Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Entrepreneurs'' attitude towards the computer and its effect on e-business adoption

This paper presents research exploring further the concept that many SMEs do not adopt computer based technologies due to decision maker's negative attitudes towards computers generally. Importantly, by assessing the entrepreneur's belief structure, we provide quantitative evidence how SMEs, particularly micros, are affected. Earlier research that addresses technology acceptance model (TAM) suggests that TAM parameters are particularly influential factors of e-commerce adoption, as perceived by top managers of SMEs. The model we develop is tested using a sample of 655 enterprises. The information was gathered, via a telephone survey of UK SMEs, from decisions makers in the enterprise. Technically, the paper uses k-means cluster analysis to segment respondents using the TAM perceptions, ease of use, usefulness and enjoyment. Based on two determined segments we look at the differential rate of adoption of internet, and the potential adoption of new e-collaborative technologies like video conferencing and electronic whiteboards. The diffusion of internet for low IT utility (LIT) segments was considerably slower than in the high utility segment (HIT). Similarly, the anticipated adoption of e-collaboration technologies was much lower for LIT than HIT. Interestingly, we find that LIT is populated by more micro SMEs than HIT. The results we present are limited however as our sample is considerably underweight in micro SMEs, suggesting that the problem may be much larger in the economy than our model predicts. For policy makers, this research confirms the value of knowledge transfer programs to SMEs in the form of technology support. Our research shows that organisations which have dedicated IT support will tend to be more advanced technologically than those that do not. The implication for entrepreneurs is if they can be persuaded that a technological route is beneficial to them, and that suitable support can be provided via KT, then operational efficiency gains could be made. This paper contributes to knowled
The University of Bradford Institutional Repository

- Faces convey much information. Interestingly we humans have a remarkable ability of identifying, extracting, and interpreting this information. Recently automatic facial ageing (AFA) has gained popularity due to its numerous applications which include search for missing people, biometrics, and multimedia. The problem of AFA is faced with various challenges, including incomplete training datasets, unrestrained environments, ethnic and gender variations to mention but a few. This work presents a new approach to automatic facial ageing which involves the development of a person specific facial ageing system. A color based Active Appearance Model (AAM) is used to extract facial features. Then, regression is used to model an age estimator. Age synthesis is achieved by computing a solution that minimises the distance from the original face with the use of constrained regression. The model is tested on a challenging database of single image per person. Initial results suggest that plausible images can be rerendered at different ages, automatically using the AAM representation. Using the constrained regressor we are guaranteed to get estimated ages that are exact for an individual at a given age.
Just-In-Time Classifiers for Recurrent Concepts

Just-in-time (JIT) classifiers operate in evolving environments by classifying instances and reacting to concept drift. In stationary conditions, a JIT classifier improves its accuracy over time by exploiting additional supervised information coming from the field. In nonstationary conditions, however, the classifier reacts as soon as concept drift is detected; the current classification setup is discarded and a suitable one activated to keep the accuracy high. We present a novel generation of JIT classifiers able to deal with recurrent concept drift by means of a practical formalization of the concept representation and the definition of a set of operators working on such representations. The concept-drift detection activity, which is crucial in promptly reacting to changes exactly when needed, is advanced by considering change-detection tests monitoring both inputs and classes distributions.
Proceedings of the Automated Verification of Critical Systems ( AVoCS 2013 ) Richer Interface Automata with Optimistic and Pessimistic Compatibility

Modal transition systems are a popular semantic underpinning of interface theories, such as Nyman et al.’s IOMTS and Bauer et al.’s MIO, which facilitate component-based reasoning of concurrent systems. Our interface theory MIA repaired a compositional flaw of IOMTS-refinement and introduced a conjunction operator. In this paper, we first modify MIA to properly deal with internal computations including internal must-transitions, which were largely ignored already in IOMTS. We then study a MIA variant that adopts MIO’s pessimistic – rather than IOMTS’ optimistic – view on component compatibility and define, for the first-time in a pessimistic, non-deterministic setting, conjunction and disjunction on interfaces. For the pessimistic MIA variant we also provide a mechanism for extending alphabets when refining interfaces, which is a desired feature in practice. We illustrate our advancements via a small example.
Example‐Based Rendering of Eye Movements

