Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessment of characteristic compressive strength in structures by the rebound hammer test according to EN 13791: 2007

The European Standard EN 13791 provides methodologies for estimating concrete compressive strength in structures. This standard covers the testing of cores as well as the use of indirect methods, such as the rebound hammer, USPV and pull-out tests. This communication refers to a study carried out in a building where the methodologies presented in EN 13791 has been applied to estimate the in-situ characteristic strength, based on a widened set of pairs of rebound hammer and core compressive strength test results. A statistical interpretation of the two alternatives provided by the standard for the establishment of the relationship between the in-situ strength and the rebound number is presented, and some relevant aspects related to the regression analysis not mentioned by the standard, such as the precision of the rebound number and the confidence level, are discussed. Resume La norme europeenne EN 13791 fournit des methodes pour estimer la resistance en compression du beton dans les structures. Cette norme couvre les essais de carottes, ainsi que le recours a des methodes indirectes telles que le sclerometre, USPV et l’essai d’arrachement. Cette communication se refere a une etude realisee dans un bâtiment ou les methodologies presentees dans la norme EN 13791 ont ete appliquees pour estimer la resistance caracteristique in situ, sur la base d'un large ensemble de resultats de l’essai sclerometrique et de l’essai de compression de carottes. Une interpretation statistique des deux alternatives prevues par la norme pour l'etablissement de la relation entre la resistance in situ et l’indice sclerometrique est presentee, Certains aspects pertinents lies a l'analyse de regression non mentionnes par la norme, tels que l'erreur de mesure de l’indice sclerometrique et le niveau de confiance, sont discutes.
The ERP system as a part of an organization's administrative paradox

This paper argues that ERP systems take the part of an organization’s administrative paradox. An administrative paradox is two sides of the same coin when coordinating organizations – the concurrent striving for flexibility and stability. The analysis of the ERP system is based on an interpretative and qualitative case study of an engineering firm. The theoretical lens used in this paper is structuration theory. One important point in this paper is that information systems can be viewed as a means to formalise coordination from an interpersonal level to a systemic one. This can, for instance, be realised through demands of input, process, and results of actions. In this way information systems can make a contribution to organizing ideals such as reliability and the achievement of sensible outcomes. On the other hand (as part of the administrative paradox) the use of information systems can institutionalize operating procedures and certain patterns of communication and coordination, restrain reorganizing activities and changes in controland power structures. The information system’s constitutive role (consisting of a set of rules and resources, facilitating and constraining, coordinating, human action) is definitely an important issue when implementing, using, and improving ERP systems in organizations.
A 2-D Active Appearance Model For Prostate Segmentation in Ultrasound Images

In this research we use an active appearance model (AAM) as the core of a robust segmentation algorithm that combines contour and texture information to learn shape variability through a training procedure in trans-rectal ultrasound (TRUS) images of the prostate. Training was carried out using a dataset of 95 images which are preprocessed using gray-level mathematical morphology operators. Preliminary results are promising. The segmentation can provide shapes that have an overlap with respect to a ground truth shape, traced by an expert, of up to 96%, and an average distance from point to curve of up to 1.3 pixels
Transition of Persons with Developmental Disabilities from Parental to Sibling Co-Residential Care: Effects on Sibling Caregiver Well-Being and Family Functioning

point/summary of story) Due to father’s grief and inability to properly care for brother with DD, Nancy took over the caregiving responsibilities. Orientation (setting— who, when, where) Situation Mother had passed. Father unable to properly care for his son with DD due to grief. Sisters agreed to plan where one sister, Nancy, would assume caregiving role and move into the family house. Characters Nancy, mother, father, younger sister, older sister, and brother with a disability. Place Family home
Construction and Rendering of Concentric Mosaics from a Handheld Camera

Concentric mosaics are low-dimensional lightfields. Yet capturing concentric mosaics requires a motor-controlled device and it is not practical for real outdoor scenes. In this paper, we propose a new concentric mosaic construction method by hand rotating an outward-looking camera. The geometry of such a capturing system is formulated as an outward-looking circular motion with unknown rotation angles. Then, a new and practical method of analyzing the motion and structure of a very long sequence of images is developed. The method needs to compute one fundamental matrix for a typical sequence of 3000 frames and track one point in three frames to propagate the recovery of the rotation angles to the whole sequence. We will demonstrate the superior performance of mosaics construction and rendering results by using the new algorithm.
Energy analysis during biped walking

Describes the dynamic analysis of biped locomotion systems. A planar biped is modelled and studied focusing on the problem of energy efficiency. First, the motion of the system is characterised in terms of a set of locomotion variables, namely: step length, hip height, hip ripple, hip offset, foot clearance and link lengths. Afterwards, three cost functions related to energy are proposed: absolute power, power dispersion and power lost. The aim is to understand the influence of these locomotion variables on the energy flow. The performance measures are discussed and the results compared with those observed in nature.
Directed diffusion protocol and a radio channel assignment scheme in MAC layer for sensor networks

