Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role of online social media in the acculturation process of North Korean refugee young adults in South Korea

THE ROLE OF ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE ACCULTURATION PROCESS OF NORTH KOREAN REFUGEE YOUNG ADULTS IN SOUTH KOREA by SUNG MI HAN August 2013 Advisor: Dr. Pradeep Sopory Co-Advisor: Dr. Hayg Oshagan Major: Communication Degree: Doctor of Philosophy The purpose of this study is to investigate media’s influences on the acculturation of North Korean refugee young adults in South Korea, especially focusing on identifying the role of online social media. The study examined the acculturation and media patterns of the refugee young adults and found evidence that the use of South Korean media and North Korea-related media enhanced the acculturation domains of South and North Korean cultures, and therefore the utilization of both media as a whole can facilitate the pluralism model of acculturation. Specifically, a series of hierarchical multiple regressions revealed that South Korean mass media use had positive, significant relationships with South Korean identity and language competence. In addition, online social media use with South Koreans was significantly related to greater South Korean identity and South Korean social networks, and it also showed marginal associations with greater involvement with the South Korean community and less acculturative stress. On the other hand, the use of North Korea-related mass media content was positively related to North Korean cultural competence, North Korean refugee community involvement, and self-esteem, and the use of online social media with North Korean refugees was positively related to North Korean identity and cultural competence and social networks with other refugees. These findings indicate that the acculturation process of North Korean
The EUME Project : Modelling and Design of an Intelligent Learning Management System

The EUME project is intended to develop an Intelligent Learning Management System (ILMS) with the aim to improve the quality of traditional teaching strategies as well as to facilitate the implementation of new learning methodologies. At this project stage, we have developed a knowledge model of the educational domain, designed a component-based software architecture, and implemented the second cycle of the construction plan. In this paper an overview of the main results achieved so far is presented.
Wolbachia‐mediated persistence of mtDNA from a potentially extinct species

Drosophila quinaria is polymorphic for infection with Wolbachia, a maternally transmitted endosymbiont. Wolbachia‐infected individuals carry mtDNA that is only distantly related to the mtDNA of uninfected individuals, and the clade encompassing all mtDNA haplotypes within D. quinaria also includes the mtDNA of several other species of Drosophila. Nuclear gene variation reveals no difference between the Wolbachia‐infected and uninfected individuals of D. quinaria, indicating that they all belong to the same interbreeding biological species. We suggest that the Wolbachia and the mtDNA with which it is associated were derived via interspecific hybridization and introgression. The sequences in the Wolbachia and the associated mtDNA are ≥6% divergent from those of any known Drosophila species. Thus, in spite of nearly complete species sampling, the sequences from which these mitochondria were derived remain unknown, raising the possibility that the donor species is extinct. The association between Wolbachia infection and mtDNA type within D. quinaria suggests that Wolbachia may be required for the continued persistence of the mtDNA from an otherwise extinct Drosophila species. We hypothesize that pathogen‐protective effects conferred by Wolbachia operate in a negative frequency‐dependent manner, thus bringing about a stable polymorphism for Wolbachia infection.
A Hidden Markov Model for Fault Tolerant Communication in VANETS

The Ad-Hoc Network provides various advantages in vehicular communication. For efficient communication of vehicles, Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network (VANET) has proven to provide better communication between vehicles. There are several problems associated with vehicular communication. Communication failures often occur between vehicle to vehicle and vehicle to infrastructure [13]. To overcome these problem's Hidden Markov Model (HMM) is applied in VANET to improve intelligent vehicular communication. This model enables fault tolerant [15] communication by minimizing the communication failures and link failures while sharing resources among the vehicles. Hidden Markov Model consists of states and observations. In this model, the states are hidden, but the output of this model depends on the state. In this paper, we focus on Hidden Markov Model and how it is applied to VANET to improve the safer vehicular communication.
Output-feedback fault tolerant control for linear time delay systems: Descriptor approach

In this paper we propose a new approach of fault estimation and Fault Tolerant Control (FTC) applied to Linear Time Delay (LTD) systems. To estimate the sensor faults we use the descriptor approach. This method consists in augmenting the state system by considering the faults as an auxiliary state. The used observer can estimate simultaneously both the state of LTD system and sensor faults. The observer gains are then determined according to Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMI) technique. For the step of FTC we construct an output-feedback gain to stabilize the LTD system not only in free-fault case, but also in the fault occurrence. A numerical example is proposed to demonstrate the efficiency of the given design for different form of sensor fault.
Empirical Characteristics of Dynamic Trading Strategies: The Case of Hedge Funds