This paper describes a model for example‐based, photo‐realistic rendering of eye movements in 3D facial animation. Based on 3D scans of a face with different gaze directions, the model captures the motion of the eyeball along with the deformation of the eyelids and the surrounding skin. These deformations are represented in a 3D morphable model.
On the Performance of a Simple Adaptive Relaying Protocol for Wireless Relay Networks

Distributed coding has been shown to be an effective scheme to explore cooperative spatial diversity in wireless relay networks. To date, the distributed coding schemes employ two major relaying protocols, decode and forward (DAF) and amplify and forward (AAF). They suffer from a disadvantage of either noise amplification or error propagation. In this paper, we propose a simple adaptive relaying protocol (ARP) for general relay networks. For the proposed approach, all relays are included into one of two relay groups, referred to as a DAF relay group and an AAF relay group. All relays, which decode correctly, are included in the DAF relay group, and other relays, which could not decode correctly, are included in the AAF relay group. Performance analysis of the proposed adaptive relaying protocol is carried out, and compared with other relaying protocols. It is shown that the proposed adaptive relaying protocol benefits from a significant coding gain contributed from the DAF relay group compared to a pure AAF relay protocol and simultaneously circumvent the detrimental effects of error propagation due to the imperfect decoding at relays in a DAF relay protocol, thus always outperforming both the AAF and DAF relaying protocols in all SNR regions.
A Formal Method Applied to the Automated Software Engineering with Quality Guarantees

Modern systems tend to be larger, more complex and to depend on an increasingly numerous set of requirements. In contrast, system development practices remain human-centered, depending mostly on the engineer expertise to be carried out. This paper shows how maximally permissive and deadlock-free components of software can be automatically produced. We argue that modeling methods and mathematical operations can be combined to systematically manage the software development process, based on high-level views of the system. Results show that possibly complex programming tasks become easier and independent from the expertise of the software engineer. Examples are provided to illustrate the approach.
Ultrasonography contribution in detection of reno-urinary anomalies: a cohort study.

AIMS The current study aims to assess the role of ultrasound (US) parameters in explaining the variance of hydronephrosis grades in reno-urinary anomalies, as well as their performance in quantifying the incidence of patients with uropathies. METHODS In this study 196 patients were prospectively included. All of them had renal/urinary tract anomalies and were recruited from 5992 US examined hospitalized patients. Fifty patients were referred also to renal 99mTc- DMSA or 99mTc-DTPA scintigraphy. The diagnostic performance of renal ultrasound and scintigrafy parameters was assessed. RESULTS Pelvis antero-posterior diameter (APD) values were strongly correlated with other investigated parameters. They correlated with measurements of US parenchyma values (r=0.59, p=0.001), pelvis area (r=0.76, p=0.001) and with scintigraphy long axis measurements (r=0.89, p=0.001). In multiple regression analysis, the pelvis APD is the only independent predictor of high grades hydronephrosis (p=0.001) and explained 62.4% of the variance of hydronephrosis grades. The cut-off values for detection of significant hydronephrosis (grades 3,4) was 11 mm or more, and for detection of severe, in need of surgery, hydronephrosis was 19 mm or more. CONCLUSIONS The diagnostic performance of ultrasound was good, similar to those previously published by other authors. US detected pelvis APD is the main predictor for high grades hydronephrosis but other parameters also influence the uropathy grades.
Recursive Best-First AND/OR Search for Optimization in Graphical Models

The paper presents and evaluates the power of limited memory best-first search over AND/OR spaces for optimization tasks in graphical models. We propose Recursive Best-First AND/OR Search with Overestimation (RBFAOO), a new algorithm that explores the search space in a best-first manner while operating with restricted memory. We enhance RBFAOO with a simple overestimation technique aimed at minimizing the overhead associated with re-expanding internal nodes and prove correctness and completeness of RBFAOO. Our experiments show that RBFAOO is often superior to the current state-of-the-art approaches based on AND/OR search, especially on very hard problem instances.
Functional analysis of an olfactory receptor in Drosophila melanogaster

