Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Distilling the Verification Process for Prognostics Algorithms

The goal of prognostics and health management (PHM) systems is to ensure system safety, and reduce downtime and maintenance costs. It is important that a PHM system is verified and validated before it can be successfully deployed. Prognostics algorithms are integral parts of PHM systems. This paper investigates a systematic process of verification of such prognostics algorithms. To this end, first, this paper distinguishes between technology maturation and product development. Then, the paper describes the verification process for a prognostics algorithm as it moves up to higher maturity levels. This process is shown to be an iterative process where verification activities are interleaved with validation activities at each maturation level. In this work, we adopt the concept of technology readiness levels (TRLs) to represent the different maturity levels of a prognostics algorithm. It is shown that at each TRL, the verification of a prognostics algorithm de- pends on verifying the different components of the algorithm according to the requirements laid out by the PHM system that adopts this prognostics algorithm. Finally, using simplified examples, the systematic process for verifying a prognos- tics algorithm is demonstrated as the prognostics algorithm moves up TRLs.
BIPHASIC CALCIUM PHOSPHATE SCAFFOLDS DERIVED FROM HYDROTHERMALLY SYNTHESIZED POWDERS

Biphasic calcium phosphate (BCP) scaffolds were successfully produced by robocasting. The BCP powder was prepared by hydrothermal synthesis (150°C for 4 h) and calcined at 1000°C. The as-obtained powder was milled to obtain A suitable particle size distribution (PSD) for optimizing the rheological properties of the suspensions and pastes prepared thereof. Scaffolds with different pore dimensions (300x300, 500x500, 250x500 and 300x600 µm) were prepared by extruding the pastes through 410 µm diameter nozzles. The green scaffolds were dried and posteriorly sintered at 1100°C. The compressive strength of the sintered scaffolds was well within the range of the mechanical properties reported from cancellous bone, being intrinsically related with the particle size distribution. Moreover, the obtained scaffolds demonstrated to have good biomineralization ability. The obtained scaffolds by robocasting revealed to possess promising features for their applications in bone regeneration and tissue engineering.
Investigation of Inhalation Anthrax Case, United States

Inhalation anthrax occurred in a man who vacationed in 4 US states where anthrax is enzootic. Despite an extensive multi-agency investigation, the specific source was not detected, and no additional related human or animal cases were found. Although rare, inhalation anthrax can occur naturally in the United States.
Monitoring distributed systems

The monitoring of distributed systems involves the collection, interpretation, and display of information concerning the interactions among concurrently executing processes. This information and its display can support the debugging, testing, performance evaluation, and dynamic documentation of distributed systems. General problems associated with monitoring are outlined in this paper, and the architecture of a general purpose, extensible, distributed monitoring system is presented. Three approaches to the display of process interactions are described: textual traces, animated graphical traces, and a combination of aspects of the textual and graphical approaches. The roles that each of these approaches fulfill in monitoring and debugging distributed systems are identified and compared. Monitoring tools for collecting communication statistics, detecting deadlock, controlling the non-deterministic execution of distributed systems, and for using protocol specifications in monitoring are also described. Our discussion is based on experience in the development and use of a monitoring system within a distributed programming environment called Jade. Jade was developed within the Computer Science Department of the University of Calgary and is now being used to support teaching and research at a number of university and research organizations.
Subcutaneous Emphysema and Pneumomediastinum after Tonsillectomy

Cervicofacial subcutaneous emphysema is a rare complication of tonsillectomy that often resolves spontaneously but may progress to obstruct upper airways or spread to the thorax causing pneumomediastinum or pneumothorax. The mechanisms by which subcutaneous emphysema and pneumomediastinum may develop after tonsillectomy are poorly understood. A case of a 21-year-old female undergoing routine adenotonsillectomy, who developed cervicofacial emphysema and pneumomediastinum, is presented. Possible pathogenetic mechanisms and treatment options are discussed.
Towards ontology alignment of e-business standards using OWL and F-logic

In this paper a mapping of Core Components specification based e-business standards to an ontology is presented and a framework for ontology alignment based on F-logic is proposed. The well accepted Web Ontology Language (OWL) is used for ontology development. In order to preserve the existing hierarchy of the standards, an emphasis is put on the mapping of Core Components elements to specific constructs in OWL. The main purpose of developing an e-business standards ontology is to create a foundation for an automated mapping system that would be able to convert concepts from various standards in an independent fashion. The practical applicability and verification of the presented mappings is tested on the mapping of Universal Business Language version 2.0 and Cross Industry Invoice version 2.0 to OWL. Additionally we propose a 4-rules class alignment technique which is formalised in F-logic a deductive object-oriented rule-based language for ontology management.
Infrastructuring the Solidarity Economy: Unpacking Strategies and Tactics in Designing Social Innovation

