Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Breeding Software Test Data with Genetic-Particle Swarm Mixed Algorithm

Software test is usually costly and vital in software development lifecycle. Though genetic algorithms have the globally searching capability, premature convergence and weak local optimization are two key problems existing in the conventional genetic algorithm. This paper introduces particle swarm optimization into genetic algorithm to breed software test data automatically. The GPSMA (Genetic-Particle Swarm Mixed Algorithm) uses the individual’s update mode to replace the mutation operation in genetic algorithm on the basis of population division. The experimental results show the new method can not only maintain effectively the polymorphism in the colony and avoid premature, but also greatly improve the convergent speed.
Embedded Unsupervised Feature Selection

Sparse learning has been proven to be a powerful techniquein supervised feature selection, which allows toembed feature selection into the classification (or regression)problem. In recent years, increasing attentionhas been on applying spare learning in unsupervisedfeature selection. Due to the lack of label information,the vast majority of these algorithms usually generatecluster labels via clustering algorithms and then formulateunsupervised feature selection as sparse learningbased supervised feature selection with these generatedcluster labels. In this paper, we propose a novel unsupervisedfeature selection algorithm EUFS, which directlyembeds feature selection into a clustering algorithm viasparse learning without the transformation. The AlternatingDirection Method of Multipliers is used to addressthe optimization problem of EUFS. Experimentalresults on various benchmark datasets demonstrate theeffectiveness of the proposed framework EUFS.
Asynchronous presentation of global and local information reveals effects of attention on brain electrical activity specific to each level

The neural basis of selective attention within hierarchically organized Navon figures has been extensively studied with event related potentials (ERPs), by contrasting responses obtained when attending the global and the local echelons. The findings are inherently ambiguous because both levels are always presented together. Thus, only a mixture of the brain responses to two levels can be observed. Here, we use a method that allows unveiling of global and local letters at distinct times, enabling estimation of separate ERPs related to each level. Two interspersed oddball streams were presented, each using letters from one level and comprised of frequent distracters and rare targets. Previous work and our Experiment 1 show that it is difficult to divide attention between two such streams of stimuli. ERP recording in Experiment 2 evinced an early selection negativity (SN, with latencies to the 50% area of about 266 ms for global distracters and 276 ms for local distracters) that was larger for attended relative to unattended distracters. The SN was larger over right posterior occipito-temporal derivations for global stimuli and over left posterior occipito-temporal derivations for local stimuli (although the latter was less strongly lateralized). A discrimination negativity (DN, accompanied by a P3b) was larger for attended targets relative to attended distracters, with latencies to the 50% area of about 316 ms for global stimuli and 301 ms for local stimuli, which presented a similar distribution for both levels over left temporo-parietal electrodes. The two negativities apparently index successive stages in the processing of a selected level within a compound figure. By resolving the ambiguity of traditional designs, our method allowed us to observe the effects of attention for each hierarchical level on its own.
Changes in peer and parent influence during adolescence: Longitudinal versus cross-sectional perspectives on smoking initiation.

The current study used a longitudinal design to investigate age-related changes in the magnitude of peer and parent influences on adolescent cigarette smoking. Both peer and parent influences were significant predictors of subsequent transitions to higher levels of smoking. However, unlike previous cross-sectional research, the magnitude of peer and parent influences did not significantly vary across the 6thto 1 lth-grade levels. Additional analyses were undertaken to explore possible explanations for the differences between results produced by cross-sectional and longitudinal approaches. Implications for the study of transitions across the life span are discussed.
Seismic interferometry-turning noise into signal

Turning noise into useful data—every geophysicist's dream? And now it seems possible. The field of seismic interferometry has at its foundation a shift in the way we think about the parts of the signal that are currently filtered out of most analyses—complicated seismic codas (the multiply scattered parts of seismic waveforms) and background noise (whatever is recorded when no identifiable active source is emitting, and which is superimposed on all recorded data). Those parts of seismograms consist of waves that reflect and refract around exactly the same subsurface heterogeneities as waves excited by active sources. The key to the rapid emergence of this field of research is our new understanding of how to unravel that subsurface information from these relatively complex-looking waveforms. And the answer turned out to be rather simple. This article explains the operation of seismic interferometry and provides a few examples of its application.
Venture Capital and Innovation around the World

Based on data from 98 countries around the world over the 2000-2011 period, we compare the effect of venture capital (VC) on patenting in different institutional contexts. The data indicate that the impact of VC on patenting is stronger in countries with weaker IPR. This effect is robust to a number of different specifications for endogeneity, among other things. The economic effect is pronounced: the impact of VC on patents is up to five times more pronounced between the weakest and strongest IPR regime in the sample. JEL Codes: G32, O34, O38
Projection-Vision Systems: Towards a Human-Centric Taxonomy Unpublished Manuscript

