Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Can Collaboration Engineering help Open Source Communities to structure their activities

Collaborative work became an important stake for productivity, performance and innovation for companies. They bet more and more on communities of practice to support collaboration, sharing and creation of knowledge. The goal of this paper is to analyze the possible contribution of the Collaboration Engineering in the working of these communities, by taking as example, the Open Source communities.
Order Patterns Networks (ORPAN)—a method to estimate time-evolving functional connectivity from multivariate time series

Complex networks provide an excellent framework for studying the function of the human brain activity. Yet estimating functional networks from measured signals is not trivial, especially if the data is non-stationary and noisy as it is often the case with physiological recordings. In this article we propose a method that uses the local rank structure of the data to define functional links in terms of identical rank structures. The method yields temporal sequences of networks which permits to trace the evolution of the functional connectivity during the time course of the observation. We demonstrate the potentials of this approach with model data as well as with experimental data from an electrophysiological study on language processing.
Cooperative Game Theory and the Gaussian Interference Channel

In this paper we discuss the use of cooperative game theory for analyzing interference channels. We extend our previous work, to games with N players as well as frequency selective channels and joint TDM/FDM strategies. We show that the Nash bargaining solution can be computed using convex optimization techniques. We also show that the same results are applicable to interference channels where only statistical knowledge of the channel is available. Moreover, for the special case of two player 2 times K frequency selective channel (with K frequency bins) we provide an O(K log2 K) complexity algorithm for computing the Nash bargaining solution under mask constraint and using joint FDM/TDM strategies. Simulation results are also provided.
Modeling the Future Burden of Stroke in the Netherlands: Impact of Aging, Smoking, and Hypertension

Background and Purpose— In the near future, the number of stroke patients and their related healthcare costs are expected to rise. The purpose of this study was to estimate this expected increase in stroke patients in the Netherlands. We sought to determine what the future developments in the number of stroke patients due to demographic changes and trends in the prevalence of smoking and hypertension in terms of the prevalence, incidence, and potential years of life lost might be. Methods— A dynamic, multistate life table was used, which combined demographic projections and existing stroke morbidity and mortality data. It projected future changes in the number of stroke patients in several scenarios for the Dutch population for the period 2000 to 2020. The model calculated the annual number of new patients by age and sex by using incidence rates, defined by age, sex, and major risk factors. The change in the annual number of stroke patients is the result of incident cases minus mortality numbers. Results— Demographic changes in the population suggest an increase of 27% in number of stroke patients per 1000 in 2020 compared with 2000. Extrapolating past trends in the prevalence of smoking behavior, hypertension, and stroke incidence resulted in an increase of 4%. Conclusions— The number of stroke patients in the Netherlands will rise continuously until the year 2020. Our study demonstrates that a large part of this increase in the number of patients is an inevitable consequence of the aging of the population.
A Method for Objective Edge Detection Evaluation and Detector Parameter Selection

Subjective evaluation by human observers is usually used to analyze and select an edge detector parametric setup when real-world images are considered. We propose a statistical objective performance analysis and detector parameter selection, using detection results produced by different detector parameters. Using the correspondence between the different detection results, an estimated best edge map, utilized as an estimated ground truth (EGT), is obtained. This is done using both a receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis and a Chi-square test, and considers the trade off between information and noisiness in the detection results. The best edge detector parameter set (PS) is then selected by the same statistical approach, using the EGT. Results are demonstrated for several edge detection techniques, and compared to published subjective evaluation results. The method developed here suggests a general tool to assist in practical implementations of parametric edge detectors where an automatic process is required.
Endothelium‐dependent contractions and endothelial dysfunction in human hypertension

The endothelium is a crucial regulator of vascular physiology, producing in healthy conditions several substances with a potent antiatherosclerotic properties. Accordingly, the presence of endothelial dysfunction is associated with subclinical atherosclerosis and with an increased future risk of cardiovascular events. A large body of evidence supports the fundamental role of nitric oxide (NO) as the main endothelium‐derived relaxing factor. However, in the presence of pathological conditions, such as hypertension, endothelial cells, in response to a number of agents and physical stimuli, become also a source of endothelium‐derived contracting factors (EDCFs), including endothelins and angiotensin II and particularly cyclooxygenase‐derived prostanoids and superoxide anions. These latter were at first identified as responsible for impaired endothelium‐dependent vasodilation in patients with essential hypertension. However, cyclooxygenase‐dependent EDCFs production is characteristic of the aging process, and essential hypertension seems to only anticipate the phenomenon. It is worth noting that both in aging and hypertension EDCF production is associated with a parallel decrease in NO availability, suggesting that this substance could be oxygen free radicals themselves. Accordingly, in hypertension both indomethacin, a cyclooxygenase inhibitor, and vitamin C, an antioxidant, increase the vasodilation to acetylcholine by restoring NO availability. In conclusion, hypertension is characterized by a decline in endothelial function, associated with a progressive decrease in NO bioavailability and increase in the production of EDCF. The mechanisms that regulate the balance between NO and EDCF, and the processes transforming the endothelium from a protective organ to a source of vasoconstrictor, proaggregatory and promitogenic mediators remain to be determined.
Impact of Correlated Interferers on Coverage and Rate of FFR and SFR Schemes

