Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Approximate Consensus Multi-Agent Control Under Stochastic Environment with Application to Load Balancing

The paper is devoted to the approximate consensus problem for networks of nonlinear agents with switching topology, noisy and delayed measurements. In contrast to the existing stochastic approximation-based control algorithms (protocols), a local voting protocol with nonvanishing step size is proposed. Nonvanishing (e.g., constant) step size protocols give the opportunity to achieve better convergence rate (by choosing proper step sizes) in coping with time-varying loads and agent states. The price to pay is replacement of the mean square convergence with an approximate one. To analyze dynamics of the closed loop system, the so-called method of averaged models is used. It allows to reduce analysis complexity of the closed loop system. In this paper the upper bounds for mean square distance between the initial system and its approximate averaged model are proposed. The proposed upper bounds are used to obtain conditions for approximate consensus achievement. The method is applied to the load balancing problem in stochastic dynamic networks with incomplete information about the current states of agents and with changing set of communication links. The load balancing problem is formulated as consensus problem in noisy model with switched topology. The conditions to achieve the optimal level of load balancing (in the sense that if no new task arrives, all agents will finish at the same time) are obtained. The performance of the system is evaluated analytically and by simulation. It is shown that the performance of the adaptive multi-agent strategy with the redistribution of tasks among "connected" neighbors is significantly better than the performance without redistribution. The obtained results are important for control of production networks, multiprocessor, sensor or multicomputer networks, etc.
Back to the Future: Moving Beyond “Mesenchymal Stem Cells”

The last decade was dominated by dissemination of the notion that postnatal “mesenchymal stem cells,” found primarily in bone marrow but also in other tissues, can generate multiple skeletal and nonskeletal tissues, and thus can be exploited to regenerate a broad range of tissues and organs. The concept of “mesenchymal stem cells” and its applicative implications represent a significant departure from the solidly proven notion that skeletal stem cells are found in the bone marrow (and not in other tissues). Recent data that sharpen our understanding of the identity, nature, origin, and in vivo function of the archetypal “mesenchymal stem cells” (bone marrow skeletal stem cells) point to their microvascular location, mural cell identity, and function as organizers and regulators of the hematopoietic microenvironment/niche. These advances bring back the original concept from which the notion of “mesenchymal stem cells” evolved, and clarify a great deal of experimental data that accumulated in the past decade. As a novel paradigm emerges that accounts for many facets of the biology of skeletal stem cells, a novel paradigm independently emerges for their applicative/translational use. The two paradigms meet each other back in the future. J. Cell. Biochem. 112: 1713–1721, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Mln Clinics in London 1996 Multilevel Unit Specific and Population Average Generalised Linear Models ——————————————————- the Effects of Centering in Multilevel Analysis ——————————————————- a Multilevel Analysis for Screening Data Accumulated from a Number of Studies ——————————————————- Some New Publ

The latest version of MLn provides: • = new macros for analysis of multicategory response models, time series models and survival time models, • = improved macros for analysis of models with binary and count responses, • = new commands, mainly of interest to advanced users, to support these macros, • = a new command, BXSEarch, which is an improvement on XOMIt and XSEArch, • = fixes to bugs in Version 1.0. Up-to-date versions of all macros and their documentation are held in files which can be downloaded from the Web site: Please refer to that page regularly for details of all new developments. This upgrade is free to existing purchasers of MLn version 1.0. To obtain your upgrade, together with details of new commands etc, send email quoting your name and MLn licence number to: mln.order@ioe.ac. uk or FAX to +44 (0)171 612 6032. Using MLn, this general introductory workshop will cover topics such as basic principles, setting up two and higher level models, repeated measures, logistic models, multivariate analysis and diagnostics. Course fees for academics and non-academics respectively are £350 and £600 inclusive. For further information please contact Survival analysis using a scale change random effects model. (1995). The analysis of repeated measures data on schizophrenic reaction times using mixture models. approximate generalised linear model with random effects for informative missing data. A random effects probit model for predicting medical malpractice claims. J. (1995). A multilevel analysis of school improvement: changes in schools' performance over time. School effectiveness and school improvement, 6, 97-114. Measurement and evaluation issues in education: the value of multivariate techniques in evaluating an innovative high school reform program. (1994). Weighted least squares analysis of repeated categorical measurements with outcomes subject to nonresponse. A comparison of frailty models for multivariate survival data. A multivariate hierarchical model for studying psychological change within married couples. (1995). The Use of multilevel modeling for analysing personal networks: networks of cocaine users in an urban area. (1995). Association models for periodontal disease progression: a comparison of methods for clustered binary data. Likelihood ratio methods for monitoring parameters of a nested random effect model. One of the themes of the conference is Multilevel Modelling. One stream within this theme is (computational) statistics. This would bring together a number of statistical developments and present them together, to further understanding of this growing field. A second stream focusses on theory and applications. The goal …
Small Business Start-ups in the United States: Estimates of the Effects of Characteristics of States

