Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Climate Change Impacts on the Upper Indus Hydrology: Sources, Shifts and Extremes

The Indus basin heavily depends on its upstream mountainous part for the downstream supply of water while downstream demands are high. Since downstream demands will likely continue to increase, accurate hydrological projections for the future supply are important. We use an ensemble of statistically downscaled CMIP5 General Circulation Model outputs for RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 to force a cryospheric-hydrological model and generate transient hydrological projections for the entire 21st century for the upper Indus basin. Three methodological advances are introduced: (i) A new precipitation dataset that corrects for the underestimation of high-altitude precipitation is used. (ii) The model is calibrated using data on river runoff, snow cover and geodetic glacier mass balance. (iii) An advanced statistical downscaling technique is used that accounts for changes in precipitation extremes. The analysis of the results focuses on changes in sources of runoff, seasonality and hydrological extremes. We conclude that the future of the upper Indus basin’s water availability is highly uncertain in the long run, mainly due to the large spread in the future precipitation projections. Despite large uncertainties in the future climate and long-term water availability, basin-wide patterns and trends of seasonal shifts in water availability are consistent across climate change scenarios. Most prominent is the attenuation of the annual hydrograph and shift from summer peak flow towards the other seasons for most ensemble members. In addition there are distinct spatial patterns in the response that relate to monsoon influence and the importance of meltwater. Analysis of future hydrological extremes reveals that increases in intensity and frequency of extreme discharges are very likely for most of the upper Indus basin and most ensemble members.
OPTIMIZED FORWARD / INVERSE QUANTIZATION UNIT FOR H . 264 / AVC CODECS

A novel class of high performance dedicated functional unit s for the computation of the H.264/AVC quantization and rescaling operations is presented in this paper. Such optimized processing structures are based on a set of highly flexible and fast architectures, which can be co nfigured to provide different trade-offs in terms of performance and hardware cost. Experimental results obtai ned using a Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA demonstrated the superiority of the proposed architectures in terms of pe r ormance and hardware efficiency. Moreover, these results also proved that their corresponding functio al units can realize the H.264/AVC quantization and rescaling operations in real-time, for video sequences wit h resolutions up to the Digital Cinema format.
The dissociation of deaccenting, Givenness, and syntactic role in spontaneous speech.

This study examines co-referential repetitions in task-oriented dialogue for characteristics conducive to the lowered clarity of words naming Given entities. Pairs of word tokens repeatedly mentioning the same entity within a single task-oriented dialogue (n=294) and pairs introducing an entity in separate dialogues (n=48) were compared. In both samples intelli gibilit y and length fell significantly with repeated mention. Deaccented second mentions, thought to be largely responsible for this effect, were rare (15% within, 6% between dialogues) and did not account for effects of repetition. Repetitions within sentences of the same structure are thought to encourage deaccenting, but were not common (6%, 35%), and structural similarity did not encourage deaccenting. Similarity in the conversational role of carrier utterances was associated with higher rates of similar structure among re-introductions, but not with increased frequency of deaccenting. Thus, factors which should promote marking of Givenness are either lacking or ineffective.
Testing the School System: Dropouts, Accountability, and Social Policy

The great strength of the Levin article is that it makes clear the immense importance of the dropout issue, which has very broad social and political ramifications. The issue is important because it represents one way to address the general problem of equity: How can we help the disadvantaged of our society? The notion that we can identify those in need of help early, while they are still in school, and provide preemptive assistance is very appealing both on humanitarian and on practical and economic grounds. The dropout issue also raises serious questions about the personal and social purposes of schooling, and about the quality of our public schools. I believe that Levin has dismissed these too quickly in his haste to make a case for the "second chance" option. In this paper I would like first to identify those parts of Levin's argument that I believe are significantly flawed and that limit the utility of the policy alternative proposed. Then I will present an alternative line of argument, together with a policy prescription, that I believe more appropriately addresses the "dropout problem" (I will argue later that the label itself is seriously misleading). Part of the tone of my reaction is based on the fact that I am presently spending much energy on a parent involvement project in elementary schools that is intended, in part, to address the dropout issue in secondary schools by addressing the "participation" hypothesis of Jeremy Finn
Weight Change and the Risk of Late-Onset Breast Cancer in the Original Framingham Cohort