As their name suggests, “projection-vision systems” are systems that utilize a projector, generally as their display, coupled with some form of camera/vision system for input. Projection-vision systems are not new. However, recent technological developments, research into usage, and novel problems emerging from ubiquitous and portable computing have resulted in a growing recognition that they warrant special attention. Collectively, they represent an important, interesting and distinct class of user interface. The intent of this paper is to present an introduction to projection-vision systems from a human-centric perspective. We develop a number of dimensions according to which they can be characterized. In so doing, we discuss older systems that paved the way, as well as ones that are just emerging. Our discussion is oriented around issues of usage and user experience. Technology comes to the fore only in terms of its affordances in this regard. Our hope is to help foster a better understanding of these systems, as well as provide a foundation that can assist in making more informed decisions in terms of next steps.
AC-Contract: Run-Time Verification of Context-Aware Applications

Modern software systems are increasingly complex and are controlling critical activities in many different domains. The traditional assumption that these systems will work in a controlled context is slightly vanishing. Therefore, it emerges the need of methodologies able to determine under what conditions desired goals will be achieved and behavioural strategies will be preserved despite (often unavoidable) adaptations. In this paper we use the cognitive psychology concept of schema to identify the set of properties that an adaptable system has to maintain when adapting to changed context. The methodology we propose, called AC-contract (Adaptable Code-contract), starts from high-level requirements and identifies properties that should hold locally on single parts of the system. Local properties are represented as contracts directly on the programming language. Specifically, AC-contract is able to embed logical propositions in the source code as annotations, moreover, it enables verification of adaptable code by exploiting a preprocessor that executes the annotations. The methodology is applied to a mobile application supporting travellers during their journey.
A study to determine the Afrikaans and English vocabulary levels of Grade One Afrikaans mother tongue learners in Windhoek

i TABLE OF CONTENTS . ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . iii DEDICATION . iv DECLARATIONS . v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1 ORIENTATION OF THE STUDY . 1 1.2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM . 5 1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY . 7 1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY . 7 1.5 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY . 8 1.6 CLARIFICATION OF CONCEPTS AND TERMS . 9 1.7 STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY . 12 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW . 13 2.
Clustering of multistage cyber attacks using significant services

Multistage cyber attacks may target services of different types, often indicating their behavior or capability of penetrating into the network. A significant enhancement to network defenses will be to recognize the different classes of multistage attacks, allowing timely and effective anticipation of future attacks. Drawing analogies from social networking analysis, this work proposes a methodology that clusters cyber attacks based on the `significant services' being exploited. From transforming the attacked services to utilizing the Divisive Hierarchical Clustering algorithm, the proposed method is able to identify sub-communities of attacks that share common characteristics. Experiment results demonstrate a high modularity for the identified community structure. Novel discoveries are also made possible by examining the attack clusters and the resulting dendrogram.
GENDER ASPECTS OF COPING WITH STRESS AND AND THEIR CONNECTION WITH THE POTENTIAL FOR DIVORCE

The study was conducted in order to determine the relationship between the coping strategies and divorce potential in couples. Based on the Levinger’s Model of cohesiveness and Bodennman’s stress-model, the existence of gender differences in coping with stress was expected, and that the non-adaptive coping skills were to be positive about the potential for divorce, while the adaptive strategies of coping with stress should be linked with a lower potential for divorce. 378 couples have participated in this study. The instruments used were the Brief COPE Scale (Carver, 1997) and a short form of the Martial Instability Index (Booth, Johnson & Edwards, 1983; retrieved from Tadinac et al., 2005). The results showed that the woman in dealing with stressful situations use self-destruction, denial of problems and venting, and also search for emotional and instrumental support. On the other hand, in dealing with stressful situations, males abuse substances. Using logistic regression it was showed that within both males and females there are significant differences between the coping strategies and divorce potential. Looking at the results more precisely, the males who deny the problem, use emotional support, rarely use venting, accept problems and rarely self-blame themselves have greater divorce potential. On the other hand, women who more frequently use emotional support and venting have greater divorce potential. The results are in line with the basic theoretical assumptions of this study.
Mobility and gait measure instruments for the hindlimb functional assessment of the dog

1 Resumo . 3 CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION . 5 References . 19 CHAPTER II: AIMS AND OUTLINE . 27 CHAPTER III: Hindlimb gait analysis in dogs – A review of the literature . 31 Abstract. 33 Introduction . 37 Methods . 41 Results . 45 Discussion and Conclusion . 53 References . 59 Appendix . 69 CHAPTER IV: Development of a scale to evaluate mobility in dogs . 73 Abstract. 75 Introduction . 79 Methods . 85 Results . 89 Discussion and Conclusion . 99 References . 105 CHAPTER V: Understanding the effect of individual characteristics on canine mobility . 111 Abstract. 113 Introduction . 117 Methods . 123 Results . 127 Discussion and Conclusion . 133 References . 137
An Efficient Data Classification Scheme with the H.264 Flexible Marcoblock Ordering

