Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Development of multi-stage filter banks for ASKAP

Radio astronomy instrumentation is continually seeking greater processing bandwidths whilst maintaining output frequency resolutions of order one kHz per channel. With the recent commercial availability of multi Giga sample per second analog to digital converters, instantaneous processing bandwidths of the order of hundreds of MHz to many GHz are now viable for radio astronomy applications. This is driving the design of more efficient filter-bank architectures to manage the significant frequency channelisation task. In this paper we present a new multi-stage filter-bank for the ASKAP instrument. We cover the filter-bank architecture, some of the design constraints governing its implementation, and considerations relating to the filter-bank outputs.
Linguistics: The Cambridge Survey: Metrics and phonological theory

The field of metrics studies how conventionalized rhythmic patterns are manifested by phonological material in verse. Metrics and phonology are closely related fields whose interaction is yielding increasingly important results. This chapter outlines some of these findings, as well as directions for future research. First, a caveat concerning what this chapter is not about. Metrics is only part of the larger field of poetics, which studies literature from the structural viewpoint adopted in linguistics. Excellent introductions to poetics may be found in Jakobson (1960) and Kiparsky (1973). I will also bypass work on metrics that is not focussed on the link to linguistic structure and to phonology in particular. The annotated bibliography of Brogan (1980) is recommended as a guide to such work. A good place to start is to establish what questions linguists should try to answer in studying metrics; this defines the basic research strategy. To my mind the most compelling proposal has been the 'generative metrics' originated in the 1960s by Halle and Keyser (cf. Halle & Keyser 1969; Keyser 1969; and especially Halle & Keyser 1971). Generative metrics focusses on the problem of well-formedness. We assume that a meter is an abstract rhythmic form, internalized by those who command the relevant metrical tradition. Participants in a tradition share a tacit set of rules which determine which phonological sequences of their language constitute well-formed instanti-ations of a meter. Such sequences are termed metrical, while sequences excluded by the rules are termed unmetrical. Consider an example. The English iambic pentameter can be represented roughly as a sequence of ten beats, alternatingly weak and strong: wsw s w s wsw s. The line by Shakespeare under (la) would count as a metricai for helpful comments on an earlier version of this chapter. Responsibility for errors is my own. 220 Metrics and phonological theory instantiation of this meter in English, whereas (lb) would count as unmetrical. (1) a. Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to gr6an (Son. 133)1 w s w s w s ws w s b. *Then beshrew it, it prov6kes gr6ans daily (construct) w s w s w sw s w s Metricality is typically gradient: among the metrical lines, some are more canonical manifestations of the meter than others. For example, line (2), although hardly unusual for Shakespeare, is clearly a more complex instanti-ation of the iambic pentameter than (la): (2) Prison my heart in …
Advanced Technologies and Algorithms for Efficient Portfolio Selection

 Abstract — In this paper we present a classification of the various technologies applied for the solution of the portfolio selection problem according to the discipline and the methodological framework followed. We provide a concise presentation of the emerged categories and we are trying to identify which methods considered obsolete and which lie at the heart of the debate. On top of that, we provide a comparative study of the different technologies applied for efficient portfolio construction and we suggest potential paths for future work that lie at the intersection of the presented techniques.
Cognitive Control Mechanisms Revealed by ERP and fMRI: Evidence from Repeated Task-Switching

We investigated the extent to which a common neural mechanism is involved in task set-switching and response withholding, factors that are frequently confounded in taskswitching and go/no-go paradigms. Subjects' brain activity was measured using event-related electrical potentials (ERPs) and event-related functional MRI (fMRI) neuroimaging in separate studies using the same cognitive paradigm. Subjects made compatible left/right keypress responses to left/right arrow stimuli of 1000 msec duration; they switched every two trials between responding at stimulus onset (GO taskgreen arrows) and stimulus offset (WAIT taskred arrows). Withholding an immediate response (WAIT vs. GO) elicited an enhancement of the frontal N2 ERP and lateral PFC activation of the right hemisphere, both previously associated with the nogo response, but only on switch trials. Task-switching (switch vs. nonswitch) was associated with frontal N2 amplification and right hemisphere ventrolateral PFC activation, but only for the WAIT task. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) was the only brain region to be activated for both types of task switch, but this activation was located more rostrally for the WAIT than for the GO switch trials. We conclude that the frontal N2 ERP and lateral PFC activation are not markers for withholding an immediate response or switching tasks per se, but are associated with switching into a response-suppression mode. Different regions within the ACC may be involved in two processes integral to task-switching: processing response conflict (rostral ACC) and overcoming prior response suppression (caudal ACC).
Pronunciation variants generation using SMT-inspired approaches

