Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Living a good life from the perspectives of the Chinese migrants in Scotland

The 2011 Census shows 34,000 Chinese people living in Scotland, making Chinese the second largest minority group residing in Scotland. Among them, the asylum and refugee population continue to be largely invisible in the service delivery in Glasgow, which has been the only dispersal area in Scotland since 1999. Remarkably little research has been carried out on the UK Chinese migrant community in the literature, and this study proposed to fill the gap of finding out the wellbeing of this population. The researcher investigated the factors contributing to the wellbeing of twenty-five Chinese migrants, who are either asylum seekers or refugees in Glasgow as the first stage of a wellbeing study, adopting the concepts from the Wellbeing in Developing Countries framework (White, 2008). The Indicators of Integration (Strang & Ager 2008) and the Social Capital Theory (Putnam 1995) were used as reference points to explore the understanding of well-being and social connections. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to find out the core constructs of wellbeing from the Chinese peoples perspectives and thematic analysis was used in data analysis. The top five themes that emerged were childrens education, employment and financial independence, health care, freedom of speech and association, and support from own ethnic group.
- 1-Monads – Adaptation Agents for Nomadic Users

The environment of nomadic computing is very different from that of traditional distributed systems today. The variety of mobile workstations, handheld devices, and smart phones, which nomadic users use to access data services in the Internet, increases at growing rate. The outcome is new demands for adaptability of data services. Agent technology is one of the software solutions that may be used to fulfill the demand of “anytime-anywhereanyhow” access to data services. The research project Monads addresses some of the fundamental challenges in supporting nomadic applications: adaptability to available computing and communication resources that vary in tempo-spatial space and short-term (1-30 minutes) predictions of available resources. In addition to adaptability and predictions, efficient agent communication in wireless environments is a mandatory prerequisite.
Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports in Alternative Educational Placements

Abstract Alternative Education Placements (AEPs) are unique and complex settings that serve students with varieties of needs and strengths, though in practice such settings may be used most frequently to serve students with serious challenging behavior. Although research supports a number of individual interventions for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD), including intensive, individualized interventions, less is known about adapting such interventions for AEPs, and especially about the potential for AEPs to adopt a flexible, positive, multitiered framework for behavior and school climate. Emerging evidence suggests that Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) can be integrated into alternative education settings with careful planning. This chapter provides (1) an overview of AEPs, (2) a description of six steps recommended for integrating PBIS into AEPs, and (3) a brief overview of recent literature regarding PBIS in AEPs.
The Role of Experiential Avoidance in the Performance on a High Cognitive Demand Task

The aim of the study is to analyze the relation between experiential avoidance and the per- formance on a working-memory task. In Phase 1, 24 participants were selected according to high and low scores in the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (AAQ-II), an experiential avoidance measure. Participants then responded to the White Bear Suppression Inventory (WBSI), the accepting without judgment scale of the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (KIMS) and the problem solving and cognitive reappraisal scales of the Coping Stra- tegies Inventory (CSI). In Phase 2, participants followed this sequence: (a) viewed a film with neutral content (neutral film), (b) responded to a mood inventory, (c) were exposed to a working-memory task in which they had to press the space bar when recalling something about the film (thought intrusions) and, finally, (d) reported their level of concentration on the task and the perceived interference of having viewed the film. Phase 3 was identical except that a new film with highly emotional content (discomforting film) was used. Results showed that experiential avoidance and accepting without judgment scores showed the highest correlations with the experimental variables. High AAQ-II participants showed a higher level of negative emotions after viewing both films. After viewing the discomforting film, these participants showed a higher number of thought intrusions, a higher level of interference of the film and a lower level of concentration on the task. High AAQ-II participants did not improve their performance on the task, however, low AAQ-II participants did. The mediational analysis revealed that experiential avoidance scores had an effect over the working-memory task through its effect over participants' informed level of concentration. Results are discussed highlighting the role of experiential avoidance in the performance on high cognitive demand tasks while participants are experiencing discomfort.
Construction A of Lattices Over Number Fields and Block Fading (Wiretap) Coding

We propose a lattice construction from totally real and complex multiplication fields, which naturally generalizes Construction A of lattices from p-ary codes obtained from the cyclotomic field Q(ζ<sub>p</sub>), p a prime, which in turn contains the so-called Construction A of lattices from binary codes as a particular case. We focus on the maximal totally real subfield Q(ζ<sub>p</sub><sup>r</sup> + ζ<sub>p</sub><sup>-r</sup> ) of the cyclotomic field Q(ζ<sub>p</sub><sup>r</sup> ), r ≥ 1. Our construction has applications to coset encoding of algebraic lattice codes for block fading channels, and in particular for block fading wiretap channels.
The contribution of neighbours to an individual's risk of typhoid outcome

