Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Simulation and Virtual Prototyping of Tangible User Interfaces

Prototyping is an important part in research and development of tangible user interfaces (TUIs). On the way from the idea to a working prototype, new hardware prototypes usually have to be crafted repeatedly in numerous iterations. This brings us to think about virtual prototypes that exhibit the same functionality as a real TUI, but reduce the amount of time and resources that have to be spent. Building upon existing open-source software - the middleware Robot Operating System (ROS) and the 3D simulator Gazebo - we have created a toolkit that can be used for developing and testing fully functional implementations of a tangible user interface as a virtual device. The entire interaction between the TUI and other hardware and software components is controlled by the middleware, while the human interaction with the TUI can be explored using the 3D simulator and 3D input/output technologies. We argue that by simulating parts of the hardware-software co-design process, the overall development effort can be reduced.
Accuracy assessment and correction of Vaisala RS92 radiosonde water vapor measurements

[1] Relative humidity (RH) measurements from Vaisala RS92 radiosondes are widely used in research and operational applications, but their accuracy is not well characterized as a function of height, RH, and time of day (or solar altitude angle). This study compares RS92 RH measurements to simultaneous water vapor measurements from three reference instruments of known accuracy. Cryogenic frost point hygrometer measurements are used to characterize the RS92 accuracy above the 700-mbar level, microwave radiometer measurements characterize the RS92 accuracy averaged over essentially the lower troposphere, and the RS92 accuracy at the surface is characterized by a system of 6 RH probes with National Institute of Standards and Technology–traceable calibrations. The three RS92 accuracy assessments are combined to yield a detailed estimate of RS92 accuracy for all RH conditions from the surface to the lowermost stratosphere. An empirical correction is derived to remove the mean bias error, yielding corrected RS92 measurements whose bias uncertainty is independent of height or RH and is estimated to be ±4% of the measured RH value for nighttime soundings and ±5% for daytime soundings, plus an RH offset uncertainty of ±0.5% RH that is significant for dry conditions. The accuracy of an individual RS92 sounding is further characterized by the 1-σ “random production variability,” estimated to be ±1.5% of the measured RH value. The daytime bias correction must be used with caution, as it is only accurate for clear-sky or near-clear conditions owing to the complicated effect of clouds on the solar radiation error.
A study of computer technology use and technology leadership of Texas elementary public school principals.

The purpose of this study was to determine Texas elementary principals' level of computer technology use and their leadership in technology integration activities as defined by the National Educational Technology Standards for Administrators (NETS*A). Additionally the study addressed technology implementation as an innovation and used the literature concerning change and innovation models to identify organizational and personal factors that might affect the level of technology use and the leadership behaviors. Survey data retrieved from 216 Texas elementary public school principals led to the formation of the following conclusions. The elementary principals involved this study reported high level computer technology use, especially with the computer tools involving communication. Principals also reported high level leadership performance to the NETS*A standards. Multiple analyses of variance (MANOVA) revealed no significant difference in mean scores between the dependent variables of computer use or leadership performance to the NETS*A standards and the independent variables including the organizational factors of school location, district spending per student, campus minority status, and campus Title I status. A regression analysis revealed a statistically significant positive relationship between principals' computer technology use and personal variables of training and perceived risk-benefit. Another regression analysis revealed a statistically significant relationship between principals' technology leadership performance to the NETS*A standards and personal variables of training, perceived risk-benefit and perceived pressure to implement technology. Multiple regression analyses revealed no correlation between the dependent variables of technology use and technology leadership. A correlation analysis revealed a weak correlation between the two dependent variables with less than 4% of the variance explained by that relationship. There is a need for continuing research examining possible relationships between principals' technology use, their technology leadership behaviors, and the degree of technology integration in their schools. The findings from this study could be used by principal preparation programs to focus on technology integration training and personal factors that may affect principals' technology leadership behavior and technology use.
Clarifying environmental education: A search for clear action in southern Africa

This research examines how environmental education has been conceived and enacted within the same orientations that have brought on many of the environmental issues that confront us in southern Africa today. It questions prevailing modernist positions which have assumed that providing 'nature experiences' and communicating 'conservation messages' will foster the change necessary to resolve environmental concerns. Local examples are used to reveal flaws in past strategies of rational intervention before further examples are used to suggest revised orientations. 'CLEAR' and 'ACTION' are then used as acronyms to clarify enhanced approaches that are emerging to address the challenges of the next decade. To meet these challenges, rational intervention strategies might well be displaced by interactive classroom and community orientations which set out to co-construct local agendas of issues for reflexive social processes of change.
Understanding the ‘bigger picture’: Lessons learned from participatory visual arts-based research with individuals seeking asylum in the United Kingdom

