Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multi-objective design of survivable flexible-grid DWDM networks

Emerging trends in optical transport networks aiming to support increasing data rates are reshaping the possibilities for network planning. The deployment of a flexible grid with multiple available channel bit rates and spectral widths gives way to a more clearly defined trade-off between spectrum and cost in the planning process. Furthermore, providing redundancy in these types of services is both crucial and costly. For this reason, it is important to consider all these aspects simultaneously in order to have an accurate view of the cost/spectrum trade-off in the optical backbone. This paper presents an evolutionary based multi-objective framework for optimizing network deployments with flexible-grid channel formats ranging from 40 to 400 Gbits/s with varying degrees of resilience to both link and transponder failures. The multi-objective algorithm can consider all these different aspects simultaneously and highlight the degree to which cost can be traded for spectrum, and how the protection/restoration schemes influence both parameters. After benchmarking the proposed algorithm on both objectives, we use it on two reference networks to trace the non-dominated front for multiple resilience schemes, offering different levels of protection against link and/or transponder failures. We also evaluate how the channel format selection for each demand evolves when considering single-rate or bit-rate variable transponders.
Relational agents : effecting change through human-computer relationships

What kinds of social relationships can people have with computers? Are there activities that computers can engage in that actively draw people into relationships with them? What are the potential benefits to the people who participate in these human-computer relationships? To address these questions this work introduces a theory of Relational Agents, which are computational artifacts designed to build and maintain long-term, social-emotional relationships with their users. These can be purely software humanoid animated agents--as developed in this work--but they can also be non-humanoid or embodied in various physical forms, from robots, to pets, to jewelry, clothing, hand-helds, and other interactive devices. Central to the notion of relationship is that it is a persistent construct, spanning multiple interactions; thus, Relational Agents are explicitly designed to remember past history and manage future expectations in their interactions with users. Finally, relationships are fundamentally social and emotional, and detailed knowledge of human social psychology--with a particular emphasis on the role of affect--must be incorporated into these agents if they are to effectively leverage the mechanisms of human social cognition in order to build relationships in the most natural manner possible. People build relationships primarily through the use of language, and primarily within the context of face-to-face conversation. Embodied Conversational Agents--anthropomorphic computer characters that emulate the experience of face-to-face conversation--thus provide the substrate for this work, and so the relational activities provided by the theory will primarily be specific types of verbal and nonverbal conversational behaviors used by people to negotiate and maintain relationships. This work also provides an analysis of the types of applications in which having a human-computer relationship is advantageous to the human participant. In addition to applications in which the relationship is an end in itself (e.g., in entertainment systems), human-computer relationships are important in tasks in which the human is attempting to undergo some change in behavior or cognitive or emotional state. One such application is explored here: a system for assisting the user through a month-long health behavior change program in the area of exercise adoption. This application involves the research, design and implementation of relational agents as well as empirical evaluation of their ability to build relationships and effect change over a series of interactions with users. Thesis Supervisors: Rosalind W. Picard, Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences Justine Cassell, Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
Maritime InformationMarkupandUsein PassagePlanning

This paperdescribesthe integrationof maritimeinformationfrom multiple sourcesin the context of passageplanningfor coastalvoyages.It beginswith describingtheconstructionof a computational ontologyfor maritimeinformationandnauticalchartsymbology. Theuseof this ontologyin defining a markuplanguageis thendescribed,followedby a discussionof theuseof this ontologyandmarkup languagein ademonstrationinformationretrieval application.
RAAP: A Requirements Analysis and Assessment Process Framework for Component-Based System (Invited Paper)

Success of a Component Based System (CBS) depends heavily on the selection of the right components. In reality, components are usually designed for general purposes and finding the ideal ones is often very difficult. The CBS requirements process is hence more complicated than the conventional approach. In this paper, we present a Requirements Analysis and Assessment Process (RAAP) for CBS that can provide quantitative information and guidelines for stakeholders to evaluate the suitability of the components for a given set of requirements. Subsequently, they will be able to select the most appropriate components that best satisfy their needs, taking into consideration the risks involved and the conflicts that could arise as a result of selecting certain components earlier in the process. RAAP consists of three phases: (i) requirements characterization which elicits user requirements; (ii) top-down analysis which calculates the degree of satisfaction of a component and the amount of risks involved; and (iii) trade-off analysis which identifies and resolves the potential conflicts in requirements after certain components have been selected. We also present an application of RAAP to the Seven Eleven Japan system.
Earnings Dynamics and Inequality during Macroeconomic Turbulence: Sweden 1991-1999

Using a rich longitudinal database, I study the dynamics behind changes in the distribution of annual earnings in Sweden 1991 to 1999. The analysis indicates a systematic increase in persistent earnings differentials during the 1990s; workers with low relative earnings in the beginning of the decade generally have lower relative earnings in the end. The evolution of transitory earnings fluctuations differs between age groups and matters the most for changes in earnings dispersion among younger workers. To shed some light on the role of wages behind the findings for earnings, wage dynamics is also studied. The results indicate that increased persistent wage inequality is one source behind the increase in persistent earnings inequality.
Effectiveness of olanzapine, quetiapine, risperidone, and ziprasidone in patients with chronic schizophrenia following discontinuation of a previous atypical antipsychotic.