Fifty nine candidate olfactory receptor (Or) genes have recently been identified in Drosophila melanogaster, one of which is Or43a. In wild-type flies, Or43a is expressed at the distal edge of the third antennal segment in about 15 Or neurons. To identify ligands for the receptor we used the Gal4/UAS system to misexpress Or43a in the third antennal segment. Or43a mRNA expression in the antenna of transformed and wild-type flies was visualized by in situ hybridization with a digoxigenin-labeled probe. Electroantennogram recordings from transformed and wild-type flies were used to identify cyclohexanol, cyclohexanone, benzaldehyde, and benzyl alcohol as ligands for the Or43a. This in vivo analysis reveals functional properties of one member of the recently isolated Or family in Drosophila and will provide further insight into our understanding of olfactory coding.
A differentially fed implantable antenna with circularly polarization for biomedical telemetry

A new differentially fed circularly polarized (CP) patch antenna is designed. The proposed antenna operates at the 2.40-2.48 GHz industrial-scientific-medical (ISM) band whose center frequency is 2.45 GHz. Utilizing differential feeding, it can interface directly with radio frequency integrated circuits. Cutting asymmetry square-shaped slots on the radiating patch and truncating two cross-shaped slots on the ground plane, impedance matching with S11 <; -10 dB and circular polarization with axial ratio (AR) <; 3 dB are achieved simultaneously over the bandwidth of 130 MHz, covering 2.37-2.50 GHz. The proposed antenna has a compact dimension of 9.8 × 9.8 × 1.27 mm3 and a great potential for the biomedical telemedicine applications.
Statistical language models for on-line handwritten sentence recognition

This paper investigates the integration of a statistical language model into an on-line recognition system in order to improve word recognition in the context of handwritten sentences. Two kinds of models have been considered: n-gram and n-class models (with a statistical approach to create word classes). All these models are trained over the Susanne corpus and experiments are carried out on sentences from this corpus which were written by several writers. The use of a statistical language model is shown to improve the word recognition rate and the relative impact of the different language models is compared. Furthermore, we illustrate the interest to define an optimal cooperation between the language model and the recognition system to re-enforce the accuracy of the system.
Ions in oceanic and continental air masses

Measurements of tropospheric ions and several trace atmospheric neutral species have been performed at Cheeka Peak Research Station and at Mauna Loa Observatory. Two new positive ion species at masses 114 and 102 have been identified as protonated caprolactam and a saturated 6-carbon primary amine, respectively. In the negative ion spectrum, methane sulfonic acid (MSA) has been identified as the parent species responsible for an ion commonly observed at mass 95 during these two studies. The diurnal variations of gas phase H{sub 2}SO{sub 4} and MSA were also measured at Cheeka Peak and have typically been found to be present in the sub-ppt range. Ion assisted measurements at Mauna Loa Observatory of pyridine and ammonia indicate concentrations of 2.5 and 70 ppt, respectively, with at least a factor of 2 uncertainty. Interesting variations and potential sources of several of the observed ions are also discussed.
FoxP3+ regulatory T cells essentially contribute to peripheral CD8+ T-cell tolerance induced by steady-state dendritic cells

Peripheral T-cell tolerance is thought to significantly contribute to the prevention of autoimmunity, and it has been shown that antigen-presenting steady-state dendritic cells efficiently induce peripheral tolerance. We previously showed that dendritic-cell–induced tolerance is a T-cell–intrinsic process that depends on coinhibitory molecules such as programmed death-1. Here we specifically analyze the involvement of FoxP3+ regulatory T cells, which are known to be important for maintenance of self-tolerance. We show that antigen presentation by steady-state dendritic cells failed to induce peripheral tolerance in the absence of FoxP3+ regulatory T cells but induced protective CD8+ T-cell–mediated immunity instead. Regulatory T-cell–depleted mice had massively increased numbers of dendritic cells in lymph nodes. Dendritic cells isolated from mice without regulatory T cells had up-regulated costimulatory molecules and showed stronger T-cell stimulatory capacity ex vivo, suggesting that regulatory T cells contribute to peripheral tolerance by keeping the dendritic cells in an immature state. Using blocking antibodies, we demonstrate that CTLA-4 but not IL-10 is necessary for control of dendritic cells by regulatory T cells.
Planktonic Foraminiferal and Alkenone Records of the Last Deglaciation from the Eastern Arabian Sea