This article presents reflections from a participatory visual arts-based research study with individuals seeking asylum in the north-east of England. This study invited participants to represent their lived experiences through biographical and visual methods. In doing so, they engaged in a process of ethno-mimesis, accomplished through the production of images that function as sites for meaning making, self-representation and social critique. This article demonstrates how an arts-based approach can stimulate change and transformation in individuals’ lives by supporting meaningful participation in the knowledge production process and providing a safe space where participants are empowered by sharing stories that challenge, subvert and reimagine what it feels like to be an asylum seeker. Furthermore it suggests that in contrast to interview settings, through the process of ethno-mimesis participants were offered the time and space to consciously engage with their experiences and invest in their creativity and storytelling capacities in order to render their worldviews visible. Although the findings from this study reinforce an existing rich body of ethnographic work on lived experiences of asylum seekers, this study recognizes that the identified themes highlight the enduring impact of immigration policies on individuals asylum-seeking trajectories and focuses instead on how such experiences are creatively negotiated by participants.
Image Mosaic Algorithm Based on Relative Orientation

The paper proposes a new image mosaic algorithm based on relative orientation. In view of image registration errors in existing image mosaic algorithms, the relative orientation method is introduced. The parameters of relative orien- tation are obtained by parsing stereo image pairs, and the transformation model of ideal image pairs are generated. The paper uses mean parallax method to register the ideal image pairs in one-dimensional way, and finally realizes the image mosaic algorithm based on ideal image pairs model. Experiment results show that the method can effectively reduce the image registration errors and the calculation of image registration, and also reduce the difficulty of image mosaic of three- dimensional objects on two-dimensional plane. Therefore, this method is an efficient image mosaic algorithm.
A sledgehammer approach to reuse of legacy device drivers

Device drivers account for the majority of an operating system's code base, and reuse of the existing driver infrastructure is a pragmatic requirement of any new OS project. New operating systems should benefit from the existing device driver code base without demanding legacy support from the kernel.Instead of trying to directly integrate existing device drivers we propose a more radical approach. We run the unmodified device driver, with its complete original OS, isolated in a virtual machine. Our flexible approach, requiring only minimal support infrastructure, allows us to run any existing device driver, independently of the OS or driver vendor.
Effect of a Short Time Concentric Versus Eccentric Training Program on Electromyography Activity and Peak Torque of Quadriceps

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of an 8-week concentric (CON) versus eccentric (ECC) isokinetic training program on the electromyography (EMG) signal amplitude of vastus medialis (VM), vastus lateralis (VL) and rectus femoris (RF). Also, the isometric (ISO) and dynamic maximum strength of the knee extensors were assessed. Eighteen physically healthy male subjects (age 22 ± 1 years, body height 177 ± 4 cm, body mass 73 ± 7 kg) performed four weeks of unilateral CON isokinetic training for the quadriceps of the dominant leg on a REV9000 dynamometer. At the end of the fourth week, the sample was divided into two groups, with one group performing additional four weeks of unilateral ECC training and the other continuing with CON training. The training sessions consisted of three sets of ten maximal repetitions at a velocity of 60°s-1, three days per week for eight weeks. The results showed that CON and ECC groups improved the peak torque in all types of contractions. Also, both groups presented increases in the avgEMG for VL, VM and RF. The present investigation showed that CON training elicited increases of the ISO peak torque and VM avgEMG in the CON contraction. Additionally, significant gains were reported after the ECC training on the VM avgEMG in all contractions and RM avgEMG in CON contraction.
European Conference on Information Systems ( ECIS ) Summer 10-6-2011 INVESTIGATING THE ACCEPTANCE OF ELECTRONIC BOOKS – THE IMPACT OF HAPTIC DISSONANCE ON INNOVATION ADOPTION

The digitization of the book industry is often said to lead the physical book to an end. Yet, many existing national book markets refuse to adopt the technological change. Consumers’ resistance to electronic books is generally viewed as a result of high prices and shortcomings of e-reading technology. The current paper tries to take a step toward a more differentiated view on ebook adoption. There is evidence that the different haptics of a physical book play an important role in ebook acceptance, especially in leisure settings. Therefore, the construct of haptic dissonance is derived from a theoretical basis, conceptualized and hypothesized as being an important antecedent of ebook acceptance. A qualitative study is conducted to show the relevance of haptic dissonance and to make a first proposal for operational measurement. Possible applications involve research on acceptance of or resistance to innovations where haptic attributes are salient.
Changing our schools : linking school effectiveness and school improvement