Solidarity organizations in Europe are committed to building a more socially just society through a better configuration of democracy, politics and economy. In this paper, we describe our efforts to contribute to the socio-political designed innovation of solidarity movements through the establishment of a research lab embedded in, and operating within, the solidarity economy. We describe three cases that span the polarities of everyday and expert design, and contribute to the scaling out of social innovations. We use these cases to exemplify the strategies and tactics that emerge from the ongoing negotiation of 'infrastructuring' work with solidarity organizations. Finally, we discuss how guerilla infrastructuring, designing coalitions, and spanning design polarities can contribute to HCI and design for social innovation more generally.
Fully Automated Segmentation of the Pons and Midbrain Using Human T1 MR Brain Images

Purpose This paper describes a novel method to automatically segment the human brainstem into midbrain and pons, called LABS: Landmark-based Automated Brainstem Segmentation. LABS processes high-resolution structural magnetic resonance images (MRIs) according to a revised landmark-based approach integrated with a thresholding method, without manual interaction. Methods This method was first tested on morphological T1-weighted MRIs of 30 healthy subjects. Its reliability was further confirmed by including neurological patients (with Alzheimer's Disease) from the ADNI repository, in whom the presence of volumetric loss within the brainstem had been previously described. Segmentation accuracies were evaluated against expert-drawn manual delineation. To evaluate the quality of LABS segmentation we used volumetric, spatial overlap and distance-based metrics. Results The comparison between the quantitative measurements provided by LABS against manual segmentations revealed excellent results in healthy controls when considering either the midbrain (DICE measures higher that 0.9; Volume ratio around 1 and Hausdorff distance around 3) or the pons (DICE measures around 0.93; Volume ratio ranging 1.024–1.05 and Hausdorff distance around 2). Similar performances were detected for AD patients considering segmentation of the pons (DICE measures higher that 0.93; Volume ratio ranging from 0.97–0.98 and Hausdorff distance ranging 1.07–1.33), while LABS performed lower for the midbrain (DICE measures ranging 0.86–0.88; Volume ratio around 0.95 and Hausdorff distance ranging 1.71–2.15). Conclusions Our study represents the first attempt to validate a new fully automated method for in vivo segmentation of two anatomically complex brainstem subregions. We retain that our method might represent a useful tool for future applications in clinical practice.
Exploiting the Ordering of Observed Problem-Solving Steps for Knowledge Base Refinement: An Apprenticeship Approach

Apprenticeship is a powerful method of learning among humans whereby a student refines his knowledge simply by observing and analyzing the problem-solving steps taken by an expert. This paper focuses on knowledge base (KB) refinement for classification problems and examines how the ordering of the problem-solving steps taken by an observed expert can be used to yield leverage in KB refinement. Questions examined include: What added information can be extracted from attribute ordering? How can this added information be utilized to identify and repair KB shortcomings? What assumptions must be made about the observed expert, and how important of a role do these assumptions play? The principles explored have been implemented in the SKIPPER apprentice, and empirical results are given for the audiology domain.
Upper body fat predicts metabolic syndrome similarly in men and women

The metabolic syndrome is a constellation of risk factors including dyslipidemia, dysglycemia, hypertension, a pro‐inflammatory state, and a prothrombotic state. All of these factors are accentuated by obesity. However, obesity can be defined by body mass index (BMI), percent body fat, or by body fat distribution. The latter consists of upper body fat (subcutaneous and visceral fat) and lower body fat (gluteofemoral fat). Waist circumference is a common surrogate marker for upper body fat.
IMAGING IN

Our goal is to develop and clinically implement new technologies for high-precision and noninvasive intervention upon the nervous system. Every few millimeters of the brain is functionally distinct, and different parts of the brain may have counteracting responses to therapy. To better match our therapies to neuroscience, we develop techniques that allow intervention upon only the right part of the nervous system at the right time, using technologies like focused ultrasound and nanotechnology
Enhancing accuracy and sharpness of motion field with adaptive scheme and occlusion-aware filter