Enriching a pronunciation dictionary with phonological variation is a challenging task, not yet solved despite several decades of research, in particular for speech-to-text transcription of real world data where it is important to cover different pronunciation variants. This paper proposes two alternative methods, inspired by machine translation, to derive pronunciation variants from an initial lexicon with limited variations. In the first case, an n-best pronunciation list is extracted directly from a machine translation tool, used as a grapheme-to-phoneme (g2p) converter. The second is a novel method based on a pivot approach, previously used for the paraphrase extraction task, and here applied as a post-processing step to the g2p converter. Some preliminary speech recognition experiments with the automatically generated pronunciation variants are reported using Quaero development data.
Automatic Generation of I/O Kernels for HPC Applications

The study of the I/O performance of a parallel application can be facilitated by the use of an I/O kernel -- a program that generates the same I/O calls as the original application, but can be executed much faster. Such I/O kernels are especially important when the programs under study are proprietary or classified, and only available in binary form.In this paper, we show how to create automatically such an I/O kernel, by executing the target application with an instrumented I/O library, next "compressing" the resulting I/O traces into a compact C program that generates those traces.
Distributed under Creative Commons Cc-by 4.0 Gb4gv: a Genome Browser for Geminivirus

Background. Geminiviruses (family Geminiviridae) are prevalent plant viruses that imperil agriculture globally, causing serious damage to the livelihood of farmers, particularly in developing countries. The virus evolves rapidly, attributing to its single-stranded genome propensity, resulting in worldwide circulation of diverse and viable genomes. Genomics is a prominent approach taken by researchers in elucidating the infectious mechanism of the virus. Currently, the NCBI Viral Genome website is a popular repository of viral genomes that conveniently provides researchers a centralized data source of genomic information. However, unlike the genome of living organisms, viral genomes most often maintain peculiar characteristics that fit into no single genome architecture. By imposing a unified annotation scheme on the myriad of viral genomes may downplay their hallmark features. For example, the viron of begomoviruses prevailing in America encapsulates two similar-sized circular DNA components and both are required for systemic infection of plants. However, the bipartite components are kept separately in NCBI as individual genomes with no explicit association in linking them. Thus, our goal is to build a comprehensive Geminivirus genomics database, namely gb4gv, that not only preserves genomic characteristics of the virus, but also supplements biologically relevant annotations that help to interrogate this virus, for example, the targeted host, putative iterons, siRNA targets, etc. Methods. We have employed manual and automatic methods to curate 508 genomes from four major genera of Geminiviridae, and 161 associated satellites obtained from NCBI RefSeq and PubMed databases. Results. These data are available for free access without registration from our website. Besides genomic content, our website provides visualization capability inherited from UCSC Genome Browser. Discussion. With the genomic information readily accessible, we hope that our database will inspire researchers in gaining a better understanding of the incredible degree of diversity of these viruses, and of the complex relationships within and between the different genera in the Geminiviridae. Availability and Implementation. The database can be found at: http://gb4gv.lafayette. edu.
Isolated Handwritten Malayalam Character Recognition Using HLH Intensity Patterns

Recently Indian Handwritten character recognition is getting much more attention and researchers are contributing a lot in this field. But Malayalam, a South Indian language has very less works in this area and needs further attention. This paper focuses on an efficient algorithm for recognizing the handwritten Malayalam characters. Malayalam OCR is a complex task owing to the various character scripts available and more importantly the difference in ways in which the characters are written. The dimensions are never the same and may be never mapped on to a square grid unlike English characters. Here we propose an algorithm which can accept the scanned image of handwritten characters as input and to produce the editable Malayalam characters in a predefined format as output without applying any resizing or skeletonization methods but still can produce much accurate results. Characters are grouped in to different classes based on their HLH intensity patterns. These patterns are separated from the image and fed for recognition. Algorithm is tested for 4 sets of samples ranging 661 letters in the noiseless environment and produces an accuracy of 88%.
New power saving algorithm considering associated STAs and consecutive traffics in WLAN AP