The coverage probability (CP) and the average rate expressions when fractional frequency reuse (FFR) or soft frequency reuse (SFR) schemes are employed in single-input-multiple-output (SIMO) network are derived when the interferers undergo correlated Rayleigh fading. It is analytically shown that both the CP and the rate are higher in the presence of the correlated interferers (when the interferers are positively correlated) when compared with the case where the interferers are independent. It is also shown that the impact of correlation on SFR is more when compared with FFR, and it decreases with an increase in the power control factor. We show that the average rate achieved by FFR is higher when compared with the SFR in SISO networks for both the independent and correlated cases. However, the situation is reversed for SIMO networks. The impact of large-scale fading has also been briefly studied.
First Ply Failure Loads of Composite Conoidal Shell Roofs with Varying Lamination

A number of industrial structures need large column free open spaces. Though the conoidal shells are doubly curved they are singly ruled too and are easy to fabricate and thus preferred in the industry. The laminated composites are well established today and there is a relevant question regarding the performance of different stacking options when the laminates are used to fabricate structural units. First ply failure analysis of conoidal shells are missing in the literature. This article uses the finite element method to evaluate relative performances of conoidal shells with varying laminations in terms of their first ply failure loads.
Generating weights and generating vectors to map complex functions with artificial neural networks

The generation of weights is an alternative method of loading a set of weights into an artificial neural network. It is a process that transforms a trained base net by multiplying its weights by symmetric matrices [1]. These weights are then assigned to a derived net. The derived nets map symmetrically related functions. At present, the process is limited because it cannot be applied to one-to-many functions. In this paper, this limitation is overcome by generating a set of vectors from the transformed derived nets that are then used to train an ANN to map one-to-many tasks. The associated rotational symmetries performed are also specified.
Computational Geometry Column 66

The list update problem is a well studied online problem in the area of self-adjusting data structures. Understanding the o? ine version of this problem is crucial because of the role it plays in the competitive analysis of online list update algorithms. In this paper we settle a long-standing open problem by showing that the o? ine list update problem is NP-hard.
Linguistically Motivated Question Classification

In this paper we describe a question interpretation module designed as a part of a Question Answering Dialogue System (QADS) which is used for an interactive quiz application. Question interpretation is achieved in applying a sequence of classification, information extraction, query formalization and query expansion tasks. The process of a question classification is performed based on a domain-specific taxonomy of semantic roles and relations. Our taxonomy was designed in accordance with the real spoken dialogue data. The SVM-based classifier is trained to predict the Expected Answer Type (EAT) with the precision of 82%. In order to retrieve a correct answer, focus word(-s) are extracted to augment the EAT identified by the system. Our hybrid algorithm for the extraction of focus words demonstrates the accuracy of 94.6%. EAT together with focus words are formalized in a query, which is further expanded with the synonyms from WordNet. The expanded query facilitates the search and retrieval of the information that is necessary to generate the system’s responses.
A Dependency Treebank for English

This paper presents the syntactic annotation level of a project aimed at providing a small dialog corpus with multiple levels of annotation. The syntactic annotation is based on dependency syntax. We outline the reasons for choosing dependency, and show the syntactic annotation for some constructions. We finish by describing the current state of the project.
Attachment states of mind and inferred childhood experiences in maltreated and comparison adolescents from low-income families

