Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Analytical Model of the HINT Performance Metric

The HINT benchmark was developed to provide a broad-spectrum metric for computers and to measure performance over the full range of memory sizes and time scales. We have extended our understanding of why HINT performance curves look the way they do and can now predict the curves using an analytical model based on simple hardware specifications as input parameters. Conversely, by fitting the experimental curves with the analytical model, hardware specifications such as memory performance can be inferred to provide insight into the nature of a given computer system.
High-Performance Computing Techniques for Record Linkage

The task of linking together information from one or more data sources representing the same entity (patient, customer, provider, business, etc.) If no unique identifier is available, probabilistic linkage techniques have to be applied Applications of record linkage Remove duplicates in a data set (internal linkage) Merge new records into a larger master data set Create patient oriented statistics Compile data for longitudinal studies Clean data sets for data mining projects or mailing lists
Context-dependent changes in tactile perception during movement execution

Tactile perception is inhibited during movement execution, a phenomenon known as tactile suppression. Here, we investigated whether the type of movement determines whether or not this form of sensory suppression occurs. Participants performed simple reaching or exploratory movements. Tactile discrimination thresholds were calculated for vibratory stimuli delivered to participants' wrists while executing the movement, and while at rest (a tactile discrimination task, TD). We also measured discrimination performance in a same vs. different task for the explored materials during the execution of the different movements (a surface discrimination task, SD). The TD and SD tasks could either be performed singly or together, both under active movement and passive conditions. Consistent with previous results, tactile thresholds measured at rest were significantly lower than those measured during both active movement and passive touch (that is, tactile suppression was observed). Moreover, SD performance was significantly better under conditions of single-tasking, active movements, as well as exploratory movements, as compared to conditions of dual-tasking, passive movements, and reaching movements, respectively. Therefore, the present results demonstrate that when active hand movements are made with the purpose of gaining information about the surface properties of different materials an enhanced perceptual performance is observed. As such, it would appear that tactile suppression occurs for irrelevant tactual features during both reaching and exploratory movements, but not for those task-relevant features that result from action execution during tactile exploration. Taken together, then, these results support a context-dependent modulation of tactile suppression during movement execution.
Moroccan foreign language studentsâ€™ views of a career in teaching

This study explored the views of 203 university students studying English or French at a University in Morocco about a career in teaching. The students completed a questionnaire in which they were asked to rate the importance of 20 factors influencing their choice of career, and then the extent to which they thought teaching offered these factors. The factors rated highest by students as â€˜very importantâ€™ in their choice of career were: â€˜a job that is respectedâ€™; â€˜a job that I will find enjoyableâ€™; and â€˜a job where I am required to use my intellectâ€™. Interestingly, â€˜a job that is respectedâ€™ was also rated very highly as being a factor that â€˜teaching definitely offersâ€™. Students most highly rated â€˜my wish to share my knowledge with othersâ€™ as the factor that might influence an individualâ€™s decision to become a teacher. Finally, when asked about changes to the profession that might encourage more people to consider it, the highest rated measure was â€˜an improvement in the quality of materials, resources and facilities for teachingâ€™. The findings support a model of career choice based on a match between factors the students consider important in a job and whether they perceive these factors are offered by the career in question.
A Pattern to Argue the Compliance of System Safety Requirements Decomposition

Safety case is a structured argument aimed to argue the system is acceptably safe to operate in a specific environment. Safety cases have been successfully used as documentation to support the certification process of safety-critical systems. Safety case patterns have been used to document recurrent safety argumentation solutions that have evolved over time by providing a simple and efficient solution to a particular problem. There are in the literature safety case patterns providing recurrent solutions for arguing the safety of product and process, and the compliance of development processes with safety standards. These patterns may require information provided by safety analysis to be instantiated. The decomposition of system safety requirements (SSRs) throughout component-level failures is one of the activities of the system safety analysis. Existing model-based safety analysis tools provide the capability of automatically allocate SSRs to component failures. In this context, there is a need for an structured safety argument arguing the conformance of the allocation of SSRs provided by these tools with requirements allocation rules prescribed by safety standards as ISO 26262 and ARP 4754A. In this paper, we propose safety case pattern describing a reusable argument structure to argue the compliance of the requirements allocation with the assignment rules prescribed by safety standards. The pattern addresses to support safety analysts in developing safety arguments to justify sufficiency and compliance of the requirements decomposition with the target safety standard. This pattern was applied in the design of arguments of two systems from automotive and avionics domains.
A minimal stochastic model for influenza evolution

