Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer Observations of the Seyfert 1.5 Galaxy NGC 5548 in a Low State

We present far-ultraviolet spectra of the Seyfert 1.5 galaxy NGC 5548 obtained in 2000 June with the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE). Our data span the observed wavelength range 915-1185 Å at a resolution of ~20 km s-1. The spectrum shows a weak continuum and emission from O VI λλ1032, 1038, C III λ977, and He II λ1085. The FUSE data were obtained when the active galactic nucleus was in a low state, which has revealed strong, narrow O VI emission lines. We also resolve intrinsic, associated absorption lines of O VI and the Lyman series. Several distinct kinematic components are present, spanning a velocity range of ~0 to -1300 km s -1 relative to the systemic velocity, with kinematic structure similar to that seen in previous observations of longer wavelength ultraviolet (UV) lines. We explore the relationships between the far-UV absorbers and those seen previously in the UV and X-rays. We find that the high-velocity UV absorption component is consistent with being low ionization, contrary to some previous claims, and is consistent with its nondetection in high-resolution X-ray spectra. The intermediate-velocity absorbers, at -300 to -400 km s -1, show H I and O VI column densities consistent with having contributions from both a high-ionization X-ray absorber and a low-ionization UV absorber. No single far-UV-absorbing component can be solely identified with the X-ray absorber.
Quantum-inspired Evolutionary Design of Synchronous Finite State Machines: Part I

Synchronous finite state machines are very important for digital sequential designs. Among other important aspects, they represent a powerful way for synchronizing hardware components so that these components may cooperate adequately in the fulfillment of the main objective of the hardware design. In this paper, we propose an evolutionary methodology based on the principles of quantum computing to synthesize finite state machines. First, we optimally solve the state assignment N P-complete problem, which is inherent for designing any synchronous finite state machines. This is motivated by the fact that with an optimal state assignment, one can physically implement the state machine in question using a minimal hardware area and response time. Second, with the optimal state assignment provided, we propose to use the same evolutionary methodology to yield an optimal evolutionary hardware that implements the state machine control component. The evolved hardware requires a minimal hardware area and imposes a minimal propagation delay on the machine output signals. This work is divided in a two-part paper: the assignment problem is deployed in this first part while the generation of the control logic in Part II [1] of the paper. 1. Introduction. Sequential digital systems or simply finite state machines (FSMs) have two main characteristics: there is at least one feedback path from the system output signal to the system input signals; and there is a memory capability that allows the system to determine current and future output signal values based on the previous input and output signal values [2]. Traditionally, the design process of a state machine passes through five main steps, wherein the second and third steps may repeated several times as shown in Figure 1. 1. The specification of the sequential system, which should determine the next states and outputs of every present state of the machine. This is done using state tables and state diagrams; 2. The state reduction, which should reduce the number of present states using equivalence and output class grouping; 3. The state assignment, which should assign a distinct combination to every present state. This may be done using Armstrong-Humphrey heuristics [2, 3, 4]; 4. The minimization of the control combinational logic using K-maps and transition maps; 5. Finally, the implementation of the state machine, using gates and flip-flops. In this paper, which is divided into two parts, we concentrate on the third step, in Part I, and the forth, in Part II [1] …
Component-based workspace awareness support for composite web applications

Universal Composition is a promising way to support the long tail of user needs. While most mashup platforms only support single-user scenarios, CRUISE enables the reconfiguration of multi-user mashups during runtime. A major requirement for tool-supported collaboration is the provision of workspace awareness, e. g. , about all participants' current activities or rights. With respect to the synchronization of black-box components from different vendors, detecting and representing state changes is far from trivial. To provide adequate workspace awareness, we present an architecture and a widget-based presentation concept. It supports application independent detection of state changes, reusability in different application contexts and flexible reconfigurability during runtime. Thereby, semantic annotations are used to enable component state change replication in case of different underlying DOM representations and provide awareness support in form of semantic activities instead of technical descriptions. The practicability of our prototype, including six widgets, is validated by a user acceptance test.
SEER: practical memory virus scanning as a service

Virus Scanning-as-a-Service (VSaaS) has emerged as a popular security solution for virtual cloud environments. However, existing approaches fail to scan guest memory, which can contain an emerging class of Memory-only Malware. While several host-based memory scanners are available, they are computationally less practical for cloud environments. This paper proposes SEER as an architecture for enabling Memory VSaaS for virtualized environments. SEER leverages cloud resources and technologies to consolidate and aggregate virus scanning activities to efficiently detect malware residing in memory. Specifically, SEER combines fast memory snapshotting and computation deduplication to provide practical and efficient off-host memory virus scanning. We evaluate SEER and demonstrate up to an 87% reduction in data size that must be scanned and up to 72% savings in overall scan time, compared to naively applying file-based scanning approaches. Furthermore, SEER provides a 50% reduction in scan time when using a warm cache. In doing so, SEER provides a practical solution for cloud vendors to transparently and periodically scan virtual machine memory for malware.
Handwritten Amharic Bank Check Recognition Using Hidden Markov Random Field