Good schools of this were 1965 the context of change a story of change - the Halton effective school project school effectiveness can inform school improvement the possibilities and challenges of school improvement school development planning - a path to change the power of school culture invitational leadership changing concepts of teaching and learning the need for partnerships learning for all - building the learning community evaluate what you value changing our schools - linking school effectiveness and school improvement.
Convolutional codes for channels with deletion errors

This correspondence studies convolutional codes for channels with deletion errors. We show that the Viterbi decoding algorithm can be modified to correct deletion errors and prove that it is able to find the closest codeword from the received sequence. The computational complexity of the algorithm is comparable to the complexity of the original Viterbi algorithm. We also prove that maximum-likelihood decoding of deletion-correcting trellis codes cannot be achieved using only a forward recursion in the trellis and a single survivor path per state.
Precise and efficient model-based vehicle tracking method using Rao-Blackwellized and scaling series particle filters

A precise and efficient tracking technique is essential for an intelligent vehicle to interact with the surrounding vehicles on the road. In this paper, we propose a model-based vehicle tracking method using the Rao-Blackwellized particle filter (RBPF) and scaling series particle filter (SSPF). To ensure that the accuracy and speed of the proposed method are better than those standard particle-based tracking methods, we introduce the latest sensor measurement into the motion estimate. A dynamic Bayesian network and its theoretical base are derived to support this improvement. To track the high-dimensional states of the target vehicle including its position, orientation, motion, and geometry in the proposed general tracking method, we use the SSPF for the motion estimate and geometry fitting and the RBPF for the geometry estimate. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our tracking method, we conduct an evaluation experiment using two intelligent vehicles around Nagoya University, Japan. The total distance traveled by the vehicles in this experiment is approximately 10 km, and the experimental environment contains flat roads, narrow streets, and steep ramps. To demonstrate the accuracy and speed of our tracking method, we extract the ground-truth from our intelligent vehicles and compare its performance with that of state-of-art RBPF-based approach.
Talent Management and Teacher Leadership Talent Development in High Performing School in Malaysia

Researches on the effective leadership reveal that principals in high performing schools aresuccessful in improving schools outcomes through who they are, the strategies they use, as well asthe specific combination and timely implementation and management of these strategies as a resultof the unique contexts in which they work. The present research work tries to explore and confirmthe talent management factors (TMFs) responsible for developing teacher leadership talent (TLT). The proposed TMFs were tested and validated through a sample of 400 teachers of HighPerforming School in Malaysia using Amos 19. Hypotheses were tested at a 95% confidence leveland the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) andComparative Fit Index (CFI) were used to test the structural equation model of talent management.The obtained RMSEA value was 0.049, TLI value was 0.942 and CFI value was 0.962 whichindicated a good model fit and appropriateness. Analysis of the results demonstrated that the levelof implementation of talent management falls into the range of being very good and has asignificant relationship with a teacher leadership talent development of the organization in thestudied population. This study is one of very few studies to provide an integrative perspective ofTMFs for developing TLT in high performing school; it adds to the extremely limited number ofempirical studies that have been conducted to investigate talent management in the educationsector and how teacher leaders start as individual contributors and move up into management andleadership roles.
Awareness as an antidote to distance: making distributed groups cooperative and consistent

Sociometric feedback visualizes social signals among group members to increase their awareness of their communication patterns. We deployed the Meeting Mediator, a real-time sociometric feedback system to groups participating in two rounds of a social dilemma task: in one round, all members were co-located and in the other round, the members were geographically distributed. Laboratory results show that the sociometric feedback successfully increases the speaking time and the frequency of turn transitions of groups that are initially distributed and later co-located, and also leads to a higher cooperation rate, increasing the overall earnings of these groups. In addition, the sociometric feedback helps groups have a more consistent pattern of behavior before and after a change in their geographic distribution. Therefore, the sociometric feedback influences the communication patterns of distributed groups and makes them more cooperative. Furthermore, the sociometric feedback helps groups sustain those patterns of communication even after a change in geographic distribution.
An Efficient C-V Model with Wavelets