In this study, the authors propose an adaptive scheme to improve motion estimation of a variational model based on image features and flow quality measurements. Using image features, the authors introduce adaptive functions and inject them into the energy function to fine-tune the estimation process. They propose a hybrid scheme to deal with large motions and improve the accuracy of the flow field. They introduce a trusted-map based on constraints to measure flow quality. They use this map as a reference for the proposed occlusion-aware filter. The proposed filter and hybrid scheme are integrated to correct the flow field iteratively, thus significantly improving the estimation results. The filter also enhances the flow field in occlusion areas. The authors experimental results demonstrate that their method provides sharp flow fields and significantly improved estimation accuracy.
Fractional order controller in a servo drive — Case of cogging moment

Results of using fractional order PI current controller, and classical one, in case of cogging effect in servo drive are presented in the paper. The general cascade control system of the servo drive and motor model with dry friction are presented. The most significant result in case of using fractional order current controller (FOCC) observed for starting servo drive in the presence of cogging moment are presented and commented.
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY OF CANTERBURY CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND ANOTHER LOOK AT WHAT TO DO WITH TIME-SERIES CROSS-SECTION DATA

Our study revisits Beck and Katz’ (1995) comparison of the Parks and PCSE estimators using time-series, cross-sectional data (TSCS). Our innovation is that we construct simulated statistical environments that are designed to approximate actual TSCS data. We pattern our statistical environments after income and tax data on U.S. states from 1960-1999. While PCSE generally does a better job than Parks in estimating standard errors/confidence intervals, it too can be unreliable, sometimes producing standard errors/confidence intervals that are substantially off the mark. Further, we find that the benefits of PCSE can come at a large cost in estimator efficiency. *The contact author is W. Robert Reed, Professor, Department of Economics, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand, Phone 64-3-3642846, email: bobreednz@yahoo.com.
A comparative study of text-independent speaker recognition systems using Gaussian mixture modeling and i-vector methods

Speaker recognition systems are increasingly being used in today's world as a means of biometrie in many real life applications. The accuracy of such a system decreases with noise, channel variations, duration of speech signals used etc. It is always believed that these systems work well when sufficient training data is available to get rid of these effects. In this paper, we make a comparison of text-independent speaker recognition system using two different feature extraction methods: Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) and Inner Hair Cell Coefficients (IHC). For classification we used Gaussian Mixture Modeling (GMM) and i-vector modeling using Probabilistic Linear Discriminant Analysis (PLDA). The recognition results for 100 different speakers were compared and it was observed that MFCC is better than IHC and i-vector modeling performs better for long utterances.
Tuberculosis of the Female Genital Tract

TUBERCULOUS disease of the female genital tract has been the subject of many communications, and is discussed in all modern Gynaecological text books. I t is still a somewhat mysterious complaint because of its silent onset, the absence of typical syniptoms and the difficulty in giving any satisfactory forecast as to the likely course of the disease and its complications. Treatment of the condition is also far from being either agreed or satisfactory.
Segmented and Unsegmented Dialogue-Act Annotation with Statistical Dialogue Models

Dialogue systems are one of the most challenging applications of Natural Language Processing. In recent years, some statistical dialogue models have been proposed to cope with the dialogue problem. The evaluation of these models is usually performed by using them as annotation models. Many of the works on annotation use information such as the complete sequence of dialogue turns or the correct segmentation of the dialogue. This information is not usually available for dialogue systems. In this work, we propose a statistical model that uses only the information that is usually available and performs the segmentation and annotation at the same time. The results of this model reveal the great influence that the availability of a correct segmentation has in obtaining an accurate annotation of the dialogues.
A D-S evidence theory-based relay protection system hidden failures detection method in smart grid

Hidden failures in relay protection systems are the primary factors for triggering the cascading outages and bulk blackouts of power systems, but it is difficult to detect these when power systems operate normally. In smart grids, relay protection management information systems allow us to obtain many sequence of event records under disturbances and faulty conditions. By studying such record information, this paper proposes a detection method for hidden failures based on the features of relay protection systems. In this method, certain evidence is constructed by analysis of redundancy and coordination between the primary and backup protections or within the backup protection. Meanwhile, uncertain evidence is constructed by utilizing the fault location. Then, by combining all the evidence with D-S evidence theory, detection criteria for detecting hidden failures in relay protection systems are presented. Last, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is verified on the IEEE 39 bus system case. The results indicate that this method can detect hidden failures in relay protection systems and send alarm information. Thus, it is of great importance to ensure the security operation of power systems in smart grids.
Source Code Curation on StackOverflow: The Vesperin System

