.0, DBPedia and Freebase. This was in part due to the size of these graphs. The current approach is to select a sub-graph of the original semantic graph, small enough to enable processing and large enough to include all the relevant paths. This paper provides an overview of the ongoing work and presents a strategy to overcome the challenges raise by large semantic graphs.
In-network performance of handheld mobile terminals

This paper considers a realistic evaluation of the power mobile handsets are able to transmit and receive. It has been suggested to use the so-called total radiated power (TRP) and the total isotropic sensitivity (TIS) for the uplink and downlink, respectively, which may be seen as special cases of the general mean-effective-gain (MEG) measure. These measures are computed from the spherical radiation pattern of the handset and the different measures are obtained by using different models of the mobile propagation environment. In this paper, the results obtained via the spherical radiation patterns are compared with the equivalent performance obtained in a live Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network using data from the Abis network interface. This method does not require altering of the handsets and the testing uses normal calls in the network. The investigation is based on measurements with four different commercially available handsets carried out in two different indoor environments and involving 22 test users. In addition, a series of measurements were also made with a phantom simulating the handset user, allowing a test of how well the phantom represents the average user
Toward A New Framework for Presence Evaluation : A Representational Design Perspective

Although researchers suggest that presence is a multi-dimensional concept, little research is available to explain the underlying relationships among the dimensions and variables. Presence is regarded as illdefined because of this measurement issue. This article proposes to look at presence as a representational issue and to inspect presence using a systematic approach. A new framework with four components for presence evaluation is introduced. It argues that investigating how media content affects presence is the solution to achieving a more complete understanding of presence and to taking individual characteristics and contexts as important factors in presence study. The article also presents a plan of empirical study designed to test narrative contrasted to expository text in an instructional design to evaluate presence.
Least-Cost Watershed Management Solutions: Using GIS Data in Economic Modeling of a Watershed *

Phosphorus pollution from excessive litter application causes eutorphication of lakes in the Eucha-Spavinaw watershed in eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas. Consequent algal blooms impair the taste of municipal water supply drawn from the watershed. The paper shows how GIS data based biophysical modeling can be used to derive spatially optimal, least-cost allocation of management practices to reduce phosphorus runoff in the watershed. Transportation activities were added to the model so that transport of litter within and out of the watershed was possible. Results from the mathematical program suggest that uniform regulation of litter application is excessively costly regulatory measure and hence a regulation that assigns management practices according to the specific spatial characteristics is preferred. The results also show that alum based litter additives may be economically efficient management option.
Revisiting Security Ontologies

Contemporary exploration of all stages of service models clearly proves the immense significance of "Security in Cloud Computing", which being as obtuse as it is pertinent, demands attention. An analysis of recent studies depicts certain useful approaches for the fulfilment of security objective; however, these advancements are largely inconsistent with the forays of research in other fields. Numerous technologies amalgamate in the implementation of cloud computing security, one of which is ontology. In this paper, a critical study of security ontologies has been accomplished in which these ontologies have been further classified into three major categories: Generalized, Specific with sub categories: Web Services (WS) and Web Ontology Language (OWL) based Security Ontologies, Network Security Ontologies, Security Requirements Ontologies, Risk based Security Ontologies and Application based Security Ontologies; and Miscellaneous. The present research aims to firstly, classify the above-said ontologies and thereby offer a prismatic analysis of the same. By using ontology, one can aim at securing the cloud through security countermeasures with consideration of applicable threats and security solutions deployed to support appropriate security services and objectives.
Generalised selection combining diversity performance of multi-element antenna systems via a stochastic electromagnetic-circuit methodology

