Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Score Generation with L-Systems

A new method for algorithmically generating musical scores is presented and illustrated with examples. The idea is to produce a string of symbols using an L−system, and to interpret this string as a sequence of notes. The proposed musical interpretation of L−systems is closely related to their graphical interpretation, which in turn associates L−systems to fractals.
LSVS: Bringing Layer Slicing and Virtual Sinks to Geographic Opportunistic Routing in Strip WSNs

Motivated by the needs of WSNs with strip structure that is ubiquitous in real world deployment, such as pipeline monitoring, water quality monitoring and GreatWall monitoring, this paper presents a new geographic opportunistic routing to cope with the routing problem that is the transmission success rate will decrease in the complicated strip networks. In this paper, depending on investigating the transmission direction, we propose a new candidate selection algorithms S2 and an improved algorithm S3. These two algorithms bring layer slicing and virtual sinks to improve the transmission success rate in strip WSNs. Based on the above candidate selection algorithms, we propose the LSVS routing mechanism, theoretical analysis and extensive simulation illustrate the efficiency and higher transmission performance of routing in strip WSNs. Compared with the classic algorithm, LSVS with S3 improves the transmission successful rate up to 12.6%, reduces the communication overhead up to 6.0% and the energy consumption rate up to 14.3%.
Faster Pedestrian Recognition Using Deformable Part Models

—Deformable part models achieve high precision in pedestrian recognition, but all publicly available implementations are too slow for real-time applications. We implemented a deformable part model algorithm fast enough for real-time use by exploiting information about the camera position and orientation. This implementation is both faster and more precise than alternative DPM implementations. These results are obtained by computing convolutions in the frequency domain and using lookup tables to speed up feature computation. This approach is almost an order of magnitude faster than the reference DPM implementation, with no loss in precision. Knowing the position of the camera with respect to horizon it is also possible prune many hypotheses based on their size and location. The range of acceptable sizes and positions is set by looking at the statistical distribution of bounding boxes in labelled images. With this approach it is not needed to compute the entire feature pyramid: for example higher resolution features are only needed near the horizon. This results in an increase in mean average precision of 5% and an increase in speed by a factor of two. Furthermore, to reduce misdetections involving small pedestrians near the horizon, input images are supersampled near the horizon. Supersampling the image at 1.5 times the original scale, results in an increase in precision of about 4%. The implementation was tested against the public KITTI dataset, obtaining an 8% improvement in mean average precision over the best performing DPM-based method. By allowing for a small loss in precision computational time can be easily brought down to our target of 100ms per image, reaching a solution that is faster and still more precise than all publicly available DPM implementations.
A Simple Subthreshold CMOS Voltage Reference Circuit With Channel- Length Modulation Compensation

This brief presents a simple reference circuit with channel-length modulation compensation to generate a reference voltage of 221 mV using subthreshold of MOSFETs at supply voltage of 0.85 V with power consumption of 3.3 muW at room temperature using TSMC 0.18-mum technology. The proposed circuit occupied in less than 0.0238 mm 2 achieves the reference voltage variation of 2 mV/V for supply voltage from 0.9 to 2.5V and about 6 mV of temperature variation in the range from -20degC to 120 degC. The agreement of simulation and measurement data is demonstrated
Aseptic technology of vitrification of human pronuclear oocytes using open-pulled straws.

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to compare the viability of human pronuclear oocytes subjected to vitrification using cooling by direct submerging of open-pulled straws in liquid nitrogen versus vitrification by cooling of open-pulled straws located inside a closed 0.5 ml straw (aseptic system). METHODS Two- and three-pronuclei stage oocytes (n=114) were cryopreserved in super-open-pulled straws by vitrification in 20% ethylene glycol +20% dimethylsulphoxide (DMSO) + osmotic active and neutral non-permeable cryoprotectants with a four-step exposure in 20, 33, 50 and 100% vitrification solution for 2, 1 and 1 min, and 30-50 s, respectively at room temperature, and plunging into liquid nitrogen. Oocytes of group 1 (n=42) were rapidly cooled at a speed of 20,000 degrees C/min by direct plunging of open-pulled straws into liquid nitrogen. Oocytes of group 2 (n=44) were first located in 0.5 ml straws, which were closed at both sides by metal balls, and then plunged into liquid nitrogen. This method resulted in a cooling speed of 200 degrees C/min. For both groups, oocytes were thawed rapidly at a speed of 20 000 degrees C/min using an identical protocol. Oocytes subsequently were expelled into a graded series of sucrose solutions (1.0, 0.75, 0.5, 0.25 and 0.12 mol/l) at 2.5 min intervals. RESULTS Oocyte development up to expanded blastocyst stage after in vitro culture was 15% in group 1, 14% in group 2 and 29% in an untreated control group. CONCLUSION The deposition of human pronuclear oocytes in open-pulled straws which are placed inside a hermetically closed container guarantees a complete isolation of oocytes from liquid nitrogen and avoids potential contamination by pathogenic microorganisms. The combination of direct plunging of this container into liquid nitrogen and rapid warming makes this process as efficient as conventional vitrification.
Economic Performance of China after Joining the WTO