Demonstrates how small business startups are affected by the characteristics of American states, and provides a methodological approach useful for advancing research on this topic. A simple model focusing on small business startups is created, in order to correspond better and more closely to the decision problems facing potential entrepreneurs. Panel data is used to create a model which examines the relationship between changes over time in small business starts and changes in the independent variables. Data were gathered from the U.S. Establishment and Longitudinal Microdata (USELM) file of the Small Business Administration's Small Business Data Base. Findings indicate that the most important influence on small business starts is the size of market demand. The proportion of foreign immigrants in states and education level of the labor force also have highly significant positive effects on small business starts. However, higher property taxes, entry barriers in the banking market, and unionization were each found to negatively affect small business starts. In addition, some public services were found to encourage small business starts and the estimated effects of labor costs to small business starts were surprisingly small. (SFL)
A decomposition method for large-scale sparse coding in representation learning

In representation learning, sparse representation is a parsimonious principle that a sample can be approximated by a sparse superposition of dictionary atoms. Sparse coding is the core of this technique. Since the dictionary is often redundant, the dictionary size can be very large. Many optimization methods have been proposed in the literature for sparse coding. However, the efficiency of the optimization for a tremendous number of dictionary atoms is still a bottleneck. In this paper, we propose to use decomposition method for large-scale sparse coding models. Our experimental results show that our method is very efficient.
MAPPING GROUND VIDEO TO AERIAL DEM’S ∗

We present an approach for registering an aerial Digital El-evation Model (DEM) with a color intensity image obtained using a camera mounted on a mobile robot. An approximate measurement of the camera pose is obtained using auxiliary sensors on-board the robot. The DEM is transformed into a depth map in the camera’s coordinate system using this initial pose. The problem is now simpliﬁed to the alignment of two images, one containing intensity information, and the other, depth. Region boundaries in the intensity image are matched with discontinuities in the depth map using a robust directed Hausdorff distance. This cost function is minimized with respect to the six parameters deﬁn-ing the camera pose. Due to the highly non-linear nature of cost function with multiple local minima, a stochastic algo-rithm based on the downhill simplex principle is employed for minimization. Results on real data are presented.
Globalization, reterritorialization, and marketing

Accelerated globalization has dramatically altered the ways in which people consume, work, gather information, play and define their identity. Most extant discourse on globalization, particularly in the business discipline, ignores the impact of globalization on the identity of those affected. One of the key characteristics of globalization is deterritorialization; the severance of social, political, and cultural practices from their native places. Deterritorialization potentially destabilizes people‘s identity. In response, individuals will undertake activities and behaviors which help them “reterritorialize” and restore their sense of identity. This phenomenon has interesting implications for researchers as well as practitioners. This article is made available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.
Genetic network reverse-engineering and network size; can we identify large GRNs?

The reverse engineering of genetic regulatory networks (GRNs) is a highly challenging optimisation problem, surrounded by many unresolved questions concerning the extent to which we can regard a reverse-engineered GRN to reflect the target GRN, which we call the fidelity of the reverse engineered GRN. Related questions concern the ability of reverse-engineering algorithms to find networks that fit the data under consideration, that is, their accuracy. Most research works with networks two orders of magnitude smaller than those of biological interest, and the following question is consequently unexplored: how can we expect fidelity and accuracy to vary with network size? Answers to this question will reveal whether or not we can reliably extrapolate, to large networks, results obtained on the ability of reverse-engineering methods on small networks. We use real-world data to explore accuracy and fidelity of a simple GRN reverse-engineering approach, over sizes of networks varying from 100 to 6,000. We find that accurate networks can be found with ease at any size. However, the diversity of accurate reverse-engineered GRNs increases sharply between 100 and around 2,000 genes, then settling down to a maximal level, indicating that the fidelity of reverse-engineered networks is likely to decrease sharply with size.
A New Carrier Frequency Offset Estimation Method for OFDM Based on Time Oversampling