This article presents some new results on an unexplored dataset on hedge fund performance. The results indicate that hedge funds follow strategies that are dramatically different from mutual funds, and support the claim that these strategies are highly dynamic. The article finds five dominant investment styles in hedge funds, which when added to Sharpe's (1992) asset class factor model can provide an integrated framework for style analysis of both buy-and-hold and dynamic trading strategies. Article published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Financial Studies in its journal, The Review of Financial Studies.
On the effectiveness of dynamic taint analysis for protecting against private information leaks on Android-based devices

We investigate the limitations of using dynamic taint analysis for tracking privacy-sensitive information on Android-based mobile devices. Taint tracking keeps track of data as it propagates through variables, interprocess messages and files, by tagging them with taint marks. A popular taint-tracking system, TaintDroid, uses this approach in Android mobile applications to mark private information, such as device identifiers or user's contacts details, and subsequently issue warnings when this information is misused (e.g., sent to an un-desired third party). We present a collection of attacks on Android-based taint tracking. Specifically, we apply generic classes of anti-taint methods in a mobile device environment to circumvent this security technique. We have implemented the presented techniques in an Android application, ScrubDroid. We successfully tested our app with the TaintDroid implementations for Android OS versions 2.3 to 4.1. 1, both using the emulator and with real devices. Finally, we evaluate the success rate and time to complete of the presented attacks. We conclude that, although taint tracking may be a valuable tool for software developers, it will not effectively protect sensitive data from the black-box code of a motivated attacker applying any of the presented anti-taint tracking methods.
Ship detection for automating navigational watch

Automatic navigational watch system is currently under development. Because the system should detect ships over a miles away from own ship, the depth of the field is extremely deeper than that of ordinal computer vision applications. This paper shows the results applying typical HOG (Histograms of Oriented Gradients)-SVM (Support Vector Machine) based sliding window object detector to the navigational images, and discusses the difficulties and their possible remedies.
The Scientific Imperative for Antarctic Research

The Antarctic Treaty, since its formulation in 1959, has provided a valuable political framework to support a continuation of peaceful and collaborative international research activities in the Antarctic beyond the International Geophysical Year (1957-58). This multinational political agreement came relatively late compared with the requirements for international collaborative science which were developing more than a hundred years before. These scientific needs for Antarctic activity developed along with the progress of science in general, and advanced as an international pursuit of scientific knowledge in spite of many international and political conflicts which hampered the progress.
The potential in energy efficiency of a speculative chip-multiprocessor

While lower supply voltage is effective for energy reduction, it suffers performance loss. To mitigate the loss, we propose to execute only the part, which does not have any influence on execution speed, with low-speed and low-voltage. We are investigating a multithreaded execution, named Contrail Architecture, which divides an instruction stream into two streams using trace-level value prediction. One is the speculation stream, which is the main part of a program and is applied value predictions. The other is the verification stream, which verifies the predictions. The energy consumption is reduced by the decrease in the execution time in the speculation stream and by the low-speed execution in the verification stream. This paper evaluates its potential in energy efficiency.
SmartMonitor: recent progress in the development of an innovative visual surveillance system

This paper describes recent improvements in developing SmartMonitor — an innovative security system based on existing traditional surveillance systems and video content analysis algorithms. The system is being developed to ensure the safety of people and assets within small areas. It is intended to work without the need for user supervision and to be widely customizable to meet an individual's requirements. In this paper, the fundamental characteristics of the system are presented including a simplified representation of its modules. Methods and algorithms that have been investigated so far alongside those that could be employed in the future are described. In order to show the effectiveness of the methods and algorithms described, some experimental results are provided together with a concise explanation.
Opportunistic Branched Plans to Maximise Utility in the Presence of Resource Uncertainty

In many applications, especially autonomous exploration, there is a trade-off between operational safety, forcing conservatism about resource usage; and maximising utility, requiring high resource utilisation. In this paper we consider a method of generating plans that maintain this conservatism whilst allowing exploitation of situations where resource usage is better than pessimistically estimated. We consider planning problems with soft goals, each with a violation cost. The challenge is to maximise utility (minimise the violation cost paid) whilst maintaining confidence that the plan will execute within the specified limits. We first show how forward search planning can be extended to generate such plans. Then we extend this to build branched plans: tree structures labelled with conditions on executing branches. Lower cost branches can be followed if their conditions are met. We demonstrate that the use of such plans can dramatically increase utility whilst still obeying strict safety constraints.
Diffusion tensor imaging metrics of the corpus callosum in relation to bimanual coordination: Effect of task complexity and sensory feedback