BACKGROUND In the treatment of schizophrenia, changing antipsychotics is common when one treatment is suboptimally effective, but the relative effectiveness of drugs used in this strategy is unknown. This randomized, double-blind study compared olanzapine, quetiapine, risperidone, and ziprasidone in patients who had just discontinued a different atypical antipsychotic. METHOD Subjects with schizophrenia (N=444) who had discontinued the atypical antipsychotic randomly assigned during phase 1 of the Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE) investigation were randomly reassigned to double-blind treatment with a different antipsychotic (olanzapine, 7.5-30 mg/day [N=66]; quetiapine, 200-800 mg/day [N=63]; risperidone, 1.5-6.0 mg/day [N=69]; or ziprasidone, 40-160 mg/day [N=135]). The primary aim was to determine if there were differences between these four treatments in effectiveness measured by time until discontinuation for any reason. RESULTS The time to treatment discontinuation was longer for patients treated with risperidone (median: 7.0 months) and olanzapine (6.3 months) than with quetiapine (4.0 months) and ziprasidone (2.8 months). Among patients who discontinued their previous antipsychotic because of inefficacy (N=184), olanzapine was more effective than quetiapine and ziprasidone, and risperidone was more effective than quetiapine. There were no significant differences between antipsychotics among those who discontinued their previous treatment because of intolerability (N=168). CONCLUSIONS Among this group of patients with chronic schizophrenia who had just discontinued treatment with an atypical antipsychotic, risperidone and olanzapine were more effective than quetiapine and ziprasidone as reflected by longer time until discontinuation for any reason.
Application of a novel integrated pointing device apparatus for children with cerebral palsy.

BACKGROUND To improve the computer operation of children suffering from cerebral palsy (CP) with severe disabilities, more flexible pointing devices are required. This study investigates the effectiveness of a newly developed Integrated Pointing Device Apparatus (IPDA) that can integrate numerous commercial pointing devices. METHODS We enrolled 27 children with quadriplegic CP and 15 healthy children. All children were required to perform three specific mouse operation tasks. Children with CP were classified into two groups based on hand operation: one hand (group A) and both hands (group B). The efficiency of children with CP in each mouse operation task was expressed as a percentage of that for normal children (% NL). RESULTS Group A operated a standard mouse with their dominant hand; group B had to use both hands to operate a mouse via IPDA. Group A demonstrated better efficiency of continuous-clicking tasks than group B (p < 0.05). Group B had a similar level of efficiency in the target-acquisition task (30% NL) and drag-and-drop task (20% NL) as that of group A, although group B could not operate a standard mouse with one hand. All children in group A were spastic quadriplegia, while 30% of children in group B were spastic-athetoid (p < 0.05). All children in group B were at level 3 of the gross motor functional classification system (GMFCS) but only 57% of children in group A were at level 3 (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION The IPDA can help some children with CP, who cannot utilize a commercial mouse alone, to achieve acceptable operational efficiency. The operation methods for children with CP were determined by their underlying motor control.
Density Profiles of Collisionless Equilibria. II. Anisotropic Spherical Systems

It has long been realized that the dark matter halos that form in cosmological N-body simulations are characterized by density profiles ρ(r) that, when suitably scaled, have similar shapes. In addition, combining the density and velocity dispersion profiles σ(r), both of which have decidedly non-power-law shapes, leads to a quantity ρ/σ3 that is a power law in radius over 3 orders of magnitude in radius. Halos' velocity anisotropy profiles β(r) vary from isotropic near their centers to quite radially anisotropic near the virial radius. Finally, there appears to be a nearly linear correlation between β and the logarithmic density slope γ for a wide variety of halos. This work is part of a continuing investigation of the above interrelationships and their origins using analytical and semianalytical techniques. Our findings suggest that the nearly linear β-γ relationship is not just another expression of scale-free ρ/σ3 behavior. We also note that simultaneously reproducing density and anisotropy profiles like those found in simulations requires β(r) and γ(r) to have similar shapes, leading to nearly linear β-γ correlations. This work suggests that the β-γ and power-law ρ/σ3 relations have distinct physical origins.
Noise mask for TDOA sound source localization of speech on mobile robots in noisy environments

