Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bare PC SIP User Agent Implementation and Performance for Secure VoIP

Bare PC systems, which run applications without using any operating system (OS) or kernel, are immune to attacks targeting a specific OS. They also perform better than conventional systems due to their reduced overhead. We describe the design, implementation and performance of a SIP user agent (UA) for secure VoIP on a bare PC system. In particular, we discuss SIP functions and message handling, and CPU tasking. We also give details of the UA design and code that enable a lean implementation of SIP to be intertwined with the network protocols needed for secure VoIP on a bare PC softphone. The interoperability of the bare PC SIP UA is verified by conducting tests using OS-based as well as bare PC SIP servers and UAs. We also study bare PC SIP UA performance by comparing timings for key SIP UA operations for the bare PC softphone with timings for a compatible Linux softphone. The results show that processing times for the SIP register and invite operations for the bare PC SIP softphone are significantly less than the corresponding times for the Linux softphone regardless of whether a bare PC or a Linux-based SIP server is used. Finally, we propose a simple security extension to SIP authentication that enables the session key exchange for media protection to be encrypted without incurring the overhead of TLS or IPsec. Bare PC SIP softphones can be used for building secure and efficient VoIP systems that do not require any OS support. Keywords-bare PC; SIP implementation; SIP performance; SIP user agent; VoIP; VoIP security.
Smile When You Read This, Whether You Like It or Not: Conceptual Challenges to Affect Detection

The survey by Calvo and D'Mello presents a useful overview of the progress of and issues in affect detection. They focus on emotion theories that are relevant to Affective Computing (AC) and suggest stronger collaborations between disciplines. My contribution emphasizes the importance of these issues for AC. In fact, empirical research strongly suggests that facial, vocal, and bodily expressions, subjective experience, and physiological changes are often not very highly correlated in spontaneous situations. Overestimating this cohesion limits the usefulness of affect detection methods in real-world applications. Other factors, such as social context, knowledge regarding the goals of certain interactions, as well as interindividual differences are critically important factors for improving affect detection. At times, social concepts, such as politeness, might be more conducive to model realistic behavior. Knowledge on affect perception is important to estimate the level of realism required to create satisfying and productive interactions between users and artificial systems. Interdisciplinary joint research between social and biological scientists on the one hand and computer scientists and engineers on the other is necessary to deal with the complexity of affective processes. All disciplines involved have much to gain in the process.
Microlensing towards M 31 with MDM data

We report the final analysis of a search for microlensing events in the direction of the Andromeda galaxy, which aimed to probe the MACHO composition of the M 31 halo using data collected during the 1998-1999 observational campaign at the MDM observatory. In a previous paper, we discussed the results from a first set of observations. Here, we deal with the complete data set, and we take advantage of some INT observations in the 1999-2000 seasons. This merging of data sets taken by different instruments turns out to be very useful, the study of the longer baseline available allowing us to test the uniqueness that is characteristic of microlensing events. As a result, all the candidate microlensing events previously reported turn out to be variable stars. We further discuss a selection based on different criteria, aimed at the detection of short-duration events. We find three candidates whose positions are consistent with self-lensing events, although the available data do not allow us to conclude unambiguously that they are due to microlensing.
Error-related potentials during continuous feedback: using EEG to detect errors of different type and severity

When a person recognizes an error during a task, an error-related potential (ErrP) can be measured as response. It has been shown that ErrPs can be automatically detected in tasks with time-discrete feedback, which is widely applied in the field of Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) for error correction or adaptation. However, there are only a few studies that concentrate on ErrPs during continuous feedback. With this study, we wanted to answer three different questions: (i) Can ErrPs be measured in electroencephalography (EEG) recordings during a task with continuous cursor control? (ii) Can ErrPs be classified using machine learning methods and is it possible to discriminate errors of different origins? (iii) Can we use EEG to detect the severity of an error? To answer these questions, we recorded EEG data from 10 subjects during a video game task and investigated two different types of error (execution error, due to inaccurate feedback; outcome error, due to not achieving the goal of an action). We analyzed the recorded data to show that during the same task, different kinds of error produce different ErrP waveforms and have a different spectral response. This allows us to detect and discriminate errors of different origin in an event-locked manner. By utilizing the error-related spectral response, we show that also a continuous, asynchronous detection of errors is possible. Although the detection of error severity based on EEG was one goal of this study, we did not find any significant influence of the severity on the EEG.
A novel approach for next‐generation sequencing of circulating tumor cells