Whether the advantages of OFDM can be made full use of depends to a large extent on the performance of synchronization. After analyzing the received OFDM signal, this paper proposes a new frequency offset estimation method based on time oversampling for OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing). The proposed method is a blind estimation algorithm and also uses a slip window. From the results, it is shown that the accuracy of the proposed algorithm, as well as the resistance to frequency selective fading and noise, is much better than that of the algorithm based on cyclic prefix.
A Real Time Evaluation of the Central Bank of Chile GDP Growth Forecasts

In this paper we evaluate the Central Bank of Chile annual GDP growth forecasts over the period 1991-2009 using a real-time database. We compare the Central Bank of Chile forecasts with those of the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF), Consensus Forecasts, and simple time-series models. We compare all forecasts to first and quasi-final GDP growth vintages. We evaluate a number of different forecast properties, including forecast accuracy and efficiency. We report mixed results in terms of root mean squared prediction errors. Depending on the sample period, the forecast horizon and the vintage used in the analysis, forecasts from the Central Bank of Chile may outperform or be outperformed by the benchmarks. Despite these mixed results, differences in root mean squared prediction errors are generally moderate and have no statistical significance. Nevertheless, our efficiency analysis, in addition to the fact that in some periods the forecasts produced by the Central Bank of Chile have been outperformed by alternative forecasts, opens the question about the room for improvement in the accuracy of the Central Bank of Chile forecasts. While the room for improvement may actually exist, our results suggest that this room seems to be small for point forecasts and larger for interval forecasts.
Compact test set generation for test compression-based designs

The manufacturing test is an important and expensive part of the overall electronic design flow. A main cost factor is the steadily increasing test data volume. Modern designs typically use extra hardware, i.e. test compression hardware, to compress the scan patterns to save test data volume. However, this imposes constraints on the pattern generation process. A high number of unspecified bits is typically needed to compress a test pattern successfully. In this paper, a compact test set generation technique is proposed for test compression-based designs. The proposed technique is based on a fully-specified test set and uses test vector decomposition, multiple-fault-detection and atomic vector ordering in order to build a highly compact test set with a guaranteed percentage of unspecified bits. Experimental results on benchmark and industrial circuits show that the approach is able to achieve a significant pattern reduction compared to previous approaches. Furthermore, it is shown that a higher compaction of the basis test set leads to a higher compaction of the resulting partially-specified test set.
Comment on Yu et al., "High Quality Binary Protein Interaction Map of the Yeast Interactome Network." Science 322, 104 (2008)

We test the claim by Yu et al. -- presented in Science 322, 104 (2008) -- that the degree distribution of the yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) protein-interaction network is best approximated by a power law. Yu et al. consider three versions of this network. In all three cases, however, we find the most likely power-law model of the data is distinct from and incompatible with the one given by Yu et al. Only one network admits good statistical support for any power law, and in that case, the power law explains only the distribution of the upper 10% of node degrees. These results imply that there is considerably more structure present in the yeast interactome than suggested by Yu et al., and that these networks should probably not be called "scale free. "
The Effect of Students' Educational Background and Use of a Program Visualization Tool in Introductory Programming

Introductory programming modules frequently have a low pass rate. This paper reports on an attempt to address this issue by introducing an interactive program visualization tutorial in the course material for an introductory programming module at the University of South-Africa (Unisa). The tutorial aimed to assist first-year programming students in an open, distance and e-learning (ODeL) environment in learning how to trace programs. To investigate the impact thereof students completed a questionnaire on their use of the tutorial, which were analysed in combination with their final marks for the module. This was repeated over two semesters. The findings indicated that the tutorial did not have the desired effect in the ODeL environment. Students' educational background had a far larger impact on their final marks than their tutorial use, emphasising the real need to take educational background into account when developing course material, particularly in ODeL.
Serotyping of Streptococcus pneumoniae Based on Capsular Genes Polymorphisms

