Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ON THE CONVERGENT POINTS OF BLIND ADAPTIVE IIR EQUALIZERS

Design procedures for decision feedback equalizers often assume that past decisions are corect, leading to suboptimal performance once incorrect past decisions are injected into the feedback loop. Here we revisit the approach advocated by Labat et al. [3], which consists in designing an IIR equalizer using a blind equalization criterion. Instead of adapting the poles and zeros by different criteria, as proposed in [3], we consider the Godard/Shalvi-Weinstein criterion for IIR equalizers. A characterization of stationary points is obtained for the general undermodeled channel case, and simulation results are included.
Synthesis of nonzero clock skew circuits

It is well known that the clock skew can be exploited as a manageable resource to improve circuit performance. However, due to the limitation of race conditions, the optimal clock skew scheduling often does not achieve the lower bound of sequential timing optimization. This paper proposes a polynomial time complexity algorithm, called delay insertion and nonzero skew algorithm (DIANA), which considers delay insertion to determine the clock skew schedule. The objective here is not only to optimize the clock period but also to heuristically minimize the required inserted delay for resolving the race conditions. Experiments with benchmark circuits consistently demonstrate that the proposed approach achieves the lower bound of sequential timing optimization. Moreover, since the DIANA algorithm attempts to minimize the required inserted delay between two registers, the feasible value for delay insertion is within a very large range. Therefore, even though only the buffers in a standard cell library are used to implement the delay insertion, a feasible solution is easily found
p300 family members associate with the carboxyl terminus of simian virus 40 large tumor antigen

Several cellular polypeptides critical for growth regulation interact with DNA tumor virus oncoproteins. p400 is a cellular protein which binds to the adenovirus E1A oncoprotein(s). The biological function of p400 is not yet known, but it is structurally and immunologically closely related to p300 and CREB-binding protein, two known E1A-binding transcription adapters. Like p300, p400 is a phosphoprotein that binds to the simian virus 40 large tumor antigen (T). In anti-T coimmunoprecipitation experiments, staggered deletions spanning the amino-terminal 250 amino acids of T did not abrogate T binding to either p400 or p300. A T species composed of residues 251 to 708 bound both p400 and p300, while a T species defective in p53 binding was unable to bind either detectably. Anti-p53 immunoprecipitates prepared from cells containing wild-type T also contained p400 and p300. Hence, both p400 and p300 can bind (directly or indirectly) to a carboxyl-terminal fragment of T which contains its p53 binding domain. Since the p53 binding domain of T contributes to its immortalizing and transforming activities, T-p400 and/or T-p300 interactions may participate in these functions.
Poverty Reduction Strategies in South Africa

Between 45-57% of South Africans are estimated to be engulfed by poverty. In an attempt to identify policy instruments that could help change this status quo, the various strategies that have been implemented in countries (e.g. China, Vietnam and Uganda) that are known to have been relatively successful in reducing poverty are reviewed. In the process, this dissertation discusses the literature regarding poverty, with a particular emphasis on the definition, measurement and determinants thereof. Furthermore, South Africa’s anti-poverty strategies are discussed. It turns out that these have met limited success. This is largely due to insufficient pro-poor economic growth, weak implementation/administration at the municipal level, slow asset redistribution, high income/wealth inequality, low job generation rate by SMME’s, high HIV/AIDS infection rate, public corruption and inadequate monitoring of poverty. Therefore, if meaningful progress towards poverty reduction is to be achieved, the government needs to deal with the foregoing constraints accordingly.
Redescription of Barilius ornatus Sauvage (Cypriniformes: Cyprinidae) with data from a population from the eastern part of the Isthmus of Kra, Thailand

Barilius ornatus, the first described species of Barilius from Southeast Asia, is redescribed with data from additional spec-imens from the eastern part of the Isthmus of Kra. The species is characterized by having 37–40 scales (rarely 36) alongthe lateral line, 6–7scale rows above the lateral line, 17–20 (rarely 16 or 21) predorsal scales, 12–14 circumpeduncularscales, anal-fin origin opposite from the 6th branched dorsal-fin ray to behind the last branched dorsal-fin ray, head depth17–21% SL, predorsal length not more than 58% SL, dark pigment on dorsal fin concentrated at the edge of the brancheddorsal-fin rays, generally short and thin rostral and maxillary barbels (if present), 1–2 small caudal spots or no caudal spot,and small dentary tubercles. With data from additional specimens B. ornatus can be clearly differentiated from Barilius barnoides Vinciguerra and Barilius infrafasciatus Fowler. The status of Barilius caudiocellatus Chu, and Barilius barila Hamilton are also discussed.
CUSP Progress Report Analyzing Data Depth of Multimodal Distributions Robby Ramdin