Next‐generation sequencing (NGS) of surgically resected solid tumor samples has become integral to personalized medicine approaches for cancer treatment and monitoring. Liquid biopsies, or the enrichment and characterization of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from blood, can provide noninvasive detection of evolving tumor mutations to improve cancer patient care. However, the application of solid tumor NGS approaches to circulating tumor samples has been hampered by the low‐input DNA available from rare CTCs. Moreover, whole genome amplification (WGA) approaches used to generate sufficient input DNA are often incompatible with blood collection tube preservatives used to facilitate clinical sample batching.
Consumers' Sentiment Analysis of Popular Phone Brands and Operating System Preference Using Twitter Data: A Feasibility Study

Sentiment analysis of the text data available on the web either in the form of blogs or at social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, offers information through which to assess people's perspective of products and services that are of interest to them. Consumers routinely scour the Internet to assess other user's reviews for a product or a service before making their own decision. Likewise, these same data can potentially provide businesses a snapshot in time of the users' response to their products/services and even the trends over time. This information gained through sentiment analysis can then be used by businesses to make decisions about improving their products and services, and gain an increased edge over their competitors. In this paper, we illustrate the potential of sentiment analysis of Twitter data to gauge users' response to popular smart phone brands and their underlying operating systems. Specifically, our objective is to investigate whether the tweets available on the web are sufficient to gain useful insight about the performance of popular smart phone brands, their battery life, screen quality, and on the perceived performance of the phones operating systems. Our results show that although the Twitter data does provide some information about users' sentiments to the popular smart phone brands and their underlying operating systems, the amount of data available for different brands varies significantly. This limitation makes the comprehensive analysis of users' response somewhat more challenging for some brands compared to others and consequently makes the comparison between brands almost impossible.
Information Retrieval Meta-Evaluation: Challenges and Opportunities in the Music Domain

The Music Information Retrieval field has acknowledged the need for rigorous scientific evaluations for so me time now. Several efforts were set out to develop and pr ovide the necessary infrastructure, technology and methodologies to carry out these evaluations, out of which the annua l Music Information Retrieval Evaluation eXchange emerged. The community as a whole has enormously gained from this evaluation forum, but very little attention has bee n paid to reliability and correctness issues. From the standp oint of the analysis of experimental validity, this paper prese nts a survey of past meta-evaluation work in the context of Text Information Retrieval, arguing that the music community still needs to address various issues concerning th e evaluation of music systems and the IR cycle, point ing out directions for further research and proposals in th is line.
The dark halo of the main lens galaxy in QSO 0957 + 561

We present an analysis of infrared/optical/ultraviolet spectra of the two images of the first gravitationally lensed quasar Q0957 + 561A,B. The Hubble Space Telescope observations of Q0957 + 561A and Q0957 + 561B are separated in time by the known time delay in this system, so we can directly deduce the flux ratios. These flux ratios of images lead to important information on the dark halo of the main lens galaxy (a giant elliptical at redshift z = 0.36). Our measurements for the continuum are in good agreement with extinction in the elliptical galaxy and a small fraction of mass in collapsed objects (no need for gravitational microlensing). From the continuum and emission-line ratios, we also show evidence in favour of the existence of a network of compact dusty clouds. Ke yw ords: gravitational lensing ‐ dust, extinction ‐ galaxies: elliptical and lenticular, cD ‐ galaxies: haloes ‐ quasars: individual: QSO 0957 + 561 ‐ dark matter.
A new species of scincid lizard in the genus Caledoniscincus (Reptilia: Scincidae) from northwest New Caledonia

A new species of skink in the genus Caledoniscincus is described from the northwest region of New Caledonia. It is knownfrom two locations, one on the coast at Pointe de Vavouto north of Kone, the other on the slopes of the Massif d’Oua-zangou, an isolated mountain 30 km to the north. Typical of all members of the genus, adult males and females of the newspecies are sexually dichromatic. The new species, Caledoniscincus constellatus sp. nov., has a bold, white midlateralstripe, a feature which distinguishes it from most other species of Caledoniscincus except the regionally sympatric C. hap- lorhinus (Gunther) and C. austrocaledonicus (Bavay), from which it can be distinguished by a unique pattern of contactbetween the pale midlateral stripe and the ear. DNA sequence data for the ND2 mitochondrial gene identifies a high levelof genetic differentiation between the new species and all other Caledoniscincus, further supporting its distinctiveness asan independent evolutionary lineage. The species is of high conservation concern given its restricted distribution in a re-gion that has been, and will continue to be, heavily impacted by human occupation, and would be ranked as Critically Endangered under IUCN criteria.
SCALING EXPONENT FOR THE HOPF-COLE SOLUTION OF KPZ/STOCHASTIC BURGERS