When manipulating objects with both hands, the corpus callosum (CC) is of paramount importance for interhemispheric information exchange. Hence, CC damage results in impaired bimanual performance. Here, healthy young adults performed a complex bimanual dial rotation task with or without augmented visual feedback and according to five interhand frequency ratios (1:1, 1:3, 2:3, 3:1, 3:2). The relation between bimanual task performance and microstructural properties of seven CC subregions (i.e., prefrontal, premotor/supplementary motor, primary motor, primary sensory, occipital, parietal, and temporal) was studied by means of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Findings revealed that bimanual coordination deteriorated in the absence as compared to the presence of augmented visual feedback. Simple frequency ratios (1:1) were performed better than the multifrequency ratios (non 1:1). Moreover, performance was more accurate when the preferred hand (1:3–2:3) as compared to the nonpreferred hand (3:1–3:2) moved faster and during noninteger (2:3–3:2) as compared to integer frequency ratios (1:3–3:1). DTI findings demonstrated that bimanual task performance in the absence of augmented visual feedback was significantly related to the microstructural properties of the primary motor and occipital region of the CC, suggesting that white matter microstructure is associated with the ability to perform bimanual coordination patterns in young adults. Hum Brain Mapp, 2013. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Using quality criteria to assist in information searching

One of the challenges facing today's information consumer is how to find information that meets their personal needs, within an acceptable time frame, and at an appropriate level of quality. One potential method for assisting these consumers is to employ a personalisable, explicit definition of quality to focus information search results. In this paper we discuss the feasibility of this approach by demonstrating how a consumer-refined definition of quality can be used to drive an information search, initially within a closed-world environment. This paves the way for further research, transferring lessons learned and techniques developed to an open, heterogeneous environment.
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics the Fluorescence Properties of Aerosol Larger than 0.8 Μm in Urban and Tropical Rainforest Locations

UV-LIF measurements were performed on ambient aerosol in Manchester, UK (urban city centre, winter) and Borneo, Malaysia (remote, tropical) using a Wide Issue Bioaerosol Spectrometer, version 3 (WIBS3). These sites are taken to represent environments with minor and significant primary biological aerosol (PBA) influences respectively , and the urban dataset describes the fluorescent background aerosol against which PBA must be identified by researchers using LIF. The ensemble aerosol at both sites was characterised over 2–3 weeks by measuring the fluorescence intensity and optical equivalent diameter (D P) of single particles sized 0.8 ≤ D P ≤ 20 µm. Filter samples were also collected for a subset of the Manchester campaign and analysed using energy dispersive X-Ray (EDX) spectroscopy and environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM), which revealed mostly non-PBA at D ≥ 1 µm. The WIBS3 features three fluorescence channels: the emission following a 280 nm excitation is recorded at 310– 400 nm (channel F1) and 400–600 nm (F2), and fluores-cence excited at 350 nm is detected at 400–600 nm (F3). In Manchester the primary size mode of fluorescent and non-fluorescent material was present at 0.8–1.2 µm, with a secondary fluorescent mode at 2–4 µm. In Borneo non-fluorescent material peaked at 0.8–1.2 µm and fluorescent at 3–4 µm. Agreement between fluorescent number concentrations in each channel differed at the two sites, with F1 and F3 reporting similar concentrations in Borneo but F3 outnumbering F1 by a factor of 2–3 across the size spectrum in Manchester. The fluorescence intensity in each channel generally rose with D P at both sites with the exception of F1 intensity in Manchester, which peaked at D P = 4 µm, causing a divergence between F1 and F3 intensity at larger D P. This divergence and the differing fluorescent particle concentrations demonstrate the additional discrimination provided by the F1 channel in Manchester. The relationships between fluores-cence intensities in different pairs of channels were also investigated as a function of D P. Differences between these metrics were apparent at each site and provide some distinction between the two datasets. Finally, particle selection criteria based on the Borneo dataset were applied to identify a median concentration of 10 " Borneo-like " fluorescent particles per litre in Manchester.
From Bounded Rationality to Behavioral Economics