This paper presents a short introduction to the issues on the ad hoc sensor networks. Especially it focuses on two novel promising protocols, the directed diffusion protocol being analogous to the query in distributed database for discovery and tracking of routes and a channel assignment scheme, which meets quite well the important requirement of low power consumption in MAC design of sensor networks.
Adaptive design for nanometer technology

Rising design uncertainties at advanced process nodes place conflicting demands on todays engineers. The widening safety-margins required to ensure robust designs in the face of such uncertainties lead to conservative designs with unacceptable power and performance overheads. On the other hand, low-power techniques such as Dynamic Voltage Scaling (DVS) and clock-gating adversely affect circuit robustness. In this paper, we will review a number of techniques for adaptive design which mitigate the impact of margins by tuning system parameters (voltage and frequency) according to variations in runtime workload, environmental and process conditions. We will evaluate the margins that each of the different approaches require to guarantee correctness in the worst-case and typical operating point. We also propose a technique called Razor which is an aggressive method for eliminating all safety-margins through in situ error-detection and correction. Error-detection is achieved by a new type of Razor flip-flop that monitors critical path endpoints and flags timing errors upon detecting spurious transitions. Recovery is achieved through replay from a check-pointed state. We show the design of the transition-detecting Razor flip-flop and illustrate how it naturally detects SEU in combinational logic and inside latches. We present a 64bit processor implementing Razor and show, on an average, 33% energy savings from our measurements on silicon.
The effect of missing data on robust Bayesian spectral analysis

We investigate the effects of missing observations on the robust Bayesian model for spectral analysis introduced by Christmas [2013]. The model assumes Student-t distributed noise and uses an automatic relevance determination prior on the precisions of the amplitudes of the component sinusoids and it is not obvious what their effect will be when some of the otherwise temporally uniformly sampled data is missing.
Competitive online algorithms for geographical load balancing in data centers with energy storage

Geographical load balancing takes advantage of the regional differences in dynamic electricity rates by shifting computing tasks among geographically distributed data centers. Since energy storage is becoming an integral part of data centers, one can maximize the benefit of the temporal and spatial fluctuations of electricity rates by combining geographical load balancing and energy storage management. Previously, the problem of integrated geographical load balancing with energy storage has been studied based on Lyapunov stochastic optimization approach, which relies on asymptotic analysis by averaging over infinite time horizon and arbitrarily large energy storage. In this paper, we present a competitive online algorithmic approach, which can be applied to finite time horizon and small-to-medium energy storage with a worst-case guarantee from the offline optimal solutions. By simulations on real-world data, it is observed that our competitive online algorithms can significantly outperform Lyapunov optimization algorithm.
A Design Discipline and Language Features for Formal Modular Reasoning in Aspect-Oriented Programs

Advice in aspect-oriented programming helps programmers modularize crosscutting concerns by allowing additions and changes to a program’s execution. However, formal reasoning about the functional behavior of aspect-oriented programs requires a non-modular, wholeprogram search to find applicable advice. To allow modular reasoning, we describe a discipline that categorizes aspects into two sorts: spectators and assistants. “Spectators” are statically checked to not modify the behavior of the code they advise; this restriction lets them remain unseen. Unlike spectators, “assistants” are not restricted in their behavior. However, for modular reasoning one must be able to identify all applicable assistants, hence assistants must be explicitly accepted by the code they advise. Besides allowing modular reasoning, this discipline permits the use of existing idioms, and appears to be statically verifiable and practical for software development. Indeed, expert aspect-oriented programmers seem to use such a discipline.
Exploiting the cognitive synergy between different media modalities in multimodal information retrieval

This is a position paper reporting an on-going collaboration project between SUNY Binghamton, USA, and Waseda University, Japan, on multimodal information retrieval through exploiting the cognitive synergy across the different modalities of the information, to facilitate an effective retrieval. Specifically, we focus on image retrieval in the applications where imagery data appear along with collateral text. It is noted that these applications are ubiquitous. We have proposed the synergistic indexing scheme (SIS) to explicitly exploit the synergy between the information of imagery and text modalities. Since the synergy we have exploited between the information of imagery and text modalities is subjective and depends on specific cognitive context, we call this type of synergy as cognitive synergy. We have reported part of the empirical evaluation and are in the process of fully implementing the SIS prototype for an extensive evaluation.
GPU Accelerated Voxel Traversal using the Prediction Buffer