SUMMARY An individual's risk of infection from an infectious agent can depend on both the individual's own risk and protective factors and those of individuals in the same community. We hypothesize that an individual's exposure to an infectious agent is associated with the risks of infection of those living nearby, whether their risks are modified by pharmaceutical interventions or by other factors, because of the potential for transmission from them. For example, unvaccinated individuals living in a highly vaccinated community can benefit from indirect protection, or living near more children in a typhoid-endemic region (where children are at highest risk) might result in more exposure to typhoid. We tested this hypothesis using data from a cluster-randomized typhoid vaccine trial. We first estimated each individual's relative risk of confirmed typhoid outcome using their vaccination status and age. We defined a new covariate, potential exposure, to be the sum of the relative risks of all who live within 100 m of each person. We found that potential exposure was significantly associated with an individual's typhoid outcome, and adjusting for potential exposure affected estimates of vaccine efficacy. We suggest that it is useful and feasible to adjust for spatially heterogeneous distributions of individual-level risk factors, but further work is required to develop and test such approaches.
The research and application of indoor location algorithm based on wireless sensor network

In recent years, with the development of the location technology, the services based on location are more and more needed by people. The typical applications include indoor navigation, children track, tourist guide, and car monitoring and so on. In this paper, aiming at wireless sensor network, we study several indoor wireless location algorithms. And we focus on analyzing the principle and characteristic of the received signal strength technology, and then apply it to intelligent parking system.
A Flexible Framework for Hardware-Accelerated High-Quality Volume Rendering

Because of an enormous development of graphics hardware and the invention of new rendering algorithms in the past it is now possible to perform interactive hardwareaccelerated high quality volume rendering and iso-surface reconstruction on low cost standard PC platforms. In this paper we introduce a framework that integrates several different rendering techniques which significantly improve both performance and image quality of standard texture based rendering approaches. Furthermore the most common graphics adapters are supported without additional need for setup as well as several vendor-dependent OpenGL-extensions like pixel-, textureand fragmentshaders. Therefore it is easy to compare the varying results of different rendering algorithms on diverse graphics adapters with respect to quality and performance.
Automatic Generation of State I N V Ariants from Requirements Specications

Automatic generation of state invariants, properties that hold in every reachable state of a state machine model, can be valuable in software development. Not only can such invariants be presented to system users for validation, in addition, they can be used as auxiliary assertions in proving other invariants. This paper describes an algorithm for the automatic generation of state invariants that, in contrast to most other such algorithms, which operate on programs, derives invariants from requirements speci cations. Generating invariants from requirements speci cations rather than programs has two advantages: 1) because requirements speci cations, unlike programs, are at a high level of abstraction, generation of and analysis using such invariants is easier, and 2) using invariants to detect errors during the requirements phase is considerably more cost-e ective than using invariants later in software development. To illustrate the algorithm, we use it to generate state invariants from requirements speci cations of an automobile cruise control system and a simple control system for a nuclear plant. The invariants are derived from speci cations expressed in the SCR (Software Cost Reduction) tabular notation. Keywords|requirements, speci cation, formal methods, invariants, veri cation, validation, software tools
Hemoglobin Cleavage Site-Specificity of the Plasmodium falciparum Cysteine Proteases Falcipain-2 and Falcipain-3

The Plasmodium falciparum cysteine proteases falcipain-2 and falcipain-3 degrade host hemoglobin to provide free amino acids for parasite protein synthesis. Hemoglobin hydrolysis has been described as an ordered process initiated by aspartic proteases, but cysteine protease inhibitors completely block the process, suggesting that cysteine proteases can also initiate hemoglobin hydrolysis. To characterize the specific roles of falcipains, we used three approaches. First, using random P1 – P4 amino acid substrate libraries, falcipain-2 and falcipain-3 demonstrated strong preference for cleavage sites with Leu at the P2 position. Second, with overlapping peptides spanning α and β globin and proteolysis-dependent 18O labeling, hydrolysis was seen at many cleavage sites. Third, with intact hemoglobin, numerous cleavage products were identified. Our results suggest that hemoglobin hydrolysis by malaria parasites is not a highly ordered process, but rather proceeds with rapid cleavage by falcipains at multiple sites. However, falcipain-2 and falcipain-3 show strong specificity for P2 Leu in small peptide substrates, in agreement with the specificity in optimized small molecule inhibitors that was identified previously. These results are consistent with a principal role of falcipain-2 and falcipain-3 in the hydrolysis of hemoglobin by P. falciparum and with the possibility of developing small molecule inhibitors with optimized specificity as antimalarial agents.
An Architecture for Object Replication in Distributed Systems