Amharic, a working language in Ethiopia, has its own writing system which is totally different from that of the Latin alphabet based languages. Amharic handwriting recognition is challenging due to the huge number of symbols, significant interclass similarity and also intra-class variability. In this paper the application of Hidden Markov Random Field (HMRF) for handwriting recognition of the legal amount field of Amharic bank check is presented. The three main contributions of this paper are the following. First, a new feature extraction technique is used which tries to extract natural features as perceived by human beings. The features extracted by this technique show a significant performance improvement. Second, a classification technique by estimating likelihood using a method known as pseudo-marginal probability is developed. The third contribution is the application of contextual information based on the syntactical structure of Amharic checks. Such context information is important in recognition process because even humans fail to recognize symbols correctly without any context. A noticeable difference is observed between results obtained with and without the application of contextual information. On the whole, despite the huge interclass similarity and also intra-class variability of handwritten Amharic characters, attractive results are found.
Anonymous Studentnumber : 1234567 18 thJune 1998

With thegrowingnumberof computersthatareconnectedto a network, suchas the Internetor company intranets,the interestgroupware is increasing. Groupwareareapplicationsthatassistgroupsto work together . This paperfocuseson theuserinterfacesof groupwarethat enablesa groupof people, whoarein differentgeographical places,to work togetherin real time sessions.Several propertiesof thesemultiuserinterfacesaredescribed, suchasthe coupling of views, and someexamplesare given. Multiuser virtual environmentsare 3D representationsof (abstract)worldsin which groupsof people canvirtually meetandinteract. A link is madebetween2D multiuserinterfacesandvirtual environments,andit is arguedthatvirtual environmentsare usefulto design3D userinterfacesfor groupware.
Unsupervised induction of Dholuo word classes using maximum entropy learning

This paper describes a proof-of-the-principle experiment in which maximum entropy learning is used for the automatic induction of word classes for the Western Nilotic language of Dholuo. The proposed approach extracts shallow morphological and contextual features for each word of a 300k text corpus of Dholuo. These features provide a layer of linguistic abstraction that enables the extraction of general word classes. We provide a preliminary evaluation of the proposed method in terms of language model perplexity and through a simple case study of the paradigm of the verb stem \somo".
Automatic Creation of Arabic Named Entity Annotated Corpus Using Wikipedia

In this paper we propose a new methodology to exploit Wikipedia features and structure to automatically develop an Arabic NE annotated corpus. Each Wikipedia link is transformed into an NE type of the target article in order to produce the NE annotation. Other Wikipedia features - namely redirects, anchor texts, and inter-language links - are used to tag additional NEs, which appear without links in Wikipedia texts. Furthermore, we have developed a filtering algorithm to eliminate ambiguity when tagging candidate NEs. Herein we also introduce a mechanism based on the high coverage of Wikipedia in order to address two challenges particular to tagging NEs in Arabic text: rich morphology and the absence of capitalisation. The corpus created with our new method (WDC) has been used to train an NE tagger which has been tested on different domains. Judging by the results, an NE tagger trained on WDC can compete with those trained on manually annotated corpora.
Xurography as a Rapid Fabrication Alternative for Point-of-Care Devices: Assessment of Passive Micromixers

Despite the copious amount of research on the design and operation of micromixers, there are few works regarding manufacture technology aimed at implementation beyond academic environments. This work evaluates the viability of xurography as a rapid fabrication tool for the development of ultra-low cost microfluidic technology for extreme Point-of-Care (POC) micromixing devices. By eschewing photolithographic processes and the bulkiness of pumping and enclosure systems for rapid fabrication and passively driven operation, xurography is introduced as a manufacturing alternative for asymmetric split and recombine (ASAR) micromixers. A T-micromixer design was used as a reference to assess the effects of different cutting conditions and materials on the geometric features of the resulting microdevices. Inspection by stereographic and confocal microscopy showed that it is possible to manufacture devices with less than 8% absolute dimensional error. Implementation of the manufacturing methodology in modified circular shape- based SAR microdevices (balanced and unbalanced configurations) showed that, despite the precision limitations of the xurographic process, it is possible to implement this methodology to produce functional micromixing devices. Mixing efficiency was evaluated numerically and experimentally at the outlet of the microdevices with performances up to 40%. Overall, the assessment encourages further research of xurography for the development of POC micromixers.
The Role of Re-entry in the Retirement Process