A stochastic electromagnetic-circuit methodology for evaluating the generalised selection combining (GSC) diversity performance of coupled and arbitrarily terminated multi-element antenna (MEA) systems when operating in Rayleigh fading environments is proposed. The methodology is based on the effective length matrix, which connects the incident electric fields to the received voltage and current vectors, and on the newly introduced stochastic generation of realistic propagation environments by means of the angular power density functions and the cross polarisation power ratio of the incoming plane waves. The generated statistical ensemble of voltage and current vectors is then used to determine the receive GSC diversity performance metrics, that is mean effective gain (MEG), envelope correlation coefficient (ρe) and effective diversity gain (EDG). Two compact MEA configurations comprising two and four printed inverted F antennas (IFA) operating in a uniform propagation scenario at the 5.2 GHz band are investigated under various GSC schemes, which include the selection (SC) and the maximal ratio (MRC) as special cases. The simulated values of MEG, ρe and EDG under the MRC scheme are in excellent agreement to those obtained from well-established closed-form methodologies.
Revisiting the Income-Health Nexus: The Importance of Choosing the 'Right' Indicator

We show that the choice of the welfare measure has a substantial impact on the degree of welfare-related health inequality. Combining various income and wealth measures with different health measures, we calculate 80 health concentration indices. The influence of the welfare measure is more pronounced when using subjective health measures than when using objective health measures.
TransCom model simulations of hourly atmospheric CO2: Experimental overview and diurnal cycle results for 2002

A forward atmospheric transport modeling experiment has been coordinated by the TransCom group to investigate synoptic and diurnal variations in CO2. Model simulations were run for biospheric, fossil, and air‐sea exchange of CO2 and for SF6 and radon for 2000–2003. Twenty‐five models or model variants participated in the comparison. Hourly concentration time series were submitted for 280 sites along with vertical profiles, fluxes, and meteorological variables at 100 sites. The submitted results have been analyzed for diurnal variations and are compared with observed CO2 in 2002. Mean summer diurnal cycles vary widely in amplitude across models. The choice of sampling location and model level account for part of the spread suggesting that representation errors in these types of models are potentially large. Despite the model spread, most models simulate the relative variation in diurnal amplitude between sites reasonably well. The modeled diurnal amplitude only shows a weak relationship with vertical resolution across models; differences in near‐surface transport simulation appear to play a major role. Examples are also presented where there is evidence that the models show useful skill in simulating seasonal and synoptic changes in diurnal amplitude.
Design of PKI and Password Protected Card-Based Double Authentication Single Sign-On System

To design a more secure and efficient single sign-on system, this paper analyzed the popular single sign-on systems and then introduced the original design model of SSO, due to the limitation of the original design model, we present the proposed design model named as PKI and password protected card-based single sign-on system (3PC-SSO), which combines the advantages of Kerberos and PKI-based single sign-on system. Finally, we analyze two problems of 3PC-SSO and discuss the future work.
A probe system for analyzing transmission and playback quality of online videos

The paper presents a new kind of probe system for measuring transmission and playback quality of online videos from the edge of the network. The system mainly consists of a management platform planted on the cloud monitoring platform and several probes deployed in our campus network. The probes are designed to collect measured video-performance data and then transfer to the platform to store. Much attention are paid to the quality and characteristics of the HTTP stream and also the effects caused by the web pages and other contents by this system, which is superior to traditional tools. Besides that, the probes can be deployed very fast and automatically in a large-scare network based on the advantage of our cloud platform.
An Optimal Independent Component Analysis Approach for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Data

Traditional Independent Component Analysis (ICA) algorithms are based upon the underlying assumption that data implicitly model the probability density functions of the latent sources as highly symmetric. However, when source data violate these assumption, traditional methods might not work well. We propose an Optimal ICA method to model underlying sources, involving two stages procedure. For the first stage, a traditional ICA method is used to obtain initial source estimates, and then, the density of each channel source is calculated with a kernel estimator. At the second stage, it refitts each source by an adaptive nonlinear function. Our simulation data and fMRI experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can separate a wide range of source signal and improve performance on intrinsic skewed data such as the Brain Plasticity during Lexical Associating Learning data.
The Issue of Mutuality in ECR Adoption: A Case Study