Recently, as the use of wireless Internet increases, access point (AP) installation has increased rapidly, only to increase the total power consumed by AP in wireless local area network (WLAN). Because an AP always wakes up regardless of the real use, the unnecessary power by the AP may be consumed. If we consider environments such as office or home, where an AP is used during certain hours of a day, an enormous amount of power waste may occur. This increase of power waste is contrary to the trend to reduce the cost of power production, and has a negative influence on natural environments. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the power efficiency; i.e., the power consumed by the AP need to be reduced. In this paper, we propose a power saving algorithm according to the existence of associated stations (STAs) and consecutive traffics in WLAN. The proposed algorithm applies a new sleep state to WLAN AP. According to the analysis result, the proposed algorithm consumes less power approximately 29% than the conventional (not using power saving algorithm).
The Object Schema Model and Situational Context

On our Trisk robotic manipulation platform, we have implemented a conceptual representation based around object schemas, which organize all perceptions, motor actions, planning structures, and natural language use according to the objects that they are “about. ” This representation provides a clear point of interaction between the discrete domains of task-level planning and language use, and the continuous dynamic domain of sensorimotor interaction. In this paper we briefly summarize our model and our results, implemented on a robotic manipulation platform in a simple tabletop domain. We conclude by proposing to use situational context to enable scalability to more complex domains.
Exploring context to learn scene specific object detectors

Generic person detection is an ill-posed problem as context is widely ignored. Local context can be used to split the generic detection task into easier sub-problems, which was recently explored by classifier grids. The detection problem gets simplified spatially by training separate classifiers for each possible location in the image. So far, adaptive grid based approaches only focused on exploring the specific background class. In contrast, we propose a method using different types of context in order to collect scene specific samples from both, the background andthe object class over time. These samples are used to update the specific object detectors. Due to limiting label noise and avoiding direct feedback loops our system can robustly adapt to the scene without drifting. Results on the PETS 2009 dataset show significantly improved person detections, especially, during static and dynamic occlusions ( e.g., lamp poles and crowded scenes).
An application of lean concepts and techniques to precast concrete fabrication

Fabrication is a vital part of the extended production system for a construction project. As shop fabrication is a type of manufacturing and ‘lean thinking’ arose in manufacturing, use of lean concepts and techniques in the management of fabrication processes would seem to be a natural and beneficial application. Fabrication can be divided into pre-manufacturing, manufacturing, and postmanufacturing. In a separate paper, the authors have reported the application of lean ‘rules and tools’ to the manufacturing of precast concrete. This paper presents an overview of the entire intervention, which confirms the applicability of lean concepts and techniques to the management of fabrication processes, and illustrates the benefits achievable in improved management of demand, reduced cycle time, greater productivity, heightened work force involvement, and increased revenue and profitability. Suggestions are made for future research.
Doing gender in public services: Affective labour of employment agents

The restructuring of state bureaucracies into service organi zations and the new welfare state paradigm of activation have changed the work requirements of front-line workers in public employment agencies across Europe. Public employment agents are less engaged in bureaucratic labour, but have to perform service work. They use affective means to motivate and to monitor and sanction jobseekers. This article provides evidence that these transformations in Aus tria, Germany and Switzerland did not suspend the gender ing of public service work. We discovered four typical modes of affectively enacting the state: both male and female employment agents follow feminized service work pat terns or masculinized entrepreneurial norms. To prevent a possible loss of their professional status, some employment agents reinterpret affective labour as professional service work that demands high expertise. Others resist the activa tion paradigm by performing traditionally feminized care work or by still adhering to affect-neutral male bureaucratic work.
Integrated Engineering Skills: Improving your System Competence Level

Integrated Product Development is increasingly a challenge of understanding and predicting the complete product lifecycle, and of treating the product as a whole in all phases of development. This paper points out that this trend has significant implications on the competence profiles of engineers, which are nowadays insufficiently taken into account by education and training programs, as well as skill certification schemes. Building on the highly innovative and successful European-wide professional training and certification scheme of the European Certificates and Qualification Association (ECQA), it suggests a basic skill profile that is characteristic for modern job roles in Integrated Engineering, and justifies the integration into the ECQA platform. It points out that this initiative marks a major step towards the improvement of engineers’ system competence levels.
Sikker : A Distributed System Architecture for Secure High Performance Computing

After decades of evolution, the network requirements of data centers, supercomputers, and cloud computing facilities are beginning to converge requiring high performance network access while supporting a secure computing environment for numerous concurrently running applications with complex interaction policies. Unfortunately, current network technologies are unable to simultaneously provide high performance network access and robust application isolation and security. As a result, system designers and application developers are forced into making trade-offs between these requirements. We propose Sikker1, a new network architecture for distributed systems under a single administrative domain. Sikker includes a novel service-oriented security and isolation model with a corresponding network interface controller, called a Network Management Unit (NMU), that enforces this model while providing high performance network access. We show that Sikker’s security model satisfies the complex interaction policies of modern large-scale distributed applications. Our experimentation results show that even when implemented on very large clusters under worst case access patterns, the message latency incurred by Sikker is 52ns on average and 66ns at the 99th percentile, a negligible increase. Smaller clusters and/or more realistic access patterns bring these overheads down in the 35-45ns range. Sikker’s serviceoriented security and isolation mechanism removes the need for high overhead software-based implementations imposed by current systems. Sikker allows distributed applications to operate in a secure environment while experiencing network performance on par with modern supercomputers.
Understanding the everyday experience of persons with physical disabilities: Building a model of social and occupational participation