The paper enquires into the e¤ects of China’s entry into the WTO on its economic growth. We . nd that even in the short run (2001-2005), economic performance can be improved due to obtaining higher survival probability of economic growth rate and better protection of consumer welfare. JEL classi.cation: F10, O10
The role of surprise in theory testing: Some preliminary observations

While the most common way of evaluating a computational model is by showing a good fit with the empirical data, recently the literature on theory testing and model selection criticizes the assumption that this is actually strong evidence for a model. This paper explores the possibilities of developing a method selection technique that can serve as an alternative to a goodness-of-fit (GOF) measure. This alternative, a measure of surprise , is based on the common idea that a model gets more support from the correct prediction of an unlikely event than the correct prediction of something that was expected anyway.
Oo Shell W Pair Production in E + E ? Annihilation: the Cc11 Process

The various four-fermion production channels in e + e ? annihilation are discussed and the CC11 process e + e ? f u 1 f d 1 f u 2 f d 2 , f6 =e, is studied in detail. The cross section d 2 =ds 1 ds 2 , with s 1 ; s 2 being the invariant masses squared of the two fermion pairs, may be expressed by six generic functions. All but one may be found in the literature. The cross section, including initial state radiation and the Coulomb correction, is discussed and compared with other calculations from low energies up to p s = 2 TeV. Figure 1: The double resonating CC3 contributions to oo shell W pair production: crayfish and crab. They are part of all the processes of table 1.
A quasi‐static boundary value problem in multi‐surface elastoplasticity: part 2—numerical solution

Multi‐yield elastoplasticity models a material with more than one plastic state and hence allows for refined approximation of irreversible deformations. Aspects of the mathematical modelling and a proof of unique existence of weak solutions can be found in part I of this paper (Math. Models Methods Appl. Sci. 2004). In this part II we establish a canonical time–space discretization of the evolution problem and present various algorithms for the solving really discrete problems. Based on a global Newton–Raphson solver, we carefully study and solve elementwise inner iterations. Numerical examples illustrate the model and its flexibility to allow for refined hysteresis curves. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Discrete approximation of functionals with jumps and creases

Let H(0, L) denote the space of piecewise-H functions on the interval (0, L); if u ∈ H(0, L) then u, u′ and u′′ are regarded as defined on the whole interval (0, L), and u and u′ are piecewise-continuous functions. Let S(u) be the set of the discontinuity points (jump points) of the function u ∈ H(0, L) and, with a slight abuse of notation, denote by S(u′) the set of crease points of u (i.e., those points where u is continuous but u′ is discontinuous). Let α, β > 0. The functional F : H(0, L)→ [0,+∞) defined by
Boundary Concentrated Finite Element Methods

A method with optimal (up to logarithmic terms) complexity for solving elliptic problems is proposed. The method relies on interior regularity, but the solution may have globally low regularity due to rough boundary data or geometries. Elliptic regularity results, high order approximation results, and an efficient preconditioner are presented. The method is utilized to realize, with linear-logarithmic complexity, an accurate and data-sparse approximation to the associated elliptic Poincare--Steklov operators. Further applications include the treatment of exterior boundary value problems and the solution of problems in the framework of domain decomposition methods.
UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) High Resolution Mass Spectrometry of Polyfluorinated Polyether - based Formulation

High resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) was successfully applied to elucidate the structure of a polyfluorinated polyether (PFPE)-based formulation. The mass spectrum generated from direct injection into the MS was examined by identifying the different repeating units manually and with the aid of an instrument data processor. Highly accurate mass spectral data enabled the calculation of higher-order mass defects. The different plots of MW and the nth-order mass defects (up to n = 3) could aid in assessing the structure of the different repeating units and estimating their absolute and relative number per molecule. The three major repeating units were -C 2 H 4 O, -C 2 F 4 O, and -CF 2 O. Tandem MS was used to identify the end groups that appeared to be phosphates, as well as the possible distribution of the repeating units. Reversed-phase HPLC separated of the polymer molecules on the basis of number of nonpolar repeating units. The elucidated structure resembles the structure in the published manufacturer technical data. This analytical approach to the characterization of a PFPE-based formulation can serve as a guide in analyzing not just other PFPE-based formulations but also other fluorinated and non-fluorinated polymers. The information from MS is essential in studying the physico-chemical properties of PFPEs and can help in assessing the risks they pose to the environment and to human health.
Measuring political violence in Pakistan: Insights from the BFRS Dataset