We propose an efficient C-V model with wavelet transform to speed up the C-V model evolution. Firstly, the image is decomposed into the downsizing and approximation sub-image with wavelet transform. Then the sub-image composed with the approximation wavelet coefficient matrix is pre-segmented using C-V model to get an approximation curve in a short time. Thirdly, in order to get a fine segmentation, the original image is segmented subtly using C-V model again, of which the initial curve is reconstructed by the result of pre-segmentation. The experimental results validate the effectiveness and feasibility of this model.
Enhancing the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education: the role of entrepreneurial lecturers

Purpose Despite the inclusion of entrepreneurship education (EE) in the curricula of tertiary education institutions in Nigeria, graduate unemployment is still an issue of serious concern. This calls into question the effectiveness of EE in influencing students’ entrepreneurial intentions (EIs) and behaviours. Perhaps, the issue is with the EE lecturers. The questions, which should be answered include: are the lecturers who teach EE entrepreneurially inclined? Can lecturers who are not entrepreneurially inclined teach students to become entrepreneurs? The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to empirically explore the role of entrepreneurial lecturers in the relationship between EE and students’ EIs. Design/methodology/approach This study adopted a quantitative approach. Thus, a self-reported questionnaire was administered to a randomly selected sample of 256 Higher National Diploma II students of the Federal Polytechnic, Idah, Nigeria, who were exposed to EE. To analyse the data collected, partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was performed using SmartPLS 2.0. M3 software. Findings Data analysis showed a significantly positive relationship between EE and students’ EIs on the one hand and between EE and perceived entrepreneurial lecturers (PELs) on the other hand. It was also found that PELs had a significantly positive link with students’ EIs. Further analysis indicated that PELs had a mediating effect on the relationship between EE and students’ EIs. Research limitations/implications This study was a single institutional study. Thus, the generalisability of its findings to other institutions is limited. Extending the research to other institutions and countries might be required to validate the findings presented. Practical implications This research work has some insightful implications for the teaching of EE. By implication, it provides an answer to the question: who should teach EE? To achieve greater impact of EE on students’ EIs and behaviours, entrepreneurial lecturers are required. It implies that EE lecturers should be entrepreneurially inclined. They should demonstrate sufficient entrepreneurial attitudes, intentions and behaviours. Social implications It has been argued that graduate unemployment constitutes a social problem to the society. In this regard, the suggestions made in this paper, if applied, would help resolve the problem of graduate unemployment in Nigeria and other countries. Originality/value This study is the first to provide empirical evidence of the role of entrepreneurial lecturers in the relationship between EE and students’ EIs. It has demonstrated that entrepreneurial lecturers could transfer the influence of EE to students’ EIs. Also, it has confirmed that EE lecturers are critical in the EE-students’ EIs relationship. Overall, this study makes a significant contribution to the discussion on how to enhance the effectiveness of EE in influencing students’ EIs and behaviours.
Extraction of cluster parameters with future Sunyaev–Zel'dovich observations

The Sunyaev–Zel'dovich (SZ) effect of galaxy clusters is characterized by three parameters: the Compton parameter, the electron temperature and the cluster peculiar velocity. In the present study we consider the problem of extracting these parameters using multi-frequency SZ observations only. We show that there exists a parameter degeneracy which can be broken with an appropriate choice of frequencies. As a result we discuss the optimal choice of observing frequencies from a theoretical point of view. Finally, we analyse the systematic errors (of the order μK) on the SZ measurement introduced by finite bandwidths, and suggest a possible method of reducing these errors.
A Peer-to-Peer Based Distributed Collaborative Filtering Architecture

Collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm has proved to be one of the most successful algorithms in recommender systems in recent years. However, traditional centralized collaborative filtering system has suffered from its shortage in scalability as their calculation complexity increases quickly both in time and space when the number of the user and item in the rating database increases. As a result, distributed collaborative filtering is attracting increasing attention as an alternative implementation scheme for collaborative filtering recommender systems. This paper proposes a distributed collaborative filtering architecture based on peer-to-peer networks, because of its advantage of scalability as an alternative architecture. The peers communicate each other by sending messages. The peer-to-peer application advantage is employed in order to manage the user-item rating database, produce the prediction and top-N recommendation.
WHU at TREC KBA Vital Filtering Track 2014

Abstract : This paper describes the WHU IRLAB participation to the Vital Filtering task of the TREC 2014 Knowledge Base Acceleration Track. In this task, we implemented a system to detect vital documents that could be used for a human editor to update or create the profile of an entity. Our approach is to view the problem as a classification problem and use Stanford NLP Toolkit to extract necessary information. Various kinds of features are leveraged to classify documents to three classes, i.e. vital, useful and non-useful (garbage or neutral). We submitted four runs using different combinations of features. The results are presented and discussed.