To what extent do older Americans re-enter the labor force after an initial exit and what drives these “unretirement” decisions? Retirement for most older Americans with full-time career jobs is not a one-time, permanent event. Labor force exit is more likely to be a process. Prior studies have found that between one half and two thirds of career workers take at least one other job before exiting from the labor force completely. The transitional nature of retirement may be even more pronounced when considering the impact of re-entry. This paper examines the extent to which older Americans with career jobs re-entered the labor force. The analysis is based on data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), an ongoing, longitudinal survey of older Americans that began in 1992. We examined the retirement patterns of a subset of 5,617 HRS respondents who were on a full-time career job at the time of the first interview. Logistic regression was used to explore determinants of re-entry among those who initially exited the labor force. We found that approximately 15 percent of older Americans with career jobs returned to the labor force after initially exiting. Respondents were more likely to re-enter if they were younger, were in better health, or had a defined-contribution pension plan. This research provides empirical evidence of how older Americans are utilizing bridge jobs as they transition from career employment, and that re-entry may be an important part of the work experience of older Americans.
Trade, Environment, and the WTO: The Post-Seattle Agenda

What role should international trade rules and the World Trade Organization (WTO) play in the protection of the environment? While many environmentalists argue that trade rules and procedures must be made more "green," many trade proponents fear that the international trading system will be undermined by extreme demands of environmentalists. In this essay, Gary Sampson scrutinizes these contending views and assesses the effects of trade liberalization on the environment; the role of the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism; the potential impact of WTO rules, including those dealing with production processes; and the relationship that should exist between the WTO and specific multilateral environmental agreements. In his discussion of these issues, Sampson puts forward a priority agenda for trade and environmental ministers and proposes ways to enhance the WTO's environmental protection role and strengthen the trading system at the same time.
Issues in comparing poverty trends over time in Cote de'Ivoire

Cote d'Ivoire conducted household surveys between 1985 and 1995, making it possible to trace changes in urban and rural poverty and changes in poverty among different socioeconomic groups. During the decade surveyed, the country experienced a major recession. Poverty increased substantially and continued unabated in the year after devaluation, in part because much of the increase in export crop prices, especially for cocoa, was taxed away. Between 1988 and 1993, urban poverty increased faster than rural poverty did, though mean expenditures in urban areas remained substantially above mean expenditures in rural areas. Food crop farmers apparently suffered more than export crop farmers. All in all these trends persisted after devaluation. However, the authors found that exploring poverty trends across regions and socioeconomic groups raised questions about the patterns of change and the reliability of the data and the methods used to derive poverty estimates. Secondary data cast some doubt on certain survey findings, suggesting that they may not have truly reflected real economic trends. The authors emphasized the need to draw reliable conclusions from time-series data in order to understand how policy reform affects poverty. They urged that far more attention be paid to comparability issues in designing and analyzing data and to developing better regional and temporal price indices, if reliable time-series data are to be generated for Sub-Saharan Africa.
Abnormal intermediate filament organization alters mitochondrial motility in giant axonal neuropathy fibroblasts

GAN patient cells have abnormal aggregates of vimentin intermediate filaments, to which mitochondria appear to be tethered. Motility of mitochondria, but not lysosomes, is inhibited in these cells. Transfection with wild-type gigaxonin (the protein mutated in this disease) disperses these aggregates and bundles, and mitochondrial motility returns to normal.
Use of case injection to bias genetic algorithm solutions of similar problems

While previous work on case injected genetic algorithms has shown an improvement in solution quality and time to solution when solving a sequence of similar problems, we believe there has been no prior investigation of using case injection to intentionally alter convergence away from the most fit solution and toward another slightly suboptimal solution that is favored for reasons external to the numerical problem formulation (for example, based on similarity to a human expert's solution). We investigate the use of case injection to bias the results of a genetic algorithm (GA) toward a desired but slightly suboptimal solution, in two scenarios. First, when the problem we are attempting to bias by case injection is identical to the problem from which the injected cases were gathered. Second, when the problem we are attempting to bias is different (to varying degree) from the problem from which the injected cases were gathered. In the first scenario, we find that injection of cases does lead to preferential convergence to solutions similar to the runs from which the cases are gathered. We find that the more similar the injected problem is to the problem from which the cases were gathered, the more marked is the solution bias effect, though the technique can still be used to bias GA results even when the problems differ markedly. This technique has application where we wish a GA to derive solutions similar to (for example) known "good" solutions or human derived solutions, when, because of incomplete modeling information, the numerical formulation of the problem itself and its fitness function do not necessarily contain all information about the problem. This has potential applications in human modeling and in developing quality opponents in gaming applications.
Improving The Optimal Solution Attainment Rate by Multiplexing Method