Abstract This paper reports the first large-sample investigation of the maltreatment-related correlates of low-income adolescents’ narratives about their childhood experiences with primary caregivers, as assessed with a modified version of the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) and based on official reports of abuse and neglect (maltreated n = 214, nonmaltreated n = 140; M age = 16.7 years). Drawing on factor-analytic and taxometric evidence indicating that AAI narratives vary along two state of mind (i.e., dismissing and preoccupied) and two inferred childhood experience (i.e., maternal and paternal) dimensions, here we demonstrate that the experience of maltreatment, particularly when chronic, is associated with increased risk for dismissing and preoccupied states of mind and more negative inferred childhood experiences. Although such maltreatment-related associations were generally not specific to any of the four AAI dimensions, the experience of physical and/or sexual abuse was uniquely associated with preoccupied states of mind and negative inferred paternal experiences even after controlling for the other AAI dimensions. More extensive paternal perpetration of maltreatment also was uniquely related to more negative inferred paternal experiences.
Ecoanalysis of Variable-Speed Drives for Flow Regulation in Pumping Systems

Electronic variable-speed drives (VSDs) can produce large energy and environmental savings in variable-load variable-speed applications when compared with other conventional technologies. There are a very large number of applications (e.g., fluid motion, materials handling, and materials processing) which would benefit, both in terms of process improvement and energy savings, through the use of speed control. Previous studies have shown that the variable-flow fluid motion applications (pumps, fans, and compressors) have the largest savings potential. In this paper, an ecodesign analysis of two different technologies for the flow regulation in pumping systems - constant-speed pump with an output throttle valve (motor directly fed from the line) and variable-speed pump without an output throttle valve (motor fed by a variable-speed drive) - is presented. A European standard methodology for the ecodesign analysis of energy-using products is used in this paper. This paper includes a comparative analysis of the environmental impacts and life-cycle costs. The identified large environmental benefits on top of the energy savings provide a strong argument for an increased use of VSDs. The presented analysis is of major importance for industrial electronics manufacturers, designers, and users, widening their awareness to the importance of taking into account the energy and environmental issues when evaluating different system design options.
Amorphous-nanocrystalline lead titanate thin films for dielectric energy storage

Many high permittivity crystalline dielectric thin films have a low breakdown strength, which is unfavorable for dielectric energy storage devices. In contrast, many amorphous linear dielectrics have much lower permittivities but larger breakdown strengths. Here, composite thin films with nanocrystalline particles in an amorphous matrix were explored to increase the stored energy density of dielectrics. For this purpose, thin films of lead-rich lead titanate, Pb1.1TiO3. 1, were fabricated via chemical solution deposition and heat-treated at temperatures <= 400 degrees C. Transmission electron microscopy indicated the presence of dense lead oxide nanocrystals in an amorphous lead titanate network. The films exhibit a relative permittivity of 32.6 and a low dielectric loss of 0.0008. The leakage current is approximately 10(-8)A/cm(2), with a DC breakdown strength between 2 and 3MV/cm. The 1 kHz breakdown strength exceeds 5MV/cm. At an electric field of 5MV/cm and a measurement frequency of 1 kHz, the maximum in energy storage density was similar to 28 J/cm(3). These properties suggest that nanocomposite Pb1.1TiO3. 1 films may be a suitable candidate for integration into energy storage devices. (C)
Holistic Comparison of Text Images for Content-Based Retrieval

The accurate recognition of text that appears in images/videos using analytical character recognition methods is often very difficult, despite the fact that the text might be correctly localized, segmented and binarized. This is mainly due to changing features of the text such as various fonts, or noise factors embedded in the image which are inherited from the complex background. In this paper, we treat the problem of comparing text images for content-based retrieval purposes, by presenting a holistic approach to this issue. First, the shape of text is represented by estimating the salient points in the text image. Then, alignment shape methods are used to establish the correspondence of the salient points. Finally, a measure is suggested to compute the dissimilarity between two text images based on the generated correspondence. Empirical evaluation of the proposed holistic comparison method has demonstrated its very good performance
Compact tensor based image representation for similarity search

Within the Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) framework, one of the main challenges is to tackle the scalability issues. We propose a new compact signature for similarity search. We use an original method to perform a high compression of signatures while retraining their effectiveness. We propose an embedding method that maps large signatures into a low-dimensional Hilbert space. We evaluated the method on Holidays database and compared the results with methods of state-of-the-art.
Understanding and preventing network device fingerprinting