The adoption of ECR has been slow in many regions, despite its many potential benefits to manufacturers, distributors and retailers within a supply chain through reduction of inventory level and operating costs. There has not been any well-developed theory that can explain this slow uptake. In this paper, we argue that the inherent characteristics of ECR have actually created barriers to its own adoption. As an inter-organisational system, ECR adoption requires cooperation and trust between trading partners, which are not likely to happen unless costs, benefits and risks of ECR implementation can be mutually shared. We show using a case study conducted within one supply chain that an unequal distribution of costs, benefits and risks among manufacturer, distributor and retailer is inherent in the implementation of crossdocking, which typifies the overall ECR program. We also describe how one party in the supply chain is attempting to solve this problem of mutuality. The findings of this study lead to a new direction in understanding the barriers to adoption of ECR and inter-organisational systems in general.
Urinary Metabolic Biomarker and Pathway Study of Hepatitis B Virus Infected Patients Based on UPLC-MS System

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is the fatal consequence of chronic hepatitis, and lack of biomarkers has been a long standing bottleneck in the clinical diagnosis. Metabolomics concerns with comprehensive analysis of small molecules and provides a powerful approach to discover biomarkers in biological systems. Here, we present metabolomics analysis applying ultra-performance liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization quadruple time-of-flight mass spectrometry. (UPLC-Q-TOF-HDMS) to determine metabolite alterations in HBV patients. Most important permutations are elaborated using multivariate statistical analysis and network analysis that was used to select the metabolites for the noninvasive diagnosis of HBV. In this study, the total 11 urinary differential metabolites were identified and contributed to HBV progress involving several key metabolic pathways by using pathway analysis with MetPA, which are promising biomarker candidates for diagnostic research. More importantly, of 11 altered metabolites, 4 metabolite markers were effective for the diagnosis of human HBV, achieved a satisfactory accuracy, sensitivity and specificity, respectively. It demonstrates that metabolomics has the potential as a non-invasive tool to evaluate the potential of these metabolites in the early diagnosis of HBV patients. These findings may be promising to yield a valuable insight into the pathophysiology of HBV and to advance the approaches of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.
Design of a Wearable Device for Reading Positive Expressions from Facial EMG Signals

In this paper we present the design of a wearable device that reads positive facial expressions using physiological signals. We first analyze facial morphology in 3 dimensions and facial electromyographic signals on different facial locations and show that we can detect electromyographic signals with high amplitude on areas of low facial mobility on the side of the face, which are correlated to ones obtained from electrodes on traditional surface electromyographic capturing positions on top of facial muscles on the front of the face. We use a multi-attribute decision-making method to find adequate electrode positions on the side of face to capture these signals. Based on this analysis, we design and implement an ergonomic wearable device with high reliability. Because the signals are recorded distally, the proposed device uses independent component analysis and an artificial neural network to analyze them and achieve a high facial expression recognition rate on the side of the face. The recognized emotional facial expressions through the wearable interface device can be recorded during therapeutic interventions and for long-term facial expression recognition to quantify and infer the user's affective state in order to support medical professionals.
A Secure Reactive Ad Hoc Routing Protocol

A light-weight approach for securing On-demand routing protocols for Ad hoc network SOARP, is presented. Pairwise shared keys between pairs of mobile nodes and hash values keyed with them (K-MAC: Keyed Message Authentication Code) are employed to authenticate routing messages and the validity of the path selected, which makes our approach computationally efficient compared with prior approaches based on digital signatures. Security measures for preventing, detecting and responding to attacks are also presented to secure the forwarding of data packets in addition to the signaling messages of the routing protocol. Security analysis and simulations show that our approach can be used in Controlled Ad-hoc networks, and effectively thwarts many attacks to the routing process caused by malicious or compromised nodes.
Auditor Choice and Cost of Debt Financing for Private SMEs

This study examines relation of the auditor choice and cost of debt financing for private SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises). In particular, it examines whether choice of a certified auditor or reputable international audit firm provides economic value to private SMEs as a factor lowering firms' information problems and cost of debt financing in the capital markets. Using time-series cross-sectional data of 832 Finnish private and limited SMEs, results indicate that the choice of an international brand name audit firm is negatively related to estimated cost of debt finance for SMEs. Results are shown to be robust to effects of relevant firm-specific characteristics, and to possible self-selection bias related to firm' s auditor choice. The reported relation between the choice of a certified auditor and cost of debt financing is negative as expected, but lacks statistical significance.
NSC : A New Progressive Sampling Algorithm