This article presents the BFRS Political Violence in Pakistan dataset addressing its design, collection and utility. BFRS codes a broad range of information on 28,731 incidents of political violence from January 1988 to November 2011. For each incident we record the location, consequences, cause, type of violence and party responsible as specifically as possible. These are the first data to systematically record all different kinds of political violence in a country for such an extended period, including riots, violent political demonstrations, terrorism and state violence, as well as asymmetric and symmetric insurgent violence. Similar datasets from other countries tend to focus on one kind of violence—such as ethnic riots, terrorism or combat—and therefore do not allow scholars to study how different forms of violence interact or to account for tactical and strategic substitution between methods of contestation. To demonstrate the utility of the dataset, first we examine how patterns of tactical substitution vary over time and space in Pakistan, showing that they differ dramatically, and discuss implications for the study of political violence more broadly. Second, we show how these data can help illuminate ongoing debates in Pakistan about the causes of the increase in violence in the last 10 years. Both applications demonstrate the value of disaggregating violence within countries and are illustrative of the potential uses of these data.
Byzantine Fault Tolerance

I am excited by the challenge of making distributed systems reliable and robust to failures. Distributed systems form the backbone of a variety of services that play an important part in daily life: email, e-commerce, and air traffic control are a few examples. The impact of failures of such services ranges from the inconvenience of lost email, to the hassles of delayed flights, to financial losses and even closure of companies. It is difficult to design reliable distributed systems because individual computers and the networks connecting them can fail in a variety of ways. Each computer or network failure can lead to an unplanned behavior of individual components and the system as a whole. Can we build reliable systems without considering every possible failure scenario? My research focuses on the development of end-to-end techniques for building reliable systems that are general, practical, and theoretically sound. Specifically, general techniques cover a wide range of faults and are easy to incorporate into a variety of new and legacy systems; practical techniques impose low overheads, provide robust performance in the presence of failures, and are based on realistic and tenable system models; theoretically sound techniques provide well-defined guarantees under well-defined assumptions. I believe that all three properties are important – techniques that are not general have limited deployment potential, techniques that are not practical will not be used, and techniques that are not theoretically sound may not work as advertised. The Byzantine failure model [11] is used to design distributed systems that tolerate a bounded number of arbitrary failures. Over the last decade, a variety of high profile systems papers have demonstrated that BFT replication can be fast and efficient [1, 3, 8, 14]. Despite these successes, BFT is not used in deployed systems; practitioners instead utilize simpler and less robust techniques. Given this disconnect between research and practice, I have worked with colleagues at UT-Austin to answer two simple questions: " How do we make Byzantine fault tolerant systems tolerate Byzantine faults? " and " How do we bring BFT out of the lab and into practice? " Making Byzantine fault tolerant systems tolerate Byzantine faults. Although recent BFT state machine replication protocols [1, 3, 8, 10, 14] have successfully driven the cost of BFT replication to remarkably low levels while providing high throughput, the unfortunate reality is that these systems do not tolerate Byzantine faults very well. While the systems are …
Designing a collaborative group project recommender for an e-learning system

Collaborative work on project aids students to combine their personal expertise, experience and ability to achieve a shared work goal. However, a collaborative working environment that is appropriate for some students may be not suitable for other students. Students tend to have different interests, preferences, backgrounds or even knowledge. There is limited support for them that satisfies individual student's needs in the collaborative process. In this paper, we investigated the needs of the students for the recommended project, group members and tools communication for group project, aiming at collecting the requirements for the implementation of the research environment. Additionally, we propose a framework for recommendation of collaborative project work to function within a social e-Learning System. Moreover, we are proposing the architecture of the system.
Understanding the interaction between overlay routing and Trafﬁc Engineering