The oxygen isotope record of planktonic foraminifera from tropical core MD77194 (Eastern Arabian Sea) exhibits a clear two-step deglaciation with a brief δ18O transient event. In the tropics, this δ18O maximum could correspond to a cooling or to a change in the δ18O content of sea water. In this study, past sea-surface temperature (SST) and primary production (PP) are reconstructed from foraminiferal transfer functions and compared to values estimated from alkenone measurements. SST and PP records from both proxies indicate a 1.5–2.5°C deglacial warming, coupled with a PP decrease, and a 0.5–1°C cooling during the Younger Dryas (YD). A detailed comparison between independent micropaleontological and geochemical proxies helps us identify potential biases and thus strengthen the paleo-reconstructions.
Image Haze Removal Using Dark Channel Prior

In this paper,It mainly studied the method of image haze removal based on the dark channel prior and simulation realization about it. Experiment has proved that,the algorithm can according to the different concentration levels of fog to haze removal higher quality.This haze removal algorithm can keep the feeling of depth of the image, and reducing the real color of the image. Index Terms - image enhancement haze removal dark channel prior In atomization images,the clarity of image details and color fidelity will decrease due to the two parts factors as atmospheric light scattering and transmittance.The quality of atmospheric light and transmittance,depends largely on the distance of the scene to the camera,therefore,atomization image degradation is associated with the distance of the scene to the camera.Haze removal image processing using dark channel prior,not only could according to the different concentration of the haze to processing images,but also could obtain a better quality of the depth map.This algorithm will have a better effect of haze removal for the atomization images such as traffic roads which have depth of features. In addition,this algorithm could improve the clarity of images,to achieve the reduction of color,as well as some of the enhanced processing for image details,and high quality haze-free images would be recovered.
Augmented Reality and the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things allows for the development of hybrid solutions merging physical products with digital services. After the widespread adoption of Internet of Things in supply chains, we are now witnessing a surge of consumer Internet of Things applications. Due to the proliferation of smartphones, Internet of Things applications gain personal, interactive, and behavioral context. Smartphones thus take up a gateway role and mediate between and among people, physical and digital things, and/or the environment. In this article, we discuss why Augmented Reality technologies are essential for evolving this gateway role in the Internet of Things and how alternate form-factors of the smartphone (e.g. glasses, watches, contacts, gloves, etc.) might impact context-aware service interactions.
Subcortical Projections of Area V2 in the Macaque

To investigate the subcortical efferent connections of visual area V2, we injected tritiated amino acids under electrophysiological control into 15 V2 sites in 14 macaques. The injection sites included the fovea representation as well as representations ranging from central to far peripheral eccentricities in both the upper and lower visual fields. The results indicated that V2 projects topographically to different portions of the inferior and lateral pulvinar and to the superficial and intermediate layers of the superior colliculus. Within the pulvinar, the V2 projections terminated in fields P1, P2, and P4, with the strongest projection being in P2. Central visual field injections in V2 labeled projection zones in P1 and P2, whereas peripheral field injections labeled P1, P2, and P4. No projections were found in P3. Both central and peripheral field injections in V2 projected topographically to the superficial and intermediate layers of the superior colliculus. Projections from V2 to the pulvinar and the superior colliculus constituted cortical–subcortical loops through which circuits serving spatial attention are activated.
Structural Characterization of Glucooligosaccharide Oxidase from Acremonium strictum