The flexible macroblock ordering (FMO) feature of the state-of-the-art advanced video coding standard, H.264, provides an efficient error resilience tool for video transmission over unreliable channels. In this paper, we exploit FMO to classify the data and introduce an opportunity for unequal error protection (UEP), where more important macroblocks are better protected than the others. However, the default mapping structures in the standard may not be optimized for this scenario. This paper presents an efficient FMO mapping technique that can be well suited to UEP techniques. Simulation results show that our proposed scheme is superior to the default standard mapping schemes, and has the advantage of controlling the high-to-low priority layer rate ratio according to application's requirements
Learning Compact Representations of Time-Varying Processes

We seek informative representations of the processes underlying time series data. As a first step, we address problems in which these processes can be approximated by linear models that vary smoothly over time. To facilitate estimation of these linear models, we introduce a method of dimension reduction which significantly reduces error when models are estimated locally for each point in time. This improvement is gained by performing dimension reduction implicitly through the model parameters rather than directly in the observation space.
Automatic initialization for naval application of graph segmentation techniques: A comparative study

Nowadays, many different image processing applications are of high interest to maritime authorities because of security reasons. Depending on the application, different kinds of images are employed. The extraction of ship silhouettes requires high resolution images in order to obtain accurate results. However, when the characteristics of the naval environment are visible the background complexity increases greatly and automatic approaches fail. In order to overcome these difficulties we propose an automatic initialization for graph segmentation techniques. A comparative study of earlier suggested initializations for different graph segmentation techniques is also presented. It shows that, under such unfavorable image conditions, finding the proper initialization in an automatic way is not trivial. Yet, the precision and recall achieved by our initialization are considerable higher regardless the graph segmentation. Furthermore, the performance is highly increased since the best results are obtained after only the first iteration.
Answering Questions Requiring Cross-passage Evidence

This paper presents methods for answering, what we call, Cross-passage Evidence Questions. These questions require multiply scattered passages all bearing different and partial evidence for the answers. This poses special challenges to the textual QA systems that employ information retrieval in the “conventional” way because the ensuing Answer Extraction operation assumes that one of the passages retrieved would, by itself, contain sufficient evidence to recognize and extract the answer. One method that may overcome this problem is factoring a Cross-passage Evidence Question into constituent sub-questions and joining the respective answers. The first goal of this paper is to develop and put this method into test to see how indeed effective this method could be. Then, we introduce another method, Direct Answer Retrieval, which rely on extensive pre-processing to collect different evidence for a possible answer off-line. We conclude that the latter method is superior both in the correctness of the answers and the overall efficiency in dealing with Crosspassage Evidence Questions. 1 Distinguishing Questions Based on Evidence Locality Textual factoid Question Answering depends on the existence of at least one passage or text span in the corpus that can serve as sufficient evidence for the question. A single piece of evidence may suffice to answer a question, or more than a single piece may be needed. By “a piece of evidence”, we mean a snippet of continuous text, or passage, that supports or justifies an answer to the question posed. More practically, in factoid QA, a piece of evidence is a text span with two properties: (1) An Information Retrieval (IR) procedure can recognise it as relevant to the question and (2) an automated Answer Extraction (AE) procedure can extract from it an answerbearing expression (aka an answer candidate). With respect to a given corpus, we call questions with the following property Single Passage Evidence Questions or SEQs: A question Q is a SEQ if evidence E sufficient to select A as an answer to Q can be found in the same text snippet as A. In contrast, we call a question that requires multiple different pieces of evidence (in multiple text spans with respect to a corpus) a Cross-passage Evidence Question or CEQ: A question Q is a CEQ if the set of evidence E1, . , En needed to justify A as an answer to Q cannot be found in a single text snippet containing A, but only in a set of such snippets. For example, consider the following question: Which Sub-Saharan country had hosted the World Cup? If the evidence for the country being located south of Sahara dessert and the evidence for this same country having hosted the World Cup is not contained in the same passage/sentence, but are found
Multidimensional Gaussian sums arising from the distribution of Birkhoff sums in zero entropy dynamical systems

A duality formula, of the Hardy and Littlewood type for multidimensional Gaussian sums, is proved in order to estimate the asymptotic long-time behaviour of the distribution of the Birkhoff sums Sn of a sequence generated by a skew product dynamical system on the torus, with zero Lyapounov exponents. The sequence, taking the values ±1, is a pairwise independent (but not independent otherwise) ergodic sequence with infinite range dependence. The model corresponds to the motion of a particle on an infinite cylinder, hopping backward and forward along its axis, with a transversal acceleration parameter α. We show that when the parameter α/π is rational then all the moments of the normalized sums , but the second, are unbounded with respect to n, while for irrational α/π, with bounded continuous fraction representation, all these moments are finite and bounded with respect to n.
[The diagnostic validity of screening tests and laboratory markers in alcohol use disorders].