Sound source localization is an important challenge for mobile robots operating in real life settings. Sound sources of interest, such as speech, are often corrupted by broadband coherent noise sound source(s) that are non-stationary during transitions between steady-state segments. The interfering noise introduces localization ambiguities leading to the localization of invalid sound sources. Masks to reduce such interferences perform well under stationary noise, but the performance degrades as localization of invalid sound sources generated by noise appear and disappear suddenly during transitions between steady-state. This paper presents a new mask based on speech non-stationarity to discriminate between the time difference of arrival (TDOA) of speech source and noise transition. Simulations and experiments on a mobile robot suggest that the proposed technique improve TDOA discrimination and reduces significantly localization of invalid sound sources caused by noise.
Models and Theory for Relay Channels with Receive Constraints

Relay channels where terminals cannot receive and transmit at the same time are modeled as being memoryless with cost constraints. Cost functions are considered that measure the power consumed in each of three sleep-listen-or-talk (SLoT) modes, as well as the fraction of time the modes are used. It is shown that strategies that have the SLoT modes known ahead of time by all terminals are generally suboptimal. It is further shown that Gaussian input distributions are generally suboptimal for Gaussian channels. For several types of models and SLoT constraints, it is shown that multi-hopping (or decode-andforward) achieves the information-theoretic capacity if the relay is geometrically near the source terminal, and if the fraction of time the relay listens to the source is lower bounded by a positive number. SLoT constraints for which the capacity claim might not be valid are discussed. Finally, it is pointed out that a lack of symbol synchronization between the relays has little or no effect on the capacity theorems if the signals are bandlimited and if independent input signals are optimal.
Projection-Slice Theorem as a Tool for Mathematical Representation of Diffraction

Although the impulse (Dirac delta) function has been widely used as a tool in signal processing, its more complicated counterpart, the impulse function over higher dimensional manifolds in RopfN, did not get such a widespread utilization. Based on carefully made definitions of such functions, it is shown that many higher dimensional signal processing problems can be better formulated, yielding more insight and flexibility, using these tools. The well-known projection-slice theorem is revisited using these impulse functions. As a demonstration of the utility of the projection-slice formulation using impulse functions over hyperplanes, the scalar optical diffraction is reformulated in a more general context
A Structural Model for Predicting Student Retention

Abstract:Student retention models were tested via structural equation modeling to examine the interrelations and predictability among socioeconomic status, psychosocial, and student success variables with a sample of 445 undergraduate students attending a large Hispanic serving institution. The proposed theoretical model included socioeconomic status (generational status & Pell grant eligibility), psychosocial (academic efficacy, problem solving, connectedness to professors and college), and student success variables (SAT scores, college GPA, intent to remain, and retention). Results provided support for the proposed model and showed that the psychosocial variables examined herein play an important role in predicting connectedness and student success variables. Implications for institutions are discussed.
Pixel level image fusion based on linear structure tensor

A pixel-level image fusion method based on linear structure tensor is proposed within wavelet framework. Structure tensor, which describes local structure information with its eigenvalues and eigenvectors, is adopted to design a feature selection algorithm to reconstruct high-frequency wavelet coefficients of fused image. Experimental results on grayscale and color images show that the linear structure tensor based fusion scheme can preserve more details.
How bad are the rogues' impact on enterprise 802.11 network performance?

Enterprise 802.11 Network (EWLAN) is an important infrastructure to the Mobile Internet, but its performance is being significantly impacted by the ever-increasing Rogue access points (RAPs). For example, in the university EWLAN we studied, the number of RAPs is more than seven times that of the enterprise APs. In this paper, we propose a generic methodology to measure RAP's carrier sense interference and hidden terminal interference, and it only uses readily available SNMP metrics, without any additional measurement hardware. Our results show that, on average, the carrier sense interference due to RAPs causes only 5% access delay increase at the MAC layer, because of careful engineering and software optimization. However, hidden terminal interference due to RAPs causes (a much more severe) up to 30% MAC layer loss rate increase on average, because no existing approach has explicitly dealt with the hidden terminal impact from rogue APs. Overall, the RAP interference would increase the IP layer delay at the WiFi hop by up to 50%.
Applications of Online Deep Learning for Crisis Response Using Social Media Information