ABSTRACT Glucooligosaccharide oxidase from Acremonium strictum was screened for potential applications in oligosaccharide acid production and carbohydrate detection. This protein is a unique covalent flavoenzyme which catalyzes the oxidation of a variety of carbohydrates with high selectivity for cello- and maltooligosaccharides. Kinetic measurements suggested that this enzyme possesses an open carbohydrate-binding groove, which is mainly composed of two glucosyl-binding subsites. The encoding gene was subsequently cloned, and one intron was detected in the genomic DNA. Large amounts of active enzymes were expressed in Pichia pastoris, with a yield of 300 mg per liter medium. The protein was predicted to share structural homology with plant cytokinin dehydrogenase and related flavoproteins that share a conserved flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD)-binding domain. The closest sequence matches are those of plant berberine bridge enzyme-like proteins, particularly the characteristic flavinylation site. Unexpectedly, mutation of the putative FAD-attaching residue, H70, to alanine, serine, cysteine, and tyrosine did not abolish the covalent FAD linkage and had little effect on the Km. Instead, the variants displayed kcat values that were 50- to 600-fold lower, indicating that H70 is crucial for efficient redox catalysis, perhaps through modulation of the oxidative power of the flavin.
Tangdanite, a new mineral species from the Yunnan Province, China and the discreditation of ‘clinotyrolite’

Abstract Tangdanite, ideally Ca2Cu9(AsO4)4(SO4)0.5(OH)9·9H2O and monoclinic, is a new mineral species (IMA No. 2011-096) occurring in the Tangdan and Nanniping mines, southeast Dongchuan copper mining district, Dongchuan County, Kunming City Prefecture, Yunnan Province, P. R. China (26°11’N 103°51’E). The mineral is found in the oxidized zone (gossan) of an As-bearing Cu sulfide deposit and is clearly of supergene origin. Associated minerals are chalcopyrite, bornite, chalcocite, covellite, tennantite, enargite, cuprite, malachite, azurite, copper and brochantite. Crystals form radiating or foliated aggregates of flaky crystals up to 3 mm, flattened parallel to (100) and elongated along [001]. It is emerald green with a light green streak, translucent and has a pearly to silky lustre. It is sectile having perfect cleavage on {100} although neither parting nor fracture was observed. No fluorescence in long- or short-wave ultraviolet radiation was observed. The hardness is VHN50 42.0-43.6, mean 42.8 kg mm-2 (2-2 ½ on the Mohs scale). The density measured by pycnometry is 3.22 g cm-3 (Ma et al., 1980). The calculated density from the empirical chemical formula is 3.32 g cm-3. The compatability index gives 1 - (Kp/Kc) = -0.041 (good). The empirical formula (based on 36 O a.p.f.u) of tangdanite is Ca2.05Cu9. 08(As1.03O4)4(S0.63O4)0.5(OH)9·9H2.04O. The simplified formula is Ca2Cu9(AsO4)4(SO4)0.5(OH)9·9H2O. The strongest five reflections in the X-ray powder-diffraction pattern [d in Å (I) (hkl)] are: 4.782(100) (3̄ 1 1), 4.333(71) (6 0 2), 5.263(54) (2̄ 0 2), 3.949(47) (8 0 2) and 2.976(46) (15̅ 1 1). The unit-cell parameters are a = 54.490(9), b = 5.5685(9), c = 10.4690(17) Å, b = 96.294(3)°, V = 3157.4(9) Å3, Z = 4. Its structure was solved and refined in space group C2/c, with R = 0.110.
Smart Lifelong Learning System Based on Q-Learning

The majority of current web-based learning systems are closed learning environments where courses and learning materials are fixed and the only dynamic aspect is the organization of the material that can be adapted to allow a relatively individualized learning environment. In this paper, we propose an evolving web-based learning system which can adapt itself to its learners. More specifically, the novelty with respect to the system lies in its ability to find relevant content on the web, and its ability to personalize and adapt this content based on the system's observation of its learners and the accumulated ratings given by the learners. Hence, although learners do not have direct interaction with the open Web, the system can retrieve relevant information related to them and their situated learning characteristics. Lifelong learning scenarios have particular differences in their need for personalized recommendations that make not possible reusing existing general approaches of recommender systems. The paper describes those challenges and we propose a hybrid technique based on machine learning to recognize learner preferences and predict theirs required contents with high accuracy.