The Computing Undergraduate Scholar Program (CUSP) is an endeavor by the National Science Foundation to encourage research by undergraduates in Computer Science and the related fields. A student participating in CUSP is required to select a research topic and attempt to find a solution. Other responsibilities include weekly meetings of all the students participating in the program with graduate advisors where research and classes are discussed. For my CUSP research, I am investigating a facet of Computational Geometry called data depth. Data depth is a statistical device used for analyzing large multi-dimensional data sets. The Tufts Computational Geometry group defines it as follows:
Adaptive Step-Size for Policy Gradient Methods

In the last decade, policy gradient methods have significantly grown in popularity in the reinforcement-learning field. In particular, they have been largely employed in motor control and robotic applications, thanks to their ability to cope with continuous state and action domains and partial observable problems. Policy gradient researches have been mainly focused on the identification of effective gradient directions and the proposal of efficient estimation algorithms. Nonetheless, the performance of policy gradient methods is determined not only by the gradient direction, since convergence properties are strongly influenced by the choice of the step size: small values imply slow convergence rate, while large values may lead to oscillations or even divergence of the policy parameters. Step-size value is usually chosen by hand tuning and still little attention has been paid to its automatic selection. In this paper, we propose to determine the learning rate by maximizing a lower bound to the expected performance gain. Focusing on Gaussian policies, we derive a lower bound that is second-order polynomial of the step size, and we show how a simplified version of such lower bound can be maximized when the gradient is estimated from trajectory samples. The properties of the proposed approach are empirically evaluated in a linear-quadratic regulator problem.
Growth of Horizontally Aligned Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes on the Singular R-Plane (10–11) of Quartz

We used both R-cut and R-face crystal quartz substrates for the efficient growth of horizontally aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). The R-plane (10–11) is one of the low-index crystallographic planes of crystal quartz. The surface cut from a synthetic quartz block parallel to the R-plane was used as R-cut substrates, and the exposed R-plane was used as R-face substrates. We elucidated that the atomic structure of the R-plane causes the alignment of the SWNTs. While a step-and-terrace structure clearly appeared on R-face substrates, SWNTs were aligned on the terraced area of the R-plane, regardless of the direction of the step edges. Comparison between R-face and ST-cut substrates suggests that the ST-cut surface can be considered as a collection of tiny r-plane (01–11) domains, which are very similar to the R-plane (10–11).
Moments method approach to characterizations of Dirichlet tables through neutralities

The concept of neutrality of random probabilities with respect to a par- tition covers several properties of independence for unit simplex valued random vectors. In particular the Dirichlet random vector is neutral with respect to any partition of its indices. The main result of this paper simplifles and extends the characterization of the Dirichlet random table due to Geiger and Heckerman (1997). This characterization was based on independence conditions which can be viewed as neutrality with respect to row and column partitions of a two-way random table. Its proof was based on solv- ing a functional equations for densities with the heavy use of advanced regularization techniques due to J¶ (1986). Our approach is based on identiflcation of moments through solution of a functional equation for functions of discrete arguments. Moreover the characterization is extended to multi-way tables.
Bioinformatic Analysis of the Liability to the Hyperplastic Processes of the Uterus

This paper presents the results of bioinformatic analysis of five molecular genetic markers of 947 women with uterine hyperplasia and 988 women of the control group. We found that the genetic variation ТТ rs7759938 in women of the Central region of Russia is associated with an increased risk of hyperplastic processes of the uterus (OR=1.35), and the protective value has the combination as follows: C rs7759938 with C rs2252673 (ОR=0.72), C rs7759938 with C rs4374421 and С rs466639 (ОR=0.68), СТ rs4374421 with СТ rs466639 (ОR=0.77), T rs7579411 with Т rs4374421 (ОR=0.78).
The Charitable Crescent: Politics of Aid in the Muslim World

'Islamic Charity Under Suspicion': such headlines have become familiar since the attacks on the United States on 9.11. The Charitable Crescent is a unique and original account of a hitherto little-known field of pivotal significance to our understanding of the Muslim world today: the relationship between politics and philanthropy in the workings of Islamic charities. Based on years of research, Jonathan Benthall and Jerome Bellion-Jourdan explain the long tradition of philanthropy in Muslim history and how it is constantly adapted to differing political contexts. The pervasive connections between charity and politics in the Middle East demonstrate how naive it is to think of humanitarianism as a sphere distinct from politics. The Charitable Crescent covers all aspects of this topic that has become so relevant in today's world: who is entitled to benefit from Muslim alms? Can material relief aid be de-linked from political, or sometimes even violent, action? How can public trust (both Western and Islamic) in welfare delivery systems be won? Who is entitled to interpret Islamic doctrine? Is there one universal tradition of humanitarianism, or many traditions defined by cultural history? This book offers rich practical insights highly relevant to today's highly tense international climate, and also encourages the reader to challenge the common Western assumption that 'we' are the exclusive providers of aid to rescue a passive Third World.
Physical Properties of the NbC Carbide