We introduce and discuss a minimal individual based model for influenza dynamics. The model takes into account the effects of specific immunization against viral strains, but also infectivity randomness and the presence of a short lived strain-transcending immunity recently suggested in the literature. We show by simulations that the resulting model exhibits substitution of viral strains along the years, but that their divergence remains bounded. We also show that dropping any of these features results in a drastically different behaviour, leading either to the extinction of the disease, to the proliferation of the viral strains or to their divergence.
A new fault location technique on radial distribution systems using artificial neural network

In this paper, an effective fault location technique is proposed. Using the current samples of the distribution feeder measured at the substation, the proposed technique first determines the type of fault. Furthermore, an artificial neural network (ANN) is trained for each type of fault. The ANNs are trained to estimate the fault distance to the substation (FDANN). The Inputs of the ANNs are data of 3 phase voltages, currents and active powers of the feeder are measured at the substation in pre-fault and fault stages. The proposed method does not need data of loads of consumers. The proposed method is tested on IEEE 34-bus test feeder. Each ANN is trained by operating patterns. In order for ANNs cover the total operating space of the radial distribution network; fault location, fault resistance and loads are changed in each pattern. The outputs of ANNs for the operating test patterns, not presented in the training stage, are shown the accuracy of the ANNs. The trained FDANNs can estimate fault distance to the substation; even the structure of the distribution network is changed. Proposed method is effective while the input data are contained errors of measuring. (4 pages)
Perceptions of transmission of body weight and telemonitoring in patients with heart failure?

Chronic heart failure (HF) is associated with a high burden of morbidity and mortality and with reduced quality of life. New techniques such as telemonitoring (TM) have recently been introduced in the care of patients with HF in order to improve outcomes. TM is defined as sending data from the patients’ home to healthcare professionals. Most studies have focussed on endpoints such as morbidity and mortality, and relatively little attention has been paid to patients’ perceptions of TM. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore and describe patients’ perceptions of transmission of body weight (BW) and TM, regularly accomplished from patients’ homes to an HF clinic. An explorative design with a phenomenographic approach was used, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with a maximum variation sampling of 20 participants. The findings are described in five metaphoric categories that were assigned and used as a description: the habitual patient, the concerned patient, the technical patient, the secure patient, and the self-caring patient. The conclusions were that the transmission of BW made the patients active in their own care and increased self-care activities. In clinical care, concerns for deterioration in HF as well as the reliability of the TM system should be considered. Future research may focus on healthcare professionals and their perceptions of transmission of BW and TM in the care of patients with HF.
Location Based Routing Protocols for Underwater Sensor Networks

Providing scalable and efficient routing services in underwater sensor networks (UWSNs) are very challenging due to the unique characteristics of UWSNs. Firstly, UWSNs often employ acoustic channels for communications because radio signals do not work well in water. Compared with radio- frequency channels, acoustic channels feature much lower bandwidths and several orders of magnitudes longer propagation delays. Secondly, UWSNs usually have very dynamic topology as sensors move passively with water currents. Some routing protocols have been proposed to address the challenging problem in UWSNs. However, most of them assume that the full-dimensional location information of all sensor nodes in a network is known in prior through a localization process, which is yet another challenging issue to be solved in UWSNs. This paper surveys recent routing protocols for sensor networks and presents a classification for the various approaches pursued among that location based is the main concept. Moreover, protocols using contemporary methodologies such as network flow and QoS modeling are also discussed.
ON THE CONVERGENCE PROPERTIES OF THE EM ALGORITHM

Two convergence aspects of the EM algorithm are studied: (i) does the EM algorithm find a local maximum or a stationary value of the (incompletedata) likelihood function? (ii) does the sequence of parameter estimates generated by EM converge? Several convergence results are obtained under conditions that are applicable to many practical situations. Two useful special cases are: (a) if the unobserved complete-data specification can be described by a curved exponential family with compact parameter space, all the limit points of any EM sequence are stationary points of the likelihood function; (b) if the likelihood function is unimodal and a certain differentiability condition is satisfied, then any EM sequence converges to the unique maximum likelihood estimate. A list of key properties of the algorithm is included.
Dynamic beam pruning strategy using adaptive control

In large vocabulary continuous speech recognition, huge search space results in vast computational cost. While most pruning search strategies can reduce the computation, but the recognition rate often decreases. This paper aims to reduce the computation time without any sacrifice of the recognition rate. By means of the adaptive control theory, a novel pruning method is presented. It can automatically steer beam to make search space attain an expected size. In order to make the decoder more efficient, the average number of active model instances is used as the dynamic reference of the adaptive system. Compared with the baseline system with fixed beam and histogram pruning, the proposed method leads to a significant reduction in the computation time and a slight improvement in word accuracy.
Implementation of A low-cost multi-IMU hardware by using a homogenous multi-sensor fusion