Abstract: Objective: Adult weight gain has been associated with a twofold risk of postmenopausal breast cancer. Data are limited regarding whether weight gain at specific periods of marked changes in estrogen- and insulin-related hormones have different risk associations. This study assesses the relation of adult weight change overall and at specific, hormonally relevant times with diagnosis of a first breast cancer after age 55 (late onset). Methods: Framingham study data were used to assess premenopausal (25-44 yr), perimenopausal (45-55 yr), postmenopausal (after 55 yr), and adult lifetime (from 25 yr) weight change in relation to late-onset breast cancer in 2,873 women followed for up to 48 yr, with 206 late-onset breast cancers. Results: Adult lifetime weight gain was associated with an increased risk of late-onset breast cancer (P trend = 0.046). Weight gain during specific time periods was not associated with breast cancer. Data suggested a possible decreased risk of breast cancer with weight loss from ages 25 to 44 and 45 to 55 yr (relative risk = 0.4 [0.2-1.2] and 0.5 [0.3-0.9], respectively). Conclusion: These data confirm prior reports of an association between adult lifetime weight gain and increased risk of late-onset breast cancer and support current recommendations to avoid adult weight gain.
The acquisition of ergative languages

Ergative languages have challenged the ingenuity of linguists for more than a century. This article explores learnability problems associated with the acquisition of ergative languages. Traditionally, an ergative language is one which treats the subjects of intransitive verbs in the same way as the objects of transitive verbs. Languages may have rules which operate on a morphologically or syntactically ergative basis, but all languages are syntactically accusative to some extent. Both types of ergativity raise problems for language-acquisition theory. Children acquiring ergative morphologies must learn to distinguish between the subjects of transitive and intransitive verbs. Acquisition data suggest that children acquire ergative and accusative morphological systems equally easily. This finding supports a distributional learning procedure. Learnability considerations rule out the existence of syntactically ergative languages in the sense of Marantzs (1984) ergativity hypothesis. Unambiguous evidence of syntactic ergativity only appears in complex sentences; thus, children cannot use data within simple, active sentences to establish whether or not their language is syntactically ergative. Children acquiring languages with ergative syntactic constructions must learn when the direct object of a transitive verb functions as a syntactic pivot. Acquisition data for ergative syntactic constructions in K'iche' and Kaluli suggest that children initially fail to recognize ergative constraints on syntactic rules. This finding supports semantic bootstrapping as an acquisition mechanism for the initial construction of syntactic structure.
Smartphone enabled person authentication based on ear biometrics and arm gesture

Smartphones are arguably candidates to become the platform of choice for ubiquitous biometric-based identity verification, thanks to their embedded sensors, reasonably good computing power and widespread diffusion. While applications of the most established biometrics like face, fingerprint and even iris have already been proposed on mobile devices, other less exploited identifiers could also be worth investigating. To this regard, a novel multi-modal approach to person authentication based on ear biometrics and gesture analysis is proposed in this paper. The idea is to coupling the discriminant power of ear, captured during the act of responding to a phone call, with the user's arm dynamics affecting the smartphone motion pattern due to behavioral and anatomical characteristics involved in this gesture. According to experiments conducted on a specifically built multi-modal database comprising a hundred subjects, we confirm that the “responding gesture” has significant discriminating power and combined to ear features provides even greater robustness and accuracy in mobile authentication scenarios.
Foot structure and muscle reaction time to a simulated ankle sprain.

CONTEXT Foot structure has been shown to affect aspects of neuromuscular control, including postural stability and proprioception. However, despite an association between pronated and supinated foot structures and the incidence of lateral ankle sprains, no one to our knowledge has measured muscle reaction time to a simulated ankle-sprain mechanism in participants with different foot structures. OBJECTIVE To determine whether pronated or supinated foot structures contribute to neuromuscular deficits as measured by muscle reaction time to a simulated ankle-sprain mechanism. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. SETTING University biomechanics laboratory. PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS Thirty volunteers were categorized into 3 groups according to navicular-drop-height measures. Ten participants (4 men, 6 women) had neutral feet (navicular-drop height = 5-9 mm), 10 participants (4 men, 6 women) had pronated feet (navicular-drop height ≥ 10 mm), and 10 participants (4 men, 6 women) had supinated feet (navicular-drop height ≤ 4 mm). INTERVENTION(S) Three perturbations on a standing tilt platform simulating the mechanics of an inversion and plantar-flexion ankle sprain. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S) Muscle reaction time in milliseconds of the peroneus longus, tibialis anterior, and gluteus medius to the tilt-platform perturbation. RESULTS Participants with pronated or supinated foot structures had slower peroneus longus reaction times than participants with neutral feet (P = .01 and P = .04, respectively). We found no differences for the tibialis anterior or gluteus medius. CONCLUSIONS Foot structure influenced peroneus longus reaction time. Further research is required to establish the consequences of slower peroneal reaction times in pronated and supinated foot structures. Researchers investigating lower limb muscle reaction time should control for foot structure because it may influence results.
Haptic Interface Using Estimatio of Box Contents Metaphor