Internet Protocol (IP)-based devices disclose information about themselves through responses to common and carefully crafted IP packets. Attackers can discover security vulnerabilities by using open source tools to fingerprint devices remotely by eliciting and analyzing these responses. The current approach to IP-based security tries to solve this problem by interposing defensive devices such as firewalls and network scrubbers between attacker and targets. These devices block and/or modify the responses of target machines, potentially defeating remote fingerprinting attempts. In this work, we present a method for assessing the value of security configurations and provide insights toward the development of a security solution that prevents remote fingerprinting. Our method uses information gain to measure the discriminative power of fingerprinting tools. We use this measure to provide an analytical evaluation of existing open source fingerprinting tools and present an empirical evaluation of the robustness of specific defensive device configurations to defeating the most discriminative tools. © 2007 Alcatel-Lucent.
Dynamic Trading with Predictable Returns and Transaction Costs

We derive a closed-form optimal dynamic portfolio policy when trading is costly and security returns are predictable by signals with different mean-reversion speeds. The optimal strategy is characterized by two principles: 1) aim in front of the target and 2) trade partially towards the current aim. Specifically, the optimal updated portfolio is a linear combination of the existing portfolio and an "aim portfolio," which is a weighted average of the current Markowitz portfolio (the moving target) and the expected Markowitz portfolios on all future dates (where the target is moving). Intuitively, predictors with slower mean reversion (alpha decay) get more weight in the aim portfolio. We implement the optimal strategy for commodity futures and find superior net returns relative to more naive benchmarks.
Interface Contracts for TinyOS

TinyOS applications are built with software components that communicate through narrow interfaces. Since components enable finegrained code reuse, this approach has been successful in creating applications that make very efficient use of the limited code and data memory on sensor network nodes. However, the other important benefit of components-rapid application development through black-box reuse-remains largely unrealized because in many cases interfaces have implied usage constraints that can be the source of frustrating program errors. Developers are commonly forced to read the source code for components, partially defeating the purpose of using components in the first place. Our research helps solve these problems by allowing developers to explicitly specify and enforce component interface contracts. Due to the extensive reuse of the most common interfaces, implementing contracts for a small number of frequently reused interfaces permitted us to extensively check a number of applications. We uncovered some subtle and previously unknown bugs in applications that have been in common use for years.
Effects of Long-Chain Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids on Endothelial Vasodilator Function and Cognition—Are They Interrelated?

Long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCn-3 PUFA) may improve brain functions by acting on endothelial cells in the cerebrovasculature to facilitate vasodilatation and perfusion. The aim of this review is to explore this hypothesis by analyzing the effect of LCn-3 PUFA supplementation on systemic vasodilator and cognitive function and finding evidence to link LCn-3 PUFA intake, vasodilator function and cognition. Forty randomized controlled trials examining the effect of LCn-3 PUFA supplementation in humans on either endothelial vasodilator function or cognition were identified and pooled effects measured with a weighted analysis. Compared to placebo, LCn-3 PUFA tended to increase flow-mediated dilatation and significantly improved cognitive function. Emerging evidence links vasodilator dysfunction to cognitive impairment, but evidence that LCn-3 PUFA can improve cognition through enhancements of vasodilator function is still lacking. Further research is needed to determine: (1) whether LCn-3 PUFA can enhance dilatation of cerebral vessels; (2) if improvements in cerebrovascular responsiveness by LCn-3 PUFA are accompanied by cognitive benefits; and (3) the target population groups.
HandySinger: Expressive Singing Voice Morphing using Personified Hand-puppet Interface

The HandySinger system is a personified tool developed to naturally express a singing voice controlled by the gestures of a hand puppet. Assuming that a singing voice is a kind of musical expression, natural expressions of the singing voice are important for personification. We adopt a singing voice morphing algorithm that effectively smoothes out the strength of expressions delivered with a singing voice. The system's hand puppet consists of a glove with seven bend sensors and two pressure sensors. It sensitively captures the user's motion as a personified puppet's gesture. To synthesize the different expressional strengths of a singing voice, the "normal" (without expression) voice of a particular singer is used as the base of morphing, and three different expressions, "dark," "whisper" and "wet," are used as the target. This configuration provides musically expressed controls that are intuitive to users. In the experiment, we evaluate whether 1) the morphing algorithm interpolates expressional strength in a perceptual sense, 2) the handpuppet interface provides gesture data at sufficient resolution, and 3) the gestural mapping of the current system works as planned.
Surface mesh quality evaluation

This paper proposes a method to evaluate the size quality as well as the shape quality of constrained surface meshes, the constraint being either a given metric or the geometric metric associated with the surface geometry. In the context of numerical simulations, the metric specifications are those related to the finite element method. The proposed measures allow to validate the surface meshes within a general mesh adaption scheme, the metric map being usually provided via an a posteriori error estimate. Several examples of surface meshes are proposed to illustrate the relevance of the approach. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.