ABSTRACT This study aimed to explore the everyday experience of social and occupational participation among persons with physical disabilities living in Croatia. We applied a qualitative research methodology using six semi-structured interviews and two focus groups with five participants each. Of the 15 adult participants, seven had cerebral palsy, three had a spinal cord injury and five had muscular dystrophy. Analysis of the data was conducted using a constant comparative approach through which three main themes emerged: (1) Occupational and social participation: Means for inclusion; (2) Exclusion as a consequence of occupational deprivation and social marginalization; (3) Enablers and barriers to meaningful participation. The findings shed new light on the nature of participation among this often marginalized group. Based on these findings, a tentative model was constructed to illustrate the interwoven nature of a number of components: (1) Participation as a continuum along dimensions of inclusion and exclusion; (2) Occupational participation and deprivation; (3) Social participation and marginalization; and (4) Enablers and barriers to participation. While the model represents only emerging ideas that require further confirmation, we propose it as a potentially useful starting point for ongoing discussion and investigation into occupational and social participation among persons with disabilities.
Ant Colony Optimization using Genetic Information for TSP

This study proposes an Ant Colony Optimization using Genetic Information (GIACO). GIACO algo-rithm combines Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) with Genetic Algorithm (GA). GIACO searches solutions using the pheromone of ACO and the genetic information of GA. In addition, the ant which cannot trail the pheromone is caused by the mutation. We apply GIACO to Traveling Salesman Problems (TSPs) and conﬁrm that GIACO obtains more eﬀective results than the conventional ACO and the conventional GA
c-Met is essential for wound healing in the skin

Wound healing of the skin is a crucial regenerative process in adult mammals. We examined wound healing in conditional mutant mice, in which the c-Met gene that encodes the receptor of hepatocyte growth factor/scatter factor was mutated in the epidermis by cre recombinase. c-Met–deficient keratinocytes were unable to contribute to the reepithelialization of skin wounds. In conditional c-Met mutant mice, wound closure was slightly attenuated, but occurred exclusively by a few (5%) keratinocytes that had escaped recombination. This demonstrates that the wound process selected and amplified residual cells that express a functional c-Met receptor. We also cultured primary keratinocytes from the skin of conditional c-Met mutant mice and examined them in scratch wound assays. Again, closure of scratch wounds occurred by the few remaining c-Met–positive cells. Our data show that c-Met signaling not only controls cell growth and migration during embryogenesis but is also essential for the generation of the hyperproliferative epithelium in skin wounds, and thus for a fundamental regenerative process in the adult.
Localizing users and items from paired comparisons

Suppose that we wish to determine an embedding of points given only paired comparisons of the form “user x prefers item qi to item qj. ” Such observations arise in a variety of contexts, including applications such as recommendation systems, targeted advertisement, and psychological studies. In this paper we first present an optimization-based framework for localizing new users and items when an existing embedding is known. We demonstrate that user localization can be formulated as a simple constrained quadratic program, and that although item localization produces a set of non-convex constraints, we can make the problem convex by strategically combining comparisons to produce a set of convex linear constraints. Finally, we show that by iteratively applying this method to every user and item, we can recover an accurate embedding, allowing us to iteratively improve a given embedding or even generate an embedding from scratch.
Road-line detection and 3D reconstruction using fisheye cameras

In future Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), smart monitoring of the vehicle environment is a key issue. Fisheye cameras have become popular as they provide a panoramic view with a few low-cost sensors. However, current ADAS systems have limited use as most of the underlying image processing has been designed for perspective views only. In this article we illustrate how the theoretical work done in omnidirectional vision over the past ten years can help to tackle this issue. To do so, we have evaluated a simple algorithm for road line detection based on the unified sphere model in real conditions. We firstly highlight the interest of using fisheye cameras in a vehicle, then we outline our method, we present our experimental results on the detection of lines on a set of 180 images, and finally, we show how the 3D position of the lines can be recovered by triangulation.