The ever increasing size of data sets for scientific and medical visualization demands new isosurface volume rendering techniques to provide interactivity for the large datasets. The main obstacle to achieving interactivity is the computational bottleneck due to the dataset traversal and the corresponding amount of data transfer. We propose a novel GPU based dataset traversal technique that uses a prediction buffer to reduce the traversal time during dataset rotation. The reduction in the traversal time improves interactivity and consequently provides better insight into the dataset characteristics. We use a highly parallelized ray-casting algorithm and the proposed traversal technique to double the rendering speed. The factors which influence the rendering speed include block size, shared memory usage, and texture versus global memory. These factors were carefully considered to efficiently map the ray-casting volume rendering algorithm and the traversal technique to the GPU providing a high performance implementation. CR Categories: I.3. 1 [Computing Methodologies]: Computer Graphics—Hardware ArchitectureI.3. 7 [Computing Methodologies]: Computer Graphics—Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism
Statistics and Baseball Fandom: Sabermetric Infrastructure of Expertise

Baseball is a rich mélange of tradition, spectatorship, evaluation, and fandom. Statistical fandom is presented as a cultural infrastructure, which influences how all fans perceive the game including what is valued in the game, how the game itself is played, and Major League Baseball as an industry. In building off of Halverson’s conception of a fantasy plane of baseball fandom, this research theorizes an additional statistical plane. Sabermetrics serve as a microcosm for a larger statistical turn in sports and reporting. The labor of saberfans builds a cultural algorithm through statistical analysis that shapes all fan engagement. Sabermetric inputs become an infrastructure of expertise through which the larger sporting public understands and evaluates baseball and culture.
Hierarchical categorization of edit operations for separately committing large refactoring results

In software configuration management using a version control system, developers have to follow the commit policy of the project. However, preparing changes according to the policy are sometimes cumbersome and time-consuming, in particular when applying large refactoring consisting of multiple primitive refactoring instances. In this paper, we propose a technique for re-organizing changes by recording editing operations of source code. Editing operations including refactoring operations are hierarchically managed based on their types provided by an integrated development environment. Using the obtained hierarchy, developers can easily configure the granularity of changes and obtain the resulting changes based on the configured granularity. We confirmed the feasibility of the technique by applying it to the recorded changes in a large refactoring process.
Two-dimensional simulation of quantum well lasers

We describe a 2D model for quantum-well lasers that solves self- consistently the electrical and optical equations. The model includes a wavelength- and position-dependent gain function that is derived from a quantum-mechanical calculation. We have also incorporated the effects of strain into the model, through an anisotropic parabolic band approximation of the band structure from a Luttinger-Kohn k.p theory. With this model we are able to predict the lasing characteristics such as the light-current behavior, current and optical field distributions, as well as the optical gain, spontaneous emission rate and dependence of the characteristics on geometry and layer design. Examples of the utility of our approach are shown which, for instance, clearly show the benefit of strain to laser design.
The Delta Tree: An Object-Centered Approach to Image-Based Rendering

This paper introduces the delta tree, a data structure that represents an object using a set of reference images. It also describes an algorithm for generating arbitrary re-projections of an object by traversing its delta tree. Delta trees are an efficient representation in terms of both storage and rendering performance. Each node of a delta tree stores an image taken from a point on a sampling sphere that encloses the object. Each image is compressed by discarding pixels that can be reconstructed by warping its ancestor''s images to the node''s viewpoint. The partial image stored at each node is divided into blocks and represented in the frequency domain. The rendering process generates an image at an arbitrary viewpoint by traversing the delta tree from a root node to one or more of its leaves. A subdivision algorithm selects only the required blocks from the nodes along the path. For each block, only the frequency components necessary to reconstruct the final image at an appropriate sampling density are used. This frequency selection mechanism handles both antialiasing and level-of- detail within a single framework. A complex scene is initially rendered by compositing images generated by traversing the delta trees of its components. Once the reference views of a scene are rendered once in this manner, the entire scene can be reprojected to an arbitrary viewpoint by traversing its own delta tree. Our approach is limited to generating views of an object from outside the object''s convex hull. In practice we work around this problem by subdividing objects to render views from within the convex hull.
Grapham User Guide

where f is a function of interest on the space X, which is typically R, but can also have integer-valued components. The term “graphical model” in this setting simply means that the target density π, or the“model,” is determined by a collection of conditional probability densities. For example, suppose X = R, and that the density π is given as π(x1, x2, x3) = cp1(x1)p2(x2 | x1)p3(x3 | x1). That is, p1 determines a probability density in R, and p1( · | x) and p2( · | x) are conditional probability densities, i.e. specify a probability density for each x ∈ R. Figure 1 illustrates this model. The reader unfamiliar with graphical models is advised to take a look at some introductory material, e.g. [11, 12].
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews the Ultimatum Game and the Brain: a Meta-analysis of Neuroimaging Studies