AL¨ AINEN Abstract. We consider the stochastic heat equation @tZ = @ 2 x Z − Z u W on the real line, where u W is space-time white noise. h(t, x) = −log Z(t, x) is interpreted as a solution of the KPZ equation, and u(t, x) = @xh(t, x) as a solution of the stochastic Burgers equation. We take Z(0, x) = exp{B(x)} where B(x) is a two-sided Brownian motion, corresponding to the station- ary solution of the stochastic Burgers equation. We show that there exist 0 < c1 ≤ c2 < ∞ such that c1t 2/3 ≤ Var(log Z(t, x)) ≤ c2t 2/3 . Analogous results are obtained for some moments of the correlation func- tions of u(t, x). In particular, it is shown that the excess diffusivity satisfies c1t 1/3 ≤ D(t) ≤ c2t 1/3 . The proof uses approximation by weakly asymmetric simple exclusion pro- cesses, for which we obtain the microscopic analogies of the results by coupling.
Notice of RetractionThe sensitive feature selection for Chinese phrases

Traditional Chinese text chunking approach is to identify many phrases using only one model, and the same features are used to identify these phrases too. So the helpful features of each phrase are ignored. In fact, different phrases have different helpful features. In this paper, the concept of “sensitive feature” is proposed, and the sensitive features of seven Chinese types of phrases are selected by dynamic comparison strategy. Through testing on the Multi-agent Chinese chunking model, the selected sensitive features are effective.
Evaluation and Knowledge Representation Formalisms to Improve Video Understanding

This article presents a methodology to build efficient real-time semantic video understanding systems addressing real world problems. In our case, semantic video under- standing consists in the recognition of predefined scenario models in a given application domain starting from a pixel analysis up to a symbolic description of what is happening in the scene viewed by cameras. This methodology proposes to use evaluation to acquire knowledge of programs and to represent this knowledge with appropriate formalisms. First, to obtain efficiency, a formalism enables to model video processing programs and their associated parameter adaptation rules. These rules are written by experts after performing a technical evaluation. Second, a scenario for- malism enables experts to model their needs and to easily refine their scenario models to adapt them to real-life situa- tions. This refinement is performed with an end-user evalu- ation. This second part ensures that systems match end-user expectations. Results are reported for scenario recognition performances on real video sequences taken from a bank agency monitoring application.
Design of a fast charging system for service robots

In this paper, a fast charging system (FCS) is designed for service robots. In this design, batteries are used to due to its energy density, whereas supercapacitors (SCs) are used to enhance the power density. DC-DC converter controls the FCS. The main advantage of the design of fast charging system is that, the SCs are charged with a large current fast and then discharge to the batteries with small current slowly. This feature is beneficial for batteries' long-life and store more energy for service robots which have been in great demand for multiple purposes, such as elderly care, child education etc. Some experimental and testing results are presented to validate the design of FCS for service robots.
Trajectory planning and control for precision positioning table driven by a PMSM

In this paper, we propose a novel trajectory planning method for a precision positioning table driven by a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM). To generate the mechatronic trajectory we develop a real-coded genetic algorithm (RGA) to search for the optimal trajectory for the motion. In this method, we design a high-degree polynomial to compute minimum-energy trajectories, and consider the problem of initial and final constraints in the algorithm. The RGA determines the parameters, which are to formulate the polynomial, and satisfy the desired fitness function of the minimum input energy. The adaptive control (AC) are developed based on mathematical knowledge of the precision positioning table and the PMSM. The proposed adaptive control is robust not only to parametric uncertainties of mass variations but also to external disturbances. The effectiveness of the proposed trajectory planning and adaptive control are demonstrated by numerical simulations in the point to point motion processes for the precision positioning table.
Coherence Relations in Primary School Textbooks: Variation across School Subjects

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to compare the use of coherence relations in the school textbooks of four primary school subjects. A corpus of 1,882 texts, corresponding to the genres used to teach in the school textbooks of Science, Language, Mathematics, and History, was analyzed. The analysis was performed manually using a taxonomy that incorporates and adapts criteria developed in the Cognitive approach to Coherence Relations and in the Connectivity Model. Results show that while some relations are used across school subjects (Conjunction, Concept Description), others are used almost exclusively in certain school subjects (Condition-Event in Science, Basic Contrast in History, Deictic in Language, and Condition-Question in Mathematics). Considering that types of coherence relations are different in terms of internal complexity, these results may represent relevant information for classroom instruction, primary school textbook design, and text comprehension research.
Identifying Teacher Questions Using Automatic Speech Recognition in Classrooms