Summary Distributed constraint optimization problems (DCOP) have attracted attention as a means of resolving distribution problems in multiagent environments. We [1] proposed a multiplex method targeting the improved efficiency of a distributed nondeterministic approximation algorithm for distributed constraint optimization problems. The multiplex method targeting the im proved efficiency of a distributed nondeterministic approximation algorithm has been proposed for distributed constraint optimization problems. Since much of the computation time is used to transmit messages, improving efficiency using a multiplex computation of distributed approximation algorithms might be feasible, presuming that the computation time of each node or a small change in message length has no direct impact. Although it is usually impossible to guarantee that the approximation algorithm can obtain the optimal solution, we managed to do so, using a theoretically determined multiplex method. In addition, we show the feasibility of an optimal solution attainment rate of 0.99 by an experiment using a Distributed Stochastic Search Algorithm.
Format-preserving encryption for DateTime

In many applications, such as encryption of DateTime field in database, it is desirable to encrypt items from an arbitrarily sized set with the specified format described as “YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS” onto that same set. Unfortunately, conventional block ciphers such as DES, 3DES or AES are unsuitable for this purpose. The solution to it belongs to the format-preserving encryption (FPE) category. In the paper, we present an FPE scheme for DateTime based on “rank-then-cipher” mode, and then analyze its security and efficiency. We further propose a new more efficient approach named “reference-based offset encryption” to resolve the FPE problem on DateTime domain, which can be applied in message space comprised of fixed-length strings taken over some alphabet as well.
Potential role of PTEN phosphatase in ethanol‐impaired survival signaling in the liver

Chronic ethanol consumption can cause sustained hepatocellular injury and inhibit the subsequent regenerative response. These effects of ethanol may be mediated by impaired hepatocyte survival mechanisms. The present study examines the effects of ethanol on survival signaling in the intact liver. Adult Long Evans rats were maintained on ethanol‐containing or isocaloric control liquid diets for 8 weeks, after which the livers were harvested to measure mRNA levels, protein expression, and kinase or phosphatase activity related to survival or proapoptosis mechanisms. Chronic ethanol exposure resulted in increased hepatocellular labeling for activated caspase 3 and nuclear DNA damage as demonstrated using the TUNEL assay. These effects of ethanol were associated with reduced levels of tyrosyl phosphorylated (PY) IRS‐1 and PI3 kinase, Akt kinase, and Erk MAPK activities and increased levels of phosphatase tensin homologue deleted on chromosome 10 (PTEN) mRNA, protein, and phosphatase activity in liver tissue. In vitro experiments demonstrated that ethanol increases PTEN expression and function in hepatocytes. However, analysis of signaling cascade pertinent to PTEN function revealed increased levels of nuclear p53 and Fas receptor mRNA but without corresponding increases in GSK‐3 activity or activated BAD. Although fork‐head transcription factor levels were increased in ethanol‐exposed livers, virtually all of the fork‐head protein detected by Western blot analysis was localized within the cytosolic fraction. In conclusion, chronic ethanol exposure impairs survival mechanisms in the liver because of inhibition of signaling through PI3 kinase and Akt and increased levels of PTEN. However, uncoupling of the signaling cascade downstream of PTEN that mediates apoptosis may account for the relatively modest degrees of ongoing cell loss observed in livers of chronic ethanol‐fed rats.
Incremental Object Recognition in Robotics with Extension to New Classes in Constant Time

We consider object recognition in the context of lifelong learning, where a robotic agent learns to discriminate between a growing number of object classes as it accumulates experience about the environment. We propose an incremental variant of the Regularized Least Squares for Classification (RLSC) algorithm, and exploit its structure to seamlessly add new classes to the learned model. The presented algorithm addresses the problem of having unbalanced proportion of training examples per class, which occurs when new objects are presented to the system for the first time. We evaluate our algorithm on both a machine learning benchmark dataset and a challenging object recognition task in a robotic setting. Empirical evidence on both problems shows that our approach is significantly faster than its batch counterparts while achieving comparable or better classification performance when classes are unbalanced.
A Computer-Aided System for Indexing People in Historical Images

Our work describes a computer aided system for indexing people in historical images based on facial recognition. A prototype has already been built and it is currently being applied to selected pictures from the Mineiro Public Archive ́s digital photographic database. The architecture of the system is described and explained briefly. The methods used in our work for facial detection and identification are presented, along with some results. Finally, further directions and possible improvements are given.