Social decision-making tasks involve psychological processes key to effective functioning in a complex, social world. The Ultimatum Game (UG) is a widely studied social decision-making task, which models responses to fairness. A number of neuroimaging studies have investigated the UG to identify neural correlates of unfairness and decisions to reject versus accept an offer. We present the first quantitative summary of neuroimaging studies in social decision-making with a meta-analysis of 11 fMRI studies of the UG, including data from 282 participants. Effect-Size Signed Differential Mapping was used to estimate effect sizes from statistical parametric maps and reported peak information before meta-analysing them. Consistent activations were seen in the anterior insula, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), supplementary motor area (SMA) and cerebellum in response to unfair offers. Robust activations in the ACC, SMA and putamen were seen when deciding to reject rather than accept UG offers. These are consistent with models of motivational conflict during the UG decision-making process, a response to norm violations, with a possible role for the reward system.
Nonlinear observability of activated sludge process models

Abstract The main contribution of this paper is to present a non-linear observability analysis method of Activated Sludge Models (ASM), which are used in many control applications. The objective is to reduce the unobservable ASM1 model to an observable one that can be used to implement advanced estimation algorithms. Local observability is achieved under certain operating conditions but failed at some points in the whole domain of definition. Furthermore, piece-wise observability rank test is also performed with three measurements and compared with non-linear observability. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the proposed method.
The variations of body mass index and body fat in adult Thai people across the age spectrum measured by bioelectrical impedance analysis

Background The measurements of body mass index (BMI) and percentage of body fat are used in many clinical situations. However, special tools are required to measure body fat. Many formulas are proposed for estimation but these use constant coefficients of age. Age spectrum might affect the predicted value of the body composition due to body component alterations, and the coefficient of age for body fat prediction might produce inconsistent results. The objective of this study was to identify variations of BMI and body fat across the age spectrum as well as compare results between BMI predicted body fat and bioelectrical impedance results on age. Methods Healthy volunteers were recruited for this study. Body fat was measured by bioelectrical impedance. The age spectrum was divided into three groups (younger: 18–39.9; middle: 40–59.9; and older: ≥60 years). Comparison of body composition covariates including fat mass (FM), fat free mass (FFM), percentage FM (PFM), percentage FFM (PFFM), FM index (FMI) and FFM index (FFMI) in each weight status and age spectrum were analyzed. Multivariable linear regression coefficients were calculated. Coefficient alterations among age groups were tested to confirm the effect of the age spectrum on body composition covariates. Measured PFM and calculated PFM from previous formulas were compared in each quarter of the age spectrum. Results A total of 2324 volunteers were included in this study. The overall body composition and weight status, average body weight, height, BMI, FM, FFM, and its derivatives were significantly different among age groups. The coefficient of age altered the PFM differently between younger, middle, and older groups (0.07; P = 0.02 vs 0.13; P < 0.01 vs 0.26; P < 0.01; respectively). All coefficients of age alterations in all FM- and FFM-derived variables between each age spectrum were tested, demonstrating a significant difference between the younger (<60 years) and older (≥60 years) age groups, except the PFFM to BMI ratio (difference of PFM and FMI [95% confidence interval]: 17.8 [12.8–22.8], P < 0.01; and 4.58 [3.4–5.8], P < 0.01; respectively). The comparison between measured PFM and calculated PFM demonstrated a significant difference with increments of age. Conclusion The relationship between body FM and BMI varies on the age spectrum. A calculated formula in older people might be distorted with the utilization of constant coefficients.
Re-defining the concept of immersion in digital immersive environments

This paper is a theoretical reflection on the concept of “immersion”, by means of comparison of patterns emerging from qualitative data analysis and concepts from previous theories. The data were collected in Berlin, Karlsruhe and Melbourne and are represented by notes from participant observation and interviews. The methodology used is a combination of four methods: grounded theory, narrative inquiry, case study and digital ethnography. The case study is the immersive environment PLACE-Hampi, designed by Jeffrey Shaw and Sarah Kenderdine.
A New Scalable Free Viewpoint Video Streaming System Over IP Network

Free viewpoint video (FVV), as a new type of multimedia, is a very challenging research area. In order to achieve free viewpoint navigation in realistic scenes, many image based rendering (IBR) technologies are introduced into FVV systems. Tow most important IBR technologies are light field rendering (LFR) and depth image based rendering (DIBR). This paper will show a new LFR based FVV streaming system over broadband IP networks. Our system uses jump frame method to support scalable quality of service (QoS) to users. An I frame retransmission method in application layer collaborates with RTP/RTCP technology in video streaming ensures different level of QoS.