In this paper a homogenous multi-sensor fusion method used to estimate true angular rate with combination of four low cost MEMS Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) in order to reduce noise effects. A discrete-time Kalman filter designed to combine output of four low accuracy sensors with price around 10$ to give more exact rate value. A hardware implemented to test the method and results show the improvement in variance of estimated angular rate more than 5 times and ARW error reduction about 2 times respect to the single gyro. A comparison between Kalman filtering and a simple averaging method was performed that shows the improvement of accuracy can be more than the averaging method.
PENGARUH PERSONALITY TRAITS TERHADAP PERENCANAAN KEUANGAN KELUARGA

Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk menguji dan menganalisis pengaruh ciri-ciri kepribadian yang terdiri dari agreeableness, conscientiousness, body focus, materialism and need for arousal pada perencanaan keuangan keluarga. Sampel dari penelitian ini adalah pegawai Bank BTN Cabang Semarang dengan alat analisis kualitatif dan kuantitatif. Hasilnya menunjukkan bahwa variabel-variabel independen (Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Body Focus, Materialism, dan Need for arrousal) mempunyai pengaruh yang signifikan terhadap perencanaan keuangan keluarga. Sehingga dapat disimpulkan bahwa kurangnya kemampuan karyawan dalam mengelola keuangan karena faktor pengetahuan yang dimiliki dan kuatnya pengaruh psikologis pada diri mereka. Faktor psikologis seringkali dianggap sebagai faktor kunci dalam proses pembuatan keputusan manajemen keuangan keluarga. Semakin kuat aspek kepribadian suami dan istri sebagai manajer keuangan, semakin besar pengaruh keputusan psikologis terhadap keputusan keuangan. Gaya hidup, pola belanja yang tidak terencana, biaya sosial yang tidak dianggarkan, lingkungan, dan literasi manajemen keuangan menjadi faktor pendukung timbulnya manajemen yang buruk atau bahkan kegagalan The aim of this research is to examine and analyze the effect of personality traits that consists of agreeableness, conscientiousness, body focus, materialism and need for arousal on the family financial planning. The sample of this research is a group of people who are employees of the BTN Bank Semarang branch with qualitative and quantitative analysis tools. The result shows that independent variables (agreeableness, conscientiousness, body focus, materialism and need for arousal) have significant effects on the family financial planning.It could be concluded that the lack of employee ability in how to manage family finance is caused by their own knowledge and their psychological factor. Psychological factor is often considered as a key factor in family financial management decision making process. The stronger personality aspect of husband and wife as the financial manager, the greater effects will occur on psychological decision to the financial decision. Lifestyle, unplanned shopping pattern, non-budgeted social expenses, environment, and financial management literacy become the supporting factors that cause a bad management or even a failure.
Problem Solving through Successive Decomposition

We present a theory that aims to reproduce the fundamental characteristics of human problem solving, including the ability to use a diverse range of strategies and to incorporate domain expertise when available. To begin, we discuss some known features of problem solving and propose several theoretical assumptions to account for them. Next, we introduce HPS, a hierarchical problem solver that implements these postulates. We describe the system’s core structures and processes, and, in each case, explain how they serve our high-level aims. We then describe the different forms of knowledge that can modulate HPS’s behavior. To demonstrate that the system accomplishes our objectives, we report three sets of experiments. We conclude by discussing related research and proposing avenues for future study.
Sliding Mode Control for Trajectory Tracking of Nonholonomic Wheeled Mobile Robots Based on Neural Dynamic Model

In this paper, a sliding mode control law is proposed for nonholonomic wheeled mobile robots using back-stepping technique. In order to resolve the speed jump problem existing in traditional sliding mode tracking controller, a novel sliding mode control law is designed based on neural dynamics model. The simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed controllers.
Ensemble learning of genetic networks from time-series expression data

MOTIVATION Inferring genetic networks from time-series expression data has been a great deal of interest. In most cases, however, the number of genes exceeds that of data points which, in principle, makes it impossible to recover the underlying networks. To address the dimensionality problem, we apply the subset selection method to a linear system of difference equations. Previous approaches assign the single most likely combination of regulators to each target gene, which often causes over-fitting of the small number of data. RESULTS Here, we propose a new algorithm, named LEARNe, which merges the predictions from all the combinations of regulators that have a certain level of likelihood. LEARNe provides more accurate and robust predictions than previous methods for the structure of genetic networks under the linear system model. We tested LEARNe for reconstructing the SOS regulatory network of Escherichia coli and the cell cycle regulatory network of yeast from real experimental data, where LEARNe also exhibited better performances than previous methods. AVAILABILITY The MATLAB codes are available upon request from the authors.
Development of New Technologies for Stem Cell Research