During natural or man-made disasters, humanitarian response organizations look for useful information to support their decision-making processes. Social media platforms such as Twitter have been considered as a vital source of useful information for disaster response and management. Despite advances in natural language processing techniques, processing short and informal Twitter messages is a challenging task. In this paper, we propose to use Deep Neural Network (DNN) to address two types of information needs of response organizations: 1) identifying informative tweets and 2) classifying them into topical classes. DNNs use distributed representation of words and learn the representation as well as higher level features automatically for the classification task. We propose a new online algorithm based on stochastic gradient descent to train DNNs in an online fashion during disaster situations. We test our models using a crisis-related real-world Twitter dataset.
Background to Sumi by Jurek Kirakowski

A psychological test, wrote Anne Anastasi in her classic book on the subject (Anastasi, 1968), is essentially an objective and standardised measure of a sample of behaviour. That psychological tests should be used to evaluate a computer system by measuring the behavioural disposition of end users towards it seems to be an obvious step. Dolotta and colleagues probably coined the phrase user-perceived quality in their book of 1976, and in 1978 Dzida, Herda and Itzfeldt reported the first large-scale questionnaire specifically addressed to the problem of devising a rigorous measure of user-perceived quality. They understood that user-perceived quality would turn out to be a multi-dimensional concept, but they made the further assumption that:
ORACLE (v1.0): module to simulate the organic aerosol composition and evolution in the atmosphere

Abstract. A computationally efficient module to describe organic aerosol (OA) partitioning and chemical aging has been developed and implemented into the EMAC atmospheric chemistry–climate model. The model simulates the formation of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) from semivolatile (SVOCs), intermediate-volatility (IVOCs), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). It distinguishes SVOCs from biomass burning and all other combustion sources using two surrogate species for each source category with an effective saturation concentration at 298 K of C* = 0.1 and 10 μg m−3. Two additional surrogate species with C* = 103 and 105 μg m−3 are used for the IVOCs emitted by the above source categories. Gas-phase photochemical reactions that change the volatility of the organics are taken into account. The oxidation products (SOA-sv, SOA-iv, and SOA-v) of each group of precursors (SVOCs, IVOCs, and VOCs) are simulated separately to keep track of their origin. ORACLE efficiently describes the OA composition and evolution in the atmosphere and can be used to (i) estimate the relative contributions of SOA and primary organic aerosol (POA) to total OA, (ii) determine how SOA concentrations are affected by biogenic and anthropogenic emissions, and (iii) evaluate the effects of photochemical aging and long-range transport on the OA budget. We estimate that the global average near-surface OA concentration is 1.5 μg m−3 and consists of 7% POA from fuel combustion, 11% POA from biomass burning, 2% SOA-sv from fuel combustion, 3% SOA-sv from biomass burning, 15% SOA-iv from fuel combustion, 28% SOA-iv from biomass burning, 19% biogenic SOA-v, and 15% anthropogenic SOA-v. The modeled tropospheric burden of OA components is 0.23 Tg POA, 0.16 Tg SOA-sv, 1.41 Tg SOA-iv, and 1.2 Tg SOA-v.
Position based energy-efficient clustering protocol under noisy environment for sensor networks using fuzzy logic technique

Wireless sensor network (WSN) consist of spatially distributed self-sufficient sensors nodes. Energy is the main bottleneck for wireless sensor networks and it has dominating effects on network lifetime. The Clustering is considered one of the powerful approaches for maximizing the life time of a wireless sensor network because of their better scalability and higher energy efficiency than other routing protocols. Data transmission in sensor node needs a cluster head (CH) which act as a coordinator and plays important role in collection of information within the cluster, data fusion processing and transmission of the aggregated data. Due to this importance, many researchers have focused on optimizing the CH selection process. The proposed protocol using Fuzzy Logic Techniques is used for efficient CH selection and discovery of optimum route for data transmission. A fuzzy logic controller is designed for determining Noise, Residual energy and distance for CH selection and position based technique is applied for optimum route selection. The results of proposed approach shows that the protocol improves the performance of a network by selecting best CH and discover optimal route with minimum expanses of resources for forwarding the data packet to base station and increasing network life time.
HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATION OF A NEURALNETWORK CONTROLER WITH AN MCU AND AN FPGA FOR A NONLINEAR SYSTEM

This paper presents the hardware implementation of a neural network controller for a nonlinear system with a micro-controller unit (MCU) and a field programmable gate array (FPGA) chip. As an on-line learning algorithm of a neural network, the reference compensation technique has been implemented on an MCU, while PID controllers with other functions such as counters and PWM generators are implemented on an FPGA chip. Interface between an MCU and a field programmable gate array (FPGA) chip has been developed to complete hardware implementation of a neural controller. The developed neural control hardware has been tested for balancing the inverted pendulum while controlling a desired trajectory of a cart as a nonlinear system.