Transition metal carbides are interesting materials with a singular combination of properties, such as high melting points, high hardness, good transport properties and relatively low costs, which makes them excellent candidates for several technological applications. The possible applications of NbC carbide remained unexplored as it was in the past expensive and available in limited volumes. In order to guide investigations of the applicability of NbC, a deeper understanding of the physical properties of this carbide is fundamental. In this review paper, key physical properties of NbC are compiled with emphasis on its chemical bonding, a careful description of the C-Nb phase diagram, the phases formed and the crystal structures. Thermal properties are discussed and correlated with the intrinsic and extrinsic features of NbC. Finally, elastic properties are discussed.
Dynamics of fingering convection. Part 1 Small-scale fluxes and large-scale instabilities

Double-diffusive instabilities are often invoked to explain enhanced transport in stably stratified fluids. The most-studied natural manifestation of this process, fingering convection, commonly occurs in the ocean's thermocline and typically increases diapycnal mixing by 2 orders of magnitude over molecular diffusion. Fingering convection is also often associated with structures on much larger scales, such as thermohaline intrusions, gravity waves and thermohaline staircases. In this paper, we present an exhaustive study of the phenomenon from small to large scales. We perform the first three-dimensional simulations of the process at realistic values of the heat and salt diffusivities and provide accurate estimates of the induced turbulent transport. Our results are consistent with oceanic field measurements of diapycnal mixing in fingering regions. We then develop a generalized mean-field theory to study the stability of fingering systems to large-scale perturbations using our calculated turbulent fluxes to parameterize small-scale transport. The theory recovers the intrusive instability, the collective instability and the γ-instability as limiting cases. We find that the fastest growing large-scale mode depends sensitively on the ratio of the background gradients of temperature and salinity (the density ratio). While only intrusive modes exist at high density ratios, the collective and γ instabilities dominate the system at the low density ratios where staircases are typically observed. We conclude by discussing our findings in the context of staircase-formation theory.
Dereverberation for reverberation-robust microphone arrays

This paper discusses using dereverberation technologies to improve the robustness of beamforming microphone arrays against reverberation. It is known that, while conventional adaptive beamformers are able to effectively cancel the interference from spatially separate noise sources in the absence of reverberation, their efficacy deteriorates in reverberant rooms. To provide a widely applicable solution to this problem, we propose an adaptive multiple point blind equalizer that can shorten all the room impulse responses between the sound sources and microphones. This algorithm reduces the impact of reverberation on the interference cancellation performance when it is used to pre-process the microphone signals prior to beamforming. Experimental results using real conversation data show that a system combining the proposed equalizer and the adaptive beamformer improves noise reduction performance without degrading the speech quality.
New performance-vested stock option schemes

In the present article, we analyse two effective nontraditional performance-based stock option schemes which we call Parisian and constrained Asian executives' stock option plans. Both options have a criterion on the terminal value similar to a call option, but in addition impose a restriction on the path of the firm's assets process. Under a Parisian option scheme, the bonus of the executives becomes effective when the stock price has outperformed a certain threshold for a fixed length of time. Under the constrained Asian scheme, the executives' compensation is coupled with the average performance of the stock price. We show that the value of both Executives' Stock Option (ESO) schemes are less sensitive to changes in risk than plain vanilla options and hence represent an alternative compensation scheme that could make exaggerated risk taking through the executives less likely.
Quantification of Carboxylic and Carbonyl Functional Groups in Organic Aerosol Infrared Absorbance Spectra

Atmospheric aerosols are one of the least understood components of the climate system and incur adverse health effects on susceptible populations. Organic aerosols can make up as much as 80% of atmospheric aerosols (Lim and Turpin 2002), and so its quantification and characterization plays an important role in reducing our uncertainty with regards to aerosol impacts on health and climate. As the number of organic molecules in the atmosphere are diverse in number (Hamilton et al. 2004), we advance a functional group representation of organic molecules as measured by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to characterize the chemical composition of particle samples. This study describes and evaluates the algorithm introduced by Russell et al. (2009) for apportionment and quantification of oxygenated (carbonyl and hydroxyl) functional groups from infrared absorption spectra. Molar absorptivities for carbonyl and hydroxyl bonds in carboxylic groups are obtained for several dicarboxylic compounds, and applied to a multifunctional compound and mixture to demonstrate the applicability of this method for more complex samples. Furthermore, functional group abundances of two aldehydic compounds, 2-deoxy-d-ribose and glyceraldehyde, atomized from aqueous solution are in quantitative agreement with number of bonds predicted after transformation of these compounds into diols. The procedure for spectra interpretation and quantitative analysis is described through the context of an algorithm in which contributions of background and analyte absorption to the infrared spectrum are apportioned by the superposition of lineshapes constrained by laboratory measurements. Copyright 2013 American Association for Aerosol Research
A Resource-Constrained Coverage Protocol Over Urban VANETs