As the size of the databases increases, machine learning algorithms face more demanding requirements for efficiency and accuracy. Rather than analyzing all the data, an alternative approach is to use only a small subset trying to achieve competitive results with less resources. Progressive sampling follows this approach, starting with a small sample of data and increasing the size progressively until the accuracy (or other performance measure) cannot be improved. Progressive sampling aims for equivalent accuracies obtained with all the data but with significantly less resources. This paper introduces a new progressive sampling algorithm called NSC which: (i) defines an initial data set with a simple to evaluate measure and close to the sample size where the accuracy no longer improves, (ii) proposes a sampling schedule which is more aggressive than arithmetic sampling but more conservative than the standard geometric sampling with a geometric factor of 2, and (iii) introduces a termination criterion based on an adaptive local linear regression algorithm and on the complexity of the machine learning algorithm used to generate models. It is shown experimentally that NSC consistently outperforms both arithmetic and geometric sampling on several databases.
Scalable TCP: Better Throughput in TCP Congestion Control Algorithms on MANETs

In the modern mobile communication world the congestion control algorithms role is vital to data transmission between mobile devices. It provides better and reliable communication capabilities in all kinds of networking environment. The wireless networking technology and the new kind of requirements in communication systems needs some extensions to the original design of TCP for on coming technology development. This work aims to analyze some TCP congestion control algorithms and their performance on Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANET). More specifically, we describe performance behavior of BIC, Vegas and Scalable TCP congestion control algorithms. The evaluation is simulated through Network Simulator (NS2) and the performance of these algorithms is analyzed in the term of efficient data transmission in wireless and mobile environment.
Transmit power minimization for Poisson distributed wireless ad-hoc relay networks in Rayleigh fading channels

In this paper, power minimization for Poisson distributed random relay networks in Rayleigh fading channels is considered. We investigate two power allocation methods; one is a minimum power allocation (MPA) strategy and the other is an equal outage power allocation (EOPA) strategy. We analyze the total transmit power of two allocation methods under the given end-to-end outage probability constraint. Our results show that the MPA achieves more power saving than EOPA, and the power saving is more significant as the number of relay nodes increases.
On the singular perturbation approach to trajectory control of a multilink manipulator with flexible links and joints

Abstract The singular perturbation approach has been shown to be successful in controlling both flexible link manipulators and flexible joint manipulators. In this paper, the technique is extended to control both link and joint flexibility of a multilink manipulator simultaneously while a desired trajectory is being tracked. A comprehensive, closed-form, Euler-Lagrange, assumed-mode model of a multilink manipulator has been formulated in which the effects of the link and joint flexibility are incorporated. This is then converted into a two-time-scale, state-space, singular perturbation model where the slow subsystem involves the link angles and the fast subsystem consists of the joint deflection and the link deflection variables. A composite controller is designed based on the two-time-scale model of the flexible link and joint manipulator. Numerical simulation results confirm that the proposed controller satisfactorily suppresses the tip deflection and joint flexibility of the manipulator while very good trajectory tracking is achieved.
Train to gain – The benefits of employee-financed training in Germany

Individual returns on continuing vocational training have been in the focus of many empirical and theoretical papers. Most of the works do not explicitly discuss returns to training that is financed fully or partly by the employee. This seems surprising since several publicly funded programs to increase training participation aim at a stronger employee involvement in the financing of continuing vocational training. This paper analyses the participation in and the determinants and effects of employee-financed training using German panel data. The question is addressed, which employees invest and which benefit from training. Results show that employee-investment in training yields only moderate wage returns and has no significant impact on the further career development, especially when compared to the effects of enterprise-financed training. On the other hand, employees financing their own training gain in terms of unemployment risk reduction and the improvement in the matching of individual skills and job requirements.