The paper provides an brief overview of the “state of the art” in the theory of rational decision making since the 1950’s, and focuses specially on the evolutionary justification of rationality. It is claimed that this justification, and more generally the economic methodology inherited from the Chicago school, becomes untenable once taking into account Kauffman’s Nk model, showing that if evolution it is based on trial-and-error search process, it leads generally to sub- optimal stable solutions: the ‘as if’ justification of perfect rationality proves therefore to be a fallacious metaphor. The normative interpretation of decision-making theory is therefore questioned, and the two challenging views against this approach , Simon’s bounded rationality and Allais’ criticism to expected utility theory are discussed. On this ground it is shown that the cognitive characteristics of choice processes are becoming more and more important for explanation of economic behavior and of deviations from rationality. In particular, according to Kahneman’s Nobel Lecture, it is suggested that the distinction between two types of cognitive processes – the effortful process of deliberate reasoning on the one hand, and the automatic process of unconscious intuition on the other – can provide a different map with which to explain a broad class of deviations from pure ‘olympian’ rationality. This view requires re-establishing and revising connections between psychology and economics: an on-going challenge against the normative approach to economic methodology.
Relating Stable Models and AI Planning Domains

In this paper, we show that there is a simple connection between logic programming and planning. The main result of this paper is the following: given any planning domain consisting of an initial state, and a set of operation deenitions, this domain can be translated, in linear-time, to a logic program such that a given goal G is achievable in the planning domain ii a related goal G ? is true in some stable model of the logic program obtained by the translation. We show that this translation yields at least two interesting consequences: (1) methods to update databases can be used to handle surprises when executing plans (i.e. a surprise occurs when an initial plan is partly executed, but one of the resulting intermediate states diiers, perhaps due to external reasons, from what is predicted). (2) rigid actions, which are actions that must be executed when their preconditions are true, can be easily accommodated within our framework as well.
Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) for regional and environmental planning: reflections on a decade of empirical research

The term public participation geographic information system (PPGIS) was conceived to describe how GIS technology could support public participation with the goal of including local or marginalized populations in planning and decision processes. Based on experience with more than 15 PPGIS studies, the central thesis of this paper is that PPGIS has not substantively increased the level of public impact in decision making because of multiple social and institutional constraints. Following a review of a decade of empirical PPGIS research, this paper explores why government and nongovernment organization (NGO) adoption of PPGIS for environmental planning decision support has lagged. Despite methodological advances in PPGIS, agency barriers to effective public participation have not been fundamentally altered by PPGIS. For PPGIS to have a sustained impact on regional and environmental planning, agencies must meaningfully encourage and involve the public in planning processes irrespective of the GIS component.
Speech denoising based on a greedy adaptive dictionary algorithm

In this paper we consider the problem of speech denoising based on a greedy adaptive dictionary (GAD) algorithm. The transform is orthogonal by construction, and is found to give a sparse representation of the data being analysed, and to be robust to additive Gaussian noise. The performance of the algorithm is compared to that of the principal component analysis (PCA) method, for a speech denoising application. It is found that the GAD algorithm offers a sparser solution than PCA, while having a similar performance in the presence of noise.
Plant-Mediated Fabrication and Surface Enhanced Raman Property of Flower-Like Au@Pd Nanoparticles

The flower-like nanostructures of an Au core and Pd petals with the average size of 47.8 nm were fabricated through the successive reduction of HAuCl4 and Na2PdCl4 at room temperature. During the synthesis, Cacumen Platycladi leaf extract served as weak reductant and capping agent. Characterization techniques such as Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, UV-Vis spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction characterizations were employed to confirm that the as-synthesized nanoparticles have the structure of core-shell. The obtained core-shell nanoflowers exhibited good surface enhanced Raman spectroscopic activity with Rhodamine 6G.
An adaptive and low-latency power management protocol for wireless sensor networks

Energy conservation in wireless sensor networks is a critical issue. An efficient method to reduce power consumption consists in powering off the nodes' wireless transceiver when communication is not needed. Under this approach sleep/wakeup schedules of different nodes have to be synchronized. In addition, during the sleep phases nodes cannot communicate, and this might result in high delay. In this paper we introduce an adaptive and low latency power-management protocol based on sleep/wakeup schedules. The protocol is well suited for data collection applications in which sensors have to periodically report to a sink. It staggers the schedules of the nodes, in order to minimize the delay. One major advantage of this protocol is that the schedules are automatically adapted based on the network congestion and on the application traffic demand, so that the network can operate efficiently and completely unattended even in very dynamic conditions. Simulation results show that our power management protocol effectively reacts to traffic and topology variations, without scarifying performance in terms of energy consumption, delivery ratio and delay. Furthermore it achieves lower energy consumption, collision ratio and delay than commonly adopted fixed sleep/wakeup schemes.