In this paper, we present an architecture for developing replicated objects in object oriented distributed systems. The architecture is, however, general, and the concepts can be adapted to non-object oriented distributed systems. The architecture specifies the main requirements for developing replicated objects in distributed systems, namely: the replicated object representation, the replicated object development and management mechanism, and the replica consistency protocol. For achieving these requirements, the architecture specifies a hierarchy of objects and the inheritance and functional relationship among these objects. All the management functions of replicated objects are encapsulated in a manager object. An application object inherits these functionalities from the manager object. This object replication architecture will greatly reduce the complexity of the development of replicated objects in distributed systems. We also developed an efficient replica consistency algorithm that takes advantage of the features of our architecture. A preliminary prototype implementation of our architecture has been carried out in Spring OS environment.
Genome-wide screen identifies a novel prognostic signature for breast cancer survival

Large genomic datasets in combination with clinical data can be used as an unbiased tool to identify genes important in patient survival and discover potential therapeutic targets. We used a genome-wide screen to identify 587 genes significantly and robustly deregulated across four independent breast cancer (BC) datasets compared to normal breast tissue. Gene expression of 381 genes was significantly associated with relapse-free survival (RFS) in BC patients. We used a gene co-expression network approach to visualize the genetic architecture in normal breast and BCs. In normal breast tissue, co-expression cliques were identified enriched for cell cycle, gene transcription, cell adhesion, cytoskeletal organization and metabolism. In contrast, in BC, only two major co-expression cliques were identified enriched for cell cycle-related processes or blood vessel development, cell adhesion and mammary gland development processes. Interestingly, gene expression levels of 7 genes were found to be negatively correlated with many cell cycle related genes, highlighting these genes as potential tumor suppressors and novel therapeutic targets. A forward-conditional Cox regression analysis was used to identify a 12-gene signature associated with RFS. A prognostic scoring system was created based on the 12-gene signature. This scoring system robustly predicted BC patient RFS in 60 sampling test sets and was further validated in TCGA and METABRIC BC data. Our integrated study identified a 12-gene prognostic signature that could guide adjuvant therapy for BC patients and includes novel potential molecular targets for therapy.
Can geo-tags on flickr draw coastlines?

Many photos shared on photo-sharing sites are annotated with tags and geo-tags. Some studies have demonstrated extraction of the geographical characterization which a tag represents as regions using those metadata. However, in some cases (e.g. coastline), a line is more suitable than a region as a geographical characterization of a tag. Therefore, we proposed a novel method to extract lines as a region as a geographical characterization. Results show that the distance of a coastline and many lines of our method is less than 500 m. Although, in this paper, only the coastline has been evaluated, this method is applicable to other tags as well.
Unsupervised Cosegmentation based on Global Graph Matching

Cosegmentation is defined as the task of segmenting a common object from multiple images. Hitherto, graph matching has been known as a promising approach because of its flexibility in matching deformable objects and regions, and several methods based on this approach have been proposed. However, candidate foregrounds obtained by a local matching algorithm in previous methods tend to include false-positive areas, particularly when visually similar backgrounds (e.g., sky) commonly appear across images. We propose an unsupervised cosegmentation method based on a global graph matching algorithm. Rather than using a local matching algorithm that finds a small common subgraph, we employ global matching that can find a one-to-one mapping for every vertex between input graphs such that we can remove negative regions estimated as background. Experimental results obtained using the iCoseg and MSRC datasets demonstrate that the accuracy of the proposed method is higher than that of previous graph-based methods.
Introduction to Cellular Automata Seminar “ Organic Computing ” SS 2006

Cellular Automata, or Cellular Spaces as they were called then, were invented by John von Neumann half a century ago. They were meant to be a model for self-replicating organisms, and some people think they are a good model for how the universe works. Cellular automata are used for many things, among them simulation of particle-based phenomena, formulation of image processing algorithms, circuit-diagnosis in VLSI design and cryptography. Although interesting things can be done with them, there are no simple recipes, or design methodologies.
Studies on Wavelet Based Linear Prediction Coefficients for Natural Sounding Speech using Different Windowing Techniques