We propose a new haptic interface for handheld devices using the “estimation of box contents” metaphor. This metaphor refers to a situation in which a person shakes a box to determine what is contained in it. In this interface, a handheld device is compared to a box, and the information contained in the device is compared to an object contained in the box. The user can determine if information is present by shaking the device. With this type of interaction, the user can use handheld devices in the same way that he or she uses non-information tools. This is an approach to equalizing information device operation and non-information tool operation by using haptic interactions. We construct a prototype device to examine the applicability of this interface. The experimental result reveals there is a possibility of simplifying the structure of the system by leveraging the periodicity of shaking.
NEXT-FIT: Available Bandwidth Measurement over 4G/LTE Networks -- A Curve-Fitting Approach

Available bandwidth (ABW) estimation in wireless networks is a critical issue for quality-of-service (QoS) provisioning. Nowadays, a network path often contains at least one wireless link e.g., mobile users having wireless connection to the Internet through laptop PCs or smartphones. Most of the existing tools for measuring ABW have been developed and evaluated in wired networks. Since the characteristics of wired links and wireless links differ in many respects, such as fluctuations incapacity and stability due to the shared and unreliable nature of the wireless links, ABW estimation tools also need to be evaluated for network paths containing at least one wireless link. In this paper, we have extended our previous work, New Enhanced Available Bandwidth Estimation Technique (NEXT) by introducing a parameter-independent curve-fitting technique to detect the ABW from a one-way queuing delay signature and conducted a real test over a radio interface in a 4G/LTE mobile communication network. For the experiments, a commercial 4G/LTE mobile network of a Japanese mobile operator was used. Extensive simulations over an IEEE 802.11 network were also performed. Simulation results as well as real-world experimental results demonstrate that it is feasible to achieve reliable estimates under certain circumstances. Our extended approach, which we call NEXT -- FIT, has very good ABW estimation results under conditions of different packet sizes, dynamic wireless link rates, and channel noises.
Configurality in multiple-cue probability learning.

Judges were trained with feedback to predict a numerical criterion from pairs of numerical cues. "Configurality" in the functions relating the cues to the criterion was analyzed by factorially separating forms of additivity and nonadditivity from linearity and nonlinearity. "Configurality" in the judges' responses was decomposed by using graphs of the data to examine systematic discrepancies from feedback values. The subjects' function relating the cues to the criterion was highly dependent on the task function. Judges were able to accurately predict the criterion based on the additive, linear function much sooner than they could with the nonadditive and/or nonlinear functions. However when the task functions were nonadditive and/or nonlinear, the judges' functions eventually showed the corresponding task properties.
Organizational Management of Conflict

This paper focuses on organization-wide management of conflict as distinguished from local settlement of conflict. It is suggested that conflict generated by administrative allocations is rooted in technology and is controlled by organization structuring. Latent-role conflict, stemming from the labor force, is controlled by recruitment and selection procedures. Conflict occasioned by competing pressures on members, based on the nature of the task environment, is controlled by organizational posture. The author advances a number of propositions and draws on research findings to illustrate that various types of organizations have different vulnerabilities and defenses against these three sources of conflict. James D. Thompson is director of the Administrative Science Center at the University of Pittsburgh. '
Data clone detection and visualization in spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are widely used in industry: it is estimated that end-user programmers outnumber programmers by a factor 5. However, spreadsheets are error-prone, numerous companies have lost money because of spreadsheet errors. One of the causes for spreadsheet problems is the prevalence of copy-pasting. In this paper, we study this cloning in spreadsheets. Based on existing text-based clone detection algorithms, we have developed an algorithm to detect data clones in spreadsheets: formulas whose values are copied as plain text in a different location. To evaluate the usefulness of the proposed approach, we conducted two evaluations. A quantitative evaluation in which we analyzed the EUSES corpus and a qualitative evaluation consisting of two case studies. The results of the evaluation clearly indicate that 1) data clones are common, 2) data clones pose threats to spreadsheet quality and 3) our approach supports users in finding and resolving data clones.
Evidence‐based medicine and Cochrane reviews in neonatology: Quo vadis?