Streptococcus pneumoniae serotype epidemiology is essential since serotype replacement is a concern when introducing new polysaccharide-conjugate vaccines. A novel PCR-based automated microarray assay was developed to assist in the tracking of the serotypes. Autolysin, pneumolysin and eight genes located in the capsular operon were amplified using multiplex PCR. This step was followed by a tagged fluorescent primer extension step targeting serotype-specific polymorphisms. The tagged primers were then hybridized to a microarray. Results were exported to an expert system to identify capsular serotypes. The assay was validated on 166 cultured S. pneumoniae samples from 63 different serotypes as determined by the Quellung method. We show that typing only 12 polymorphisms located in the capsular operon allows the identification at the serotype level of 22 serotypes and the assignation of 24 other serotypes to a subgroup of serotypes. Overall, 126 samples (75.9%) were correctly serotyped, 14 were assigned to a member of the same serogroup, 8 rare serotypes were erroneously serotyped, and 18 gave negative serotyping results. Most of the discrepancies involved rare serotypes or serotypes that are difficult to discriminate using a DNA-based approach, for example 6A and 6B. The assay was also tested on clinical specimens including 43 cerebrospinal fluid samples from patients with meningitis and 59 nasopharyngeal aspirates from bacterial pneumonia patients. Overall, 89% of specimens positive for pneumolysin were serotyped, demonstrating that this method does not require culture to serotype clinical specimens. The assay showed no cross-reactivity for 24 relevant bacterial species found in these types of samples. The limit of detection for serotyping and S. pneumoniae detection was 100 genome equivalent per reaction. This automated assay is amenable to clinical testing and does not require any culturing of the samples. The assay will be useful for the evaluation of serotype prevalence changes after new conjugate vaccines introduction.
A Comparison of Five Implementations of 3D Delaunay Tessellation

When implementing Delaunay tessellation in 3D, a number of engineering decisions must be made about update and location algorithms, arithmetics, perturbations, and representations. We compare five codes for computing 3D Delaunay tessellation: qhull, hull, CGAL, pyramid, and our own tess3, and explore experimentally how these decisions affect the correctness and speed of computation, particularly for input points that represent atoms coordinates in proteins.
Analysis and high performance parallel architecture design for EBCOT in JPEG2000

This paper presents analysis and design of bitplane parallel architecture for embedded block coding with optimization truncation (EBCOT) tier-1 in JPEG2000. By detailed analysis of bitplane parallel context modeling, we discover the reason that causes the degradation of the parallel entropy coding performance. Two improved methods, referred to as data-pairs ordering (DPO) and flexible MQ (FMQ) coder are proposed. The coding speed can be improved greatly by using the improved bitplane parallel coding methods. Compared with the conventional bitplane parallel architecture, our architecture can decrease about 24% of the computation time.
Asterism decoding for turbo coded MIMO systems

The area of multiple input multiple output (MIMO) communications systems has received enormous attention recently as they can provide a roughly linear increase in data rate by using multiple transmit and receive antennas. MIMO combined with an turbo coding has been shown as a promising way to achieve near capacity for wireless channels. Where previously described decoders provide linear decoding where the number of receive antennas is at least equal to the number of transmit antennas, are computationally burdensome when n/sub t/ > n/sub r/. Asterism decoding is a scheme that achieved ML performance for MIMO systems for any number of receive antennas. By applying Asterism decoding to turbo coded MIMO systems we show that good performance can be achieved for n/sub t/ > n/sub r/ without the need of additional feedback into the MIMO decoding stage.
Innovative route maintenance based on link failure prediction for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

In Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs), node mobility results in frequent topology changes. This makes it difficult for routing protocols to cope with the change timely. As nodes move arbitrarily and unpredictably, maintaining routing in such environment is a serious challenge. This paper presents a mechanism that targets the node mobility in a near future scenario and takes action to maintain the active route between sources and destination prior to the route breakage. It utilizes the information provided by neighbor nodes, who are overhearing the communication of an active route, to build alternative links. When a link on an active route is about to be broken soon, the proposed mechanism uses the alternative ones, that are contiguous to the active route, to forward the data. The performance evaluation showed that the proposed mechanism outperforms the common on-demand routing protocols in terms of packet delivery rate and control packet overhead.
Receiver Integration for Mid-Band Square Kilometer Array Demonstrator Applications

Abstract- The international radio-astronomy community is proposing to build a telescope of unprecedented size in order to allow observation of the farthest reaches of space. This telescope is known as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), and will be built in one of two southern-hemisphere candidate locations; with the core located in either the West Australian desert, or the Northern Cape region of South Africa. In order to meet science goals, ambitious simultaneous requirements for mid-band SKA of wide RF tuning range, large instantaneous bandwidth, large Field of View (FoV) and large collecting area have been proposed. These pose significant technical challenges, not least of which is the number of receivers required to achieve the specifications.