Vehicular ad hoc networks have emerged as a promising area of research in academic fields. However, it presents a challenge to design a realistic coverage protocol for vehicular networks, due to the service requirements, assorted mobility patterns, resource constraints and irregularity of the service area. It is also a challenge to meet a high quality of coverage with a tight deployment budget. In order to resolve these problems, this thesis proposes a resource-constrained coverage protocol with statistical analysis, which aims to consider the application demands, mobility patterns of vehicles, resource limitations, and geometrical attributes of road networks. We study two types of resource-constrained coverage: the continuous coverage model and the sparse coverage model. We then reduce each model to a Knapsack Constrained Steiner Tree problem and a Maximum Coverage Problem, respectively. Since the two reduced problems are NP-hard, we resolve each of them with the Lagrangian Decomposition approach and greedy algorithm. By taking the dimensions of road segments into account, our coverage protocol provides a buffering operation scheme to suit different types of road topology. By discovering hotspots from the historical trace files, the proposed protocol is able to depict the mobility patterns and to discover the most valuable regions of a road system. To solve the problems of resource constraint, we provide two variants of continuous coverage and sparse coverage by taking budget constraint and quality constraint into consideration. The comparison with other mature algorithms verifies that our coverage protocol is reliable, and suitable for urban vehicular networks.
Security Analysis of Routing Protocol for MANET

CSCW in design maybe work in mobile ad hoc network and security of routing protocol in MANET is one key factor. The routing protocol for MANET uses cryptographic technology to heighten its security, which makes it possible to use formal method. Considered the property of routing protocol for MANET, the drawback of BAN logic is analyzed and the security is described based on improved BAN logic. The formalization of the protocol is described and the method is presented. Taken example of SADSR, the security of routing protocol is analyzed by using the method, which proves the method is valid. A method to attack SADSR is found
Limited Feedback Precoding in Realistic MIMO Channel Conditions

MIMO system design for real applications requires that factors such as channel estimation errors, feedback quantisation and realistic channel responses be taken into account. Limited feedback precoding has been introduced to address the feedback overhead; it is a quantised approximation to equal-power eigenbeamforming. The performance of this technique is evaluated using channel responses obtained from a typical urban microcell. The impact of inaccurate channel state information is considered, in addition to the data rate and feedback requirement. The results of this novel approach clearly show the dependence of the system parameter selection on the local topographical environment, and the importance of codebook size and generation as well as channel estimation.
Supervised topic models for clinical interpretability

Supervised topic models can help clinical researchers find interpretable cooccurence patterns in count data that are relevant for diagnostics. However, standard formulations of supervised Latent Dirichlet Allocation have two problems. First, when documents have many more words than labels, the influence of the labels will be negligible. Second, due to conditional independence assumptions in the graphical model the impact of supervised labels on the learned topic-word probabilities is often minimal, leading to poor predictions on heldout data. We investigate penalized optimization methods for training sLDA that produce interpretable topic-word parameters and useful heldout predictions, using recognition networks to speed-up inference. We report preliminary results on synthetic data and on predicting successful anti-depressant medication given a patient's diagnostic history.
On the Impact of Non-Linear Amplifiers in Single-Carrier Systems: An Analytical Approach

Single-carrier modulation is currently regaining attractiveness for high-speed communications standards. Because of its robustness towards analog hardware impairments, single-carrier modulation can get along with low transceiver accuracy as compared to multi-carrier modulation. One hardware impairment that can, however, still seriously degrade the performance of single-carrier systems is amplifier non-linearity. The degradation is usually not as high as for multi-carrier modulation but can still not be neglected in practice. The pulse shaping at the transmitter, which is required for spectral mask compliance, will lead to power peaks in the transmitted signal that are clipped by the non-linearity. This paper presents an analytical approach for evaluating the performance degradation caused by non-linear amplifiers in single-carrier systems. The distortion due to the clipping is characterized by means of a discrete noise distribution. Numerical results show that this approximation allows for accurately predicting the performance degradation in terms of BER curves without extensive simulations.