OBJECTIVE To determine the validity of screening tests and markers suggested in the early detection of alcohol use disorders. METHOD Male patients aged 20-65 were recruited from a psychiatry clinic. They had been consuming alcohol at least once a week. They were not drug users and had no other diseases that affected the markers mentioned in this study. According to the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria, the diagnostic validity of screening tests [Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST), CAGE (Cut down, Annoyed, Guilty, Eye-opener), Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT)] and markers [Mean corpuscular volume (MCV), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT), carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT)] was investigated in alcohol dependent patients (n=29), alcohol abusers (n=28) and social drinkers (n=28). RESULTS For the diagnosis of dependence, the sensitivity and specificity of the tests were respectively 69% and 100% for GGT, 41% and 93% for CDT, 100% and 57% for MAST, 97% and 86% for CAGE, and 100% and 75% for AUDIT. For the diagnosis of abuse, the sensitivity and specificity of the tests were respectively 32% and 100% for GGT, 32% and 93% for CDT, 86% and 57% for MAST, 75% and 85.7% for CAGE, and 89% and 75% for AUDIT. The widest area under the ROC curve belonged to GGT as a marker and AUDIT as a screening test. CONCLUSION According to the results of this study, the marker that has the highest validity is GGT, while AUDIT and CAGE are the best screening tests.
Bt Crops Producing Cry1Ac, Cry2Ab and Cry1F Do Not Harm the Green Lacewing, Chrysoperla rufilabris

The biological control function provided by natural enemies is regarded as a protection goal that should not be harmed by the application of any new pest management tool. Plants producing Cry proteins from the bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), have become a major tactic for controlling pest Lepidoptera on cotton and maize and risk assessment studies are needed to ensure they do not harm important natural enemies. However, using Cry protein susceptible hosts as prey often compromises such studies. To avoid this problem we utilized pest Lepidoptera, cabbage looper (Trichoplusia ni) and fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda), that were resistant to Cry1Ac produced in Bt broccoli (T. ni), Cry1Ac/Cry2Ab produced in Bt cotton (T. ni), and Cry1F produced in Bt maize (S. frugiperda). Larvae of these species were fed Bt plants or non-Bt plants and then exposed to predaceous larvae of the green lacewing Chrysoperla rufilabris. Fitness parameters (larval survival, development time, fecundity and egg hatch) of C. rufilabris were assessed over two generations. There were no differences in any of the fitness parameters regardless if C. rufilabris consumed prey (T. ni or S. frugiperda) that had consumed Bt or non-Bt plants. Additional studies confirmed that the prey contained bioactive Cry proteins when they were consumed by the predator. These studies confirm that Cry1Ac, Cry2Ab and Cry1F do not pose a hazard to the important predator C. rufilabris. This study also demonstrates the power of using resistant hosts when assessing the risk of genetically modified plants on non-target organisms.
Evaluation of the efficacy of nutritional screening tools to predict malnutrition in the elderly at a geriatric care hospital

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES Malnutrition in the elderly is a serious problem, prevalent in both hospitals and care homes. Due to the absence of a gold standard for malnutrition, herein we evaluate the efficacy of five nutritional screening tools developed or used for the elderly. SUBJECTS/METHODS Elected medical records of 141 elderly patients (86 men and 55 women, aged 73.5 ± 5.2 years) hospitalized at a geriatric care hospital were analyzed. Nutritional screening was performed using the following tools: Mini Nutrition Assessment (MNA), Mini Nutrition Assessment-Short Form (MNA-SF), Geriatric Nutritional Risk Index (GNRI), Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST) and Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 (NRS 2002). A combined index for malnutrition was also calculated as a reference tool. Each patient evaluated as malnourished to any degree or at risk of malnutrition according to at least four out of five of the aforementioned tools was categorized as malnourished in the combined index classification. RESULTS According to the combined index, 44.0% of the patients were at risk of malnutrition to some degree. While the nutritional risk and/or malnutrition varied greatly depending on the tool applied, ranging from 36.2% (MUST) to 72.3% (MNA-SF). MUST showed good validity (sensitivity 80.6%, specificity 98.7%) and almost perfect agreement (k = 0.81) with the combined index. In contrast, MNA-SF showed poor validity (sensitivity 100%, specificity 49.4%) and only moderate agreement (k = 0.46) with the combined index. CONCLUSIONS MNA-SF was found to overestimate the nutritional risk in the elderly. MUST appeared to be the most valid and useful screening tool to predict malnutrition in the elderly at a geriatric care hospital.