Since the 1960s, the stem cells have been extensively studied including embryonic stem cells, neural stem cells, bone marrow hematopoietic stem cells, and mesenchymal stem cells. In the recent years, several stem cells have been initially used in the treatment of diseases, such as in bone marrow transplant. At the same time, isolation and culture experimental technologies for stem cell research have been widely developed in recent years. In addition, molecular imaging technologies including optical molecular imaging, positron emission tomography, single-photon emission computed tomography, and computed tomography have been developed rapidly in recent the 10 years and have also been used in the research on disease mechanism and evaluation of treatment of disease related with stem cells. This paper will focus on recent typical isolation, culture, and observation techniques of stem cells followed by a concise introduction. Finally, the current challenges and the future applications of the new technologies in stem cells are given according to the understanding of the authors, and the paper is then concluded.
GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES AND REVENUES CAUSATION: SOME CARIBBEAN EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE

Error-correction model and stepwise Granger causality technique are used to examine the long-run and short-term causal relationships between taxes and spending to determine the effective way of reducing deficit and debt problems in four Caribbean countries with bicameral legislatures. Granger's temporal causality test confirms that taxes cause spending for only Belize, and independent for the rest of the countries. Estimates of the error correction model show long-run bi-directional causation in The Bahamas, Barbados and Belize, and independent in Jamaica. Tax limitation is the optimal policy for controlling deficit and debt problems over the short-term for only Belize, although in the long-run the Bahamas, Barbados and Belize have flexibility in balancing their budget because their ruling parties closely control budgetary and tax initiatives. In Jamaica taxes and spending are independent even though the minister of finance controls both; so eliminating inter party rivalry will assist in balancing the country’s national budget.
L/S-band 140 W push-pull power AlGaAs/GaAs HFETs for digital cellular base stations

An L/S-band high-power and low-distortion AlGaAs/GaAs HFET amplifier has been developed. The amplifier employed two pairs of pre-matched GaAs chips mounted on a single package and the total output-power was combined in push-pull configuration with a microstrip balun circuit. The developed amplifier demonstrated state-of-the-art performance of 140 W output-power with 11.5 dB linear gain at 2.2 GHz. In addition, it exhibited extremely low distortion performance, which is suitable for digital cellular base station system applications.
Corruption, Government Expenditures and Economic Performance: Nigeria’s Experience in the New Democratic Era (1999-2012)

The paper employs the ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation technique to estimate a simple regression model with a dummy variable to investigate the effect of corruption and government expenditures on the performance of Nigeria‟s economy in the pre-democratic (1994-1998) and the democratic (1999 – 2012) eras using annual time series data sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin, and Transparency International. The analysis indicates that corruption had no significant impact on Nigeria‟s economic growth in both sub-periods. It further indicates that capital expenditure component of government expenditure negatively impacted growth in the sample periods. The impact of government recurrent expenditure on the growth of Nigeria‟s economy was found to be significantly negative in the 1994-1998 period, but significantly positive in the democratic period (1999-2012). The paper recommends measures to make government expenditure more productive – enhancing its contribution to the growth of the nation‟s economy. Keywords: Corruption, Recurrent expenditure, Capital expenditure, Economic performance, Nigeria
Segmentation parameter estimation algorithm Based on curvelet transform coefficients energy for feature extraction and texture description of SAR images

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image processing has many applications in the fields of target recognition, mineral detection, weather forecasting, agricultural, and etc. due to its high spatial resolution and imaging technology. However, the process of this type of images is difficult because of the existence of speckle noise. Nowadays, segmentation of textural regions based on designing a Kernel function with proper parameters is a real challenge. In this paper, a new parameter estimation algorithm has been proposed to design an efficient Kernel function for texture-based segmentation of SAR images. In this method, the Curvelet transform is applied to the SAR image only in one step and the inner layer coefficients as texture features are extracted. Then, a kernel function is formed based on the kurtosis value of the Curvelet coefficients energy (KCE). In the next step, the segmentation of different textures is applied by using the estimated KCE Kernel function. Experimental results on both simulated and real SAR images demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is effective for segmentation and description of different textures in SAR images, and it contains less misclassified pixels in comparison with other methods.