The past few years have witnessed the rise of software question and answer sites like StackOverflow, where developers can pose detailed coding questions and receive quality answers. Developers using these sites engage in a complex code foraging process of understanding and adapting the code snippets they encounter. We introduce the notion of source code curation to cover the act of discovering some source code of interest, cleaning and transforming (refining) it, and then presenting it in a meaningful and organized way. In this paper, we present Vesperin, a source code curation system geared towards curating Java code examples on StackOverflow.
Perceptions and Experiences of Participants in a Study of In-Vehicle Monitoring of Teenage Drivers

Objectives: To assess the perceptions and experiences of participants in a study of a device that monitored teenagers’ driving. Methods: A device that continuously monitors and reports risky driving maneuvers was installed in vehicles of 84 newly licensed teenagers. Study groups varied by whether parents had access to a Web site that summarized their teenagers’ driving and by whether in-vehicle alerts provided feedback to drivers. Recruitment of subjects and problems with the device were documented. Teenagers and parents were interviewed after removal of the device. Results: Although the study was conducted in a large urban area, recruitment progressed slowly. Parents who declined to participate usually said their teenagers opposed it, or they were concerned about intruding on the privacy of their children or jeopardizing trust with them. Both parents and teenagers thought in-vehicle alerts helped teenagers drive more safely, although two thirds of teenagers tried to drown out the alerts with loud music. Parents found the Web site useful but reported fewer Web site visits over time. Most parents would prefer receiving information through summary report cards rather than through a Web site. Both parents and teenagers thought the overall system was effective in improving teenagers’ driving. Most parents said the Web site and/or device helped them talk to their teenagers about their driving. Parents thought the most effective system would be an in-vehicle alert with immediate parental notification; teenagers preferred a system allowing them to correct behavior before parental notification. Conclusions: The difficulties in recruiting families for a study of in-vehicle monitoring and feedback technology suggest that gaining broad acceptance may be challenging. Although many teenagers were annoyed by the technology, most said they drove more safely because of it. Sending report cards to parents and allowing teenagers to correct behavior before parents are notified may increase the usefulness and acceptability of monitoring systems.
Beyond Digital Displays: Design Considerations for Tablet Applications Targeting Children with ASD in Sri Lanka

Technology is being extensively used among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in affluent countries. However, there is a paucity of studies exploring the use of technology for children with ASD in developing countries like Sri Lanka. Therefore, we explore the key considerations for designing software applications for children with ASD by interviewing 32 parents and 18 practitioners of children with ASD. Our findings suggest that to effectively support children with ASD in Sri Lanka, technological interventions should focus on multi-player functionalities to promote social interactions. We further identified the characteristics that are required in a software application to effectively support children with ASD in Sri Lanka, namely support for 1) timers to avoid screen addiction, 2) tangible user interfaces, 3) customization, and 4) cultural context. Based on the results, we provide recommendations to design technology for Sri Lankan children with ASD.
HetCore: TFET-CMOS Hetero-Device Architecture for CPUs and GPUs

Tunneling Field-Effect Transistors (TFETs) attain much higher energy efficiency than CMOS at low voltages. However, their performance saturates at high voltages and, therefore, cannot replace CMOS when high performance is needed. Ideally, we desire a core that is as energy-efficient as a TFET core and provides as much performance as a CMOS core. To approach this goal, this paper judiciously integrates both TFET units and CMOS units in a single core, effectively creating a hetero-device core. We call it HetCore, and present CPU and GPU versions. In HetCore, TFETs are used in units that consume high power under CMOS, are amenable to pipelining or are not very latency sensitive, and use a sizable area. HetCore powers CMOS and TFET units at different voltage levels, so they operate optimally. However, all units are clocked at the same frequency. Our results based on simulations running standard applications show the potential of this approach, even with conservative assumptions. A HetCore CPU consumes on average 39% less energy than a CMOS CPU, while delivering an average performance that is within 10% of the CMOS CPU. In addition, under a fixed power budget, a multicore with HetCore CPUs can employ twice as many cores as a multicore with CMOS CPUs, resulting in average performance gains of 32% while, at the same time, improving the energy efficiency (ED 2) by an average of 68%. Similar results are obtained with HetCore GPUs.