We investigate automatic question detection from recordings of teacher speech collected in live classrooms. Our corpus contains audio recordings of 37 class sessions taught by 11 teachers. We automatically segment teacher speech into utterances using an amplitude envelope thresholding approach followed by filtering non-speech via automatic speech recognition (ASR). We manually code the segmented utterances as containing a teacher question or not based on an empirically-vali-dated scheme for coding classroom discourse. We compute domain-independent natural language processing (NLP) features from transcripts generated by three ASR engines (AT&T, Bing Speech, and Azure Speech). Our teacher-independent supervised machine learning model detects questions with an overall weighted F 1 score of 0.59, a 51% improvement over chance. Furthermore, the proportion of automatically-detected questions per class session strongly correlates (Pearson’s r = 0.85) with human-coded question rates. We consider our results to reflect a substantial (37%) improvement over the state-of-the-art in automatic question detection from naturalistic audio. We conclude by discussing applications of our work for teachers, researchers, and other stakeholders.
Image segmentation based on Differential Evolution algorithm

Threshold segmentation is a critical technology of image segmentation. When the image is low signal-to-noise, the maximum between-cluster variance method (OTSU) cannot provide the ideal result. The 2D maximum between-cluster variance method can perform well with sharply increased computation. This work proposes a new image segmentation method based on OTSU and Differential Evolution. This solution performs a pre-processing step before the image segmentation. It is shown that Differential Evolution presents good segmentation result in noisy images. Moreover, the use of this method is easier and faster compared to the 2D maximum between-cluster variance method.
The Effect of Levothyroxine Discontinuation Timing on Postoperative Hypothyroidism after Hemithyroidectomy for Papillary Thyroid Microcarcinoma

Objective. No previous studies regarding the appropriate timing of thyroid hormone discontinuation after hemithyroidectomy have been published. This study aimed to identify the appropriate timing for levothyroxine discontinuation after hemithyroidectomy among patients with papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC). Methods. This study retrospectively evaluated 304 patients who underwent ≥1 attempt to discontinue levothyroxine after hemithyroidectomy for treating PTMC between January 2008 and December 2013. Fifty-three patients were excluded because of preoperative hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism, a history of thyroid hormone or antithyroid therapy, no available serological data, or a postoperative follow-up of <24 months. We evaluated the associations of successful levothyroxine discontinuation with patient age, sex, preoperative serological data, underlying thyroid gland histopathology, anteroposterior diameter of the residual thyroid gland, number of discontinuation attempts, and initial discontinuation timing. Results. Among the 251 included patients, 125 patients (49.8%) achieved successful levothyroxine discontinuation during the follow-up period after hemithyroidectomy. There was a significant difference in the outcomes for patients who underwent an initial discontinuation attempt at ≤3 months and ≥4 months after hemithyroidectomy (p < 0.001). There were significant differences in the discontinuation outcomes according to underlying thyroid histopathology (p = 0.001), preoperative thyroid-stimulating hormone levels (p < 0.001), and number of discontinuation attempts (p < 0.001). Conclusions. Among patients with PTMC, the initial levothyroxine discontinuation attempt is recommended at ≥4 months after hemithyroidectomy.
Fas-Dependent Elimination of Nonselected CD8 Cells and lpr Disease1

MHC/self peptide interactions with cognate coreceptor/TCR complexes are central to homeostasis of the T cell repertoire. Recent reports have also underlined the critical role of IL-15/IL-2 cytokines in regulating this homeostatic process. In this study, we investigate mechanisms that regulate potentially autoreactive CD8 cells that have escaped intrathymic selection. These cells, upon exit from the thymus, express high levels of CD44, B220, and the IL-15R/IL-2R, and undergo fas-dependent apoptosis. Defects in fas signaling allow increased IL-15/IL-2-dependent survival of these CD44/B220+ CD8+ as well as the double-negative T cells characteristic of lpr disease.
Music Matching Based on Rough Longest Common Subsequence

In this paper we proposed a music matching method, called the RLCS (rough longest common subsequence) method. It is an improved version of the LCS to avoid some problems occurring in global alignment matching. First a rough equality for two notes is defined for constructing the RLCS of two music fragments. The length of the RLCS of two music sequences defined in this work is a real number, called a weighted length. It is evaluated according to the degree of similarity of every pair of matched notes from the two sequences. This method takes into account both the width-across-query (WAQ) and the width-across-reference (WAR) and combines them with the weighted length of the corresponding RLCS to define a score measurement for the RLCS. The measurement associated with WAQ and WAR enables the proposed method to tolerate dense errors. A dynamic programming algorithm is presented for simultaneously calculating the weighted length of RLCS, the WAQ, the WAR, and the score to determine the RLCS. As a result, the proposed method can perform the matching in a better and simpler manner. In order to speed up the matching process, we use the filtering algorithm proposed by Tarhio and Ukkonen [22] to filter the reference and discard most of the reference areas that do not match. We applied the proposed algorithm to content-based music retrieval. The experimental results showed that with our proposed algorithm the retrieval system provides a higher retrieval rate than that with the local alignment method proposed by Suyoto et al. [20]. The use of the filtering algorithm has been shown to greatly reduce the computation time for exact matching and for approximate matching with a low error tolerance.