INTRODUCTION Undoubtedly, evidence-based medicine has contributed substantially to improving the quality of medicine in general and in neonatology in particular (1). The Cochrane Neonatal Review Group (CNRG) is one of 50 Review Groups within the Cochrane Collaboration, and it is one of the most active ones (2). There are a number of examples that illustrate the importance of systematic reviews in improving the delivery of medical care (e.g. administration of antenatal steroids and surfactant replacement therapy) (3,4). However, there is a lack of a systematic analysis that critically assesses the role and potential limitations of EBM and systematic reviews in neonatology.
Concealment of Negative Organizational Outcomes: An Agency Theory Perspective

To explore if, when, and how intentionally corporate officers conceal negative organizational outcomes from shareholders, we used computer-assisted content analysis of over 1,000 president's letters contained in annual reports to shareholders. Results suggest that outside directors, large institutional investors, and accountants limit such concealment, but small institutional investors and outside directors who are shareholders prompt it. Low disclosure is associated with subsequent selling of stock by top officers and outside directors. This result supports the claim that concealment by officers and its toleration by outside directors may be intentional.
Information Bottleneck Features for HMM/GMM Speaker Diarization of Meetings Recordings

Improved diarization results can be obtained through combination of multiple systems. Several combination techniques have been proposed based on output voting, initialization and also integrated approaches. This paper proposes and investigates a novel approach to combine diarization systems through the use of features. A first diarization system, based on the Information Bottleneck, is used to generate a set of features that contain information relevant to the clustering. Those features are later used in conjunction with conventional MFCC in a second diarization system. This method is inspired from the TANDEM framework in ASR. While being fully integrated, the approach does not need modifications to any of the two systems in order to integrate the information. Experiments on 24 recordings from the NIST RT06/RT07/RT09 evaluations collected in five meeting rooms reveal that when the IB features are used together with MFCC, the total speaker error is reduced from 12% to 9.7%, i.e., by approximatively 19% relative.
Thermal Management System for Particle Sensors Design, Performance and Verification

This paper presents the thermal performance of a proposed thermal management device (patented in 2009) intended for a thermophoresis-based soot sensor. The performance was studied for temperatures ranging from 50 to 400°C and for exhaust speeds up to 10 m/s. It also presents the design and basic concepts. The performance study and design development were performed with finite element analysis (FEA). The FEA results were then verified with experiments in a heated wind tunnel. The relative performance of the device was found to increase for higher temperatures and lower wind speeds. The main conclusion drawn from this paper was that it is feasible to cool a sensor surface enough for a thermophoresis-based soot sensor in a diesel exhaust system.
Type inference for static compilation of JavaScript

We present a type system and inference algorithm for a rich subset of JavaScript equipped with objects, structural subtyping, prototype inheritance, and first-class methods. The type system supports abstract and recursive objects, and is expressive enough to accommodate several standard benchmarks with only minor workarounds. The invariants enforced by the types enable an ahead-of-time compiler to carry out optimizations typically beyond the reach of static compilers for dynamic languages. Unlike previous inference techniques for prototype inheritance, our algorithm uses a combination of lower and upper bound propagation to infer types and discover type errors in all code, including uninvoked functions. The inference is expressed in a simple constraint language, designed to leverage off-the-shelf fixed point solvers. We prove soundness for both the type system and inference algorithm. An experimental evaluation showed that the inference is powerful, handling the aforementioned benchmarks with no manual type annotation, and that the inferred types enable effective static compilation.
Cloud based Spatial Cloaking for Mobile User Privacy Preservation

Mobile Cloud Computing has invoked a new era of mobile world. The rapid growth of the mobile cloud computing has given rises to many new security issues. The well known spatial cloaking technique based on k-anonymity concept is using in mobile devices for privacy preserved location based services. To avoid the difficulties of the cloaked region management in mobile device, existing device based spatial cloaking is transferred to cloud based spatial cloaking. It is ensure more involvement of the cloud to reduce the burden of mobile device.
Automated Tissue Classification Framework for Reproducible Chronic Wound Assessment

The aim of this paper was to develop a computer assisted tissue classification (granulation, necrotic, and slough) scheme for chronic wound (CW) evaluation using medical image processing and statistical machine learning techniques. The red-green-blue (RGB) wound images grabbed by normal digital camera were first transformed into HSI (hue, saturation, and intensity) color space and subsequently the “S” component of HSI color channels was selected as it provided higher contrast. Wound areas from 6 different types of CW were segmented from whole images using fuzzy divergence based thresholding by minimizing edge ambiguity. A set of color and textural features describing granulation, necrotic, and slough tissues in the segmented wound area were extracted using various mathematical techniques. Finally, statistical learning algorithms, namely, Bayesian classification and support vector machine (SVM), were trained and tested for wound tissue classification in different CW images. The performance of the wound area segmentation protocol was further validated by ground truth images labeled by clinical experts. It was observed that SVM with 3rd order polynomial kernel provided the highest accuracies, that is, 86.94%, 90.47%, and 75.53%, for classifying granulation, slough, and necrotic tissues, respectively. The proposed automated tissue classification technique achieved the highest overall accuracy, that is, 87.61%, with highest kappa statistic value (0.793).