This paper is aimed at to study LPC for Natural speech with different windowing techniques the effect of window shape on improving the speech quality by reducing the noise with the help of fixed and variable Windows with optimum shape. In the speech process signal corrupted by noise is segmented into frames and each segment is windowed using different Window with variation in the shape parameters. The windowed speech segment is transformed using Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT). After applying the speech algorithms this signal is reconstructed back in time domain. It is observed in this study that the window shape place its role on the speech enhancement process. The quality of the enhanced speech was measured using five objective measures of speech enhancement process. This work proposed an optimum constant for the variable and fixed windows to decide its shape. Good results or reported.
Navigating big data with high-throughput, energy-efficient data partitioning

The global pool of data is growing at 2.5 quintillion bytes per day, with 90% of it produced in the last two years alone [24]. There is no doubt the era of big data has arrived. This paper explores targeted deployment of hardware accelerators to improve the throughput and energy efficiency of large-scale data processing. In particular, data partitioning is a critical operation for manipulating large data sets. It is often the limiting factor in database performance and represents a significant fraction of the overall runtime of large data queries. To accelerate partitioning, this paper describes a hardware accelerator for range partitioning, or HARP, and a hardware-software data streaming framework. The streaming framework offers a seamless execution environment for streaming accelerators such as HARP. Together, HARP and the streaming framework provide an order of magnitude improvement in partitioning performance and energy. A detailed analysis of a 32nm physical design shows 7.8 times the throughput of a highly optimized and optimistic software implementation, while consuming just 6.9% of the area and 4.3% of the power of a single Xeon core in the same technology generation.
Reconstructing memory narratives on Facebook with Digital Methods

Social platforms are playing an increasingly more important role in different aspects of our daily lives, which can range from the most mundane to such crucial processes as the transmission of meanings and values in our society. Much of the interest lies in the fact that storytelling on social networks is a collective process in which users participate by creating, sharing and commenting on content. All these actions generate digital traces that are easily accessible, in a non-intrusive and automated manner, which represents an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the mediation of social and cultural phenomena. Digital Methods is an epistemological proposal that, aligned with Studies in Science, Technology and Society (STS), assumes the existence of a technological mediation of social and cultural practices and uses computational techniques, not only to extract the digital traces left by the users of these social networks, but also to analyze and display their content. This article takes as a case study the representation of the Spanish Civil War on Facebook to exemplify the affordances of such a methodological approach to investigate the processes of generation, diffusion and representation of historical knowledge.
3.1 Micron H2O Ice Absorption in LINER-Type Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies with Cool Far-Infrared Colors: The Centrally Concentrated Nature of Their Deeply Buried Energy Sources

Ground-based 2.8-4.1 μm slit spectra of the nuclei of seven ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) that are classified optically as LINERs and have cool far-infrared colors are presented. All the nuclei show 3.3 μm polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission, with equivalent widths that are systematically lower than those in starburst galaxies. Strong 3.1 μm H2O ice absorption, with optical depth greater than 0.6, is also detected in five nuclei, and 3.4 μm carbonaceous dust absorption is detected clearly in one of the five nuclei. It is quantitatively demonstrated that the large optical depths of the H2O ice absorption in the five sources, and the 3.4 μm absorption in one source, are incompatible with a geometry in which the energy sources are spatially mixed with dust and molecular gas, as is expected for a typical starburst, but instead require that a large amount of nuclear dust (including ice-covered grains) and molecular gas be distributed in a screen in front of the 3-4 μm continuum-emitting sources. This geometrical requirement can naturally be met if the energy sources are more centrally concentrated than the nuclear dust and molecular gas. The low equivalent widths of the PAH emission compared to starbursts and the central concentration of the nuclear energy sources in these five ULIRGs are best explained by the presence of energetically important active galactic nuclei deeply buried in dust and molecular gas.
Stability and stability margin for a two-dimensional system

In this paper, a necessary and sufficient condition is derived for the stability of the Fornasini-Marchesini (FM) first model proposed for two-dimensional (2-D) dynamic system descriptions. A connection has been established between the stability of this model and the structured singular value (SSV) of a constant matrix, which is now widely known in control theories. Based on this connection, a novel sufficient condition is obtained for the stability of the FM first model that is more computationally convenient in filter design. Numerical simulations show that this sufficient condition is usually less conservative than that of . Moreover, the stability margin of the FM first model is also investigated. It is shown that a 2-D system remains stable under parametric variations if and only if the SSV of a constant matrix is smaller than one