We study the interaction between optimal routing overlay and Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) Tra(cid:14)c Engineering (TE) in a single Autonomous System (AS). Our work is motivated in part by the work of Qiu et al [1], in which the interaction between overlay sel(cid:12)sh routing and TE is brought up. However, our work is di(cid:11)erent in that [1] assumes each overlay user controls an in(cid:12)nitesimal amount of tra(cid:14)c demand and makes routing decisions independently. We study a single large scale and centrally controlled overlay network that controls a non-negligible portion of tra(cid:14)c demand and does optimal routing on application level. Aka-mai exempli(cid:12)es this type of overlay. We further assume that the proportion of overlay tra(cid:14)c is signi(cid:12)cant enough to in-(cid:13)uence the routing decisions of TE. We formulate this interaction as a two-player non-cooperative non-zero sum game, where TE’s objective is to minimize the network cost as a whole, and an overlay optimizer is to minimize the overall delay for its own tra(cid:14)c on top of the routings set by TE. Strategies of overlay are the (cid:13)ow allocations of overlay tra(cid:14)c on logical (application) level, whereas, strategies of TE are the (cid:13)ow allocations of all tra(cid:14)c demand on physical level. The routing decisions (strategies) of overlay are essentially the inputs to TE (interpreted as tra(cid:14)c demands), and in
Particle filter with adaptive sample size

The paper deals with the particle filter in state estimation of a discrete-time nonlinear non-Gaussian system. The goal of the paper is to design a sample size adaptation technique to guarantee a quality of a filtering estimate produced by the particle filter which is an approximation of the true filtering estimate. The quality is given by a difference between the approximate filtering estimate and the true filtering estimate. The estimate may be a point estimate or a probability density function estimate. The proposed technique adapts the sample size to keep the difference within pre-specified bounds with a pre-specified probability. The particle filter with the proposed sample size adaptation technique is illustrated in a numerical example.
A tetRA-based promoter system for the generation of conditional knockouts in Campylobacter jejuni

Campylobacter jejuni is responsible for tens of millions of cases of gastroenteritis each year. Despite its prevalence and impact on human health, the repertoire of genetic tools available for researchers to study C. jejuni remains limited. In order to expand upon the genetic toolkit in this species, we have engineered a system for generating conditional knockouts based on the tetRA tetracycline-resistance cassette. This system exhibits tight repressibility and titratability of target-gene expression and will be useful for future research on this important human pathogen.
Social workers: a new precariat? Precarity conditions of mental health social workers working in the non-profit sector in Greece

ABSTRACT Traditionally, in western countries, the social work profession primarily has come into contact with issues of precarity through the lives of service users. This paper introduces precarity in the social work scholarly literature as a feature of social workers’ professional and personal lives. It draws from the findings of a qualitative small study of mental health social workers working in the non-profit sector in Greece. The findings reflect a picture of social workers experiencing precarious conditions as they have become part of the growing phenomenon of the working poor, surviving by loans, experiencing housing insecurity, reproductive insecurity, fuel poverty and unable to pay for their commuting expenses to and from work. Furthermore, the paper maintains that the expansion of the conditions of precarity to university-educated professionals, such as social workers, needs to be understood within an International Political Economy (IPE) perspective in order neoliberal capitalism which brings rising levels of inequalities to become a focus of intervention.
ON CONSENSUS, CONFIDENCE, AND “TOTAL EVIDENCE”

The issue of whether it is best to combine separate data sets (“total evidence”), or to combine trees (“taxonomic congruence”) has received considerable attention in the recent literature (e.g. Kluge, 1989; Barrett et al. 1991; Kluge and Wolf, 1993; Miyamoto and Fitch, 1995). In this note I discuss some recent arguments that have been made regarding this issue, starting with Barrett et al.’s (1991) argument against consensus methods. I then touch on bootstrapping and the problem of confidence sets of trees (Sanderson, 1989), before considering the implication of the difference between gene trees and species trees for the concept of total evidence. The common theme underlying these topics is the role of consensus in systematics. Consensus trees are very useful tools, but they have their limits. However, the nature of these limits is still being explored.
ASSESSMENT OF WORK-BASED REPORTS: AN ANALYSIS OF ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORKS

In Britain engineering professional development has traditionally been seen as a three phase process consisting of a period of engineering formation, a period of training and a period during which engineering responsibilities are demonstrated. An individual could submit evidence of these activities and become registered as a Professional Engineer. Increasing numbers of people employed in the role of engineer do not have formal engineering qualifications and a part or all their engineering formation is carried out within engineering companies or organizations. These people therefore do not have the academically authenticated credentials to register as professional engineers but if they are ignored then the pool of registered engineers will cease to be representative of the profession. The Engineering Council, the body responsible for registering engineers in the UK, has acknowledged the changes in the structure of the profession and has introduced an alternative route for assessing the knowledge and understanding that underpins the competence of a professional engineer. Individual engineers can demonstrate that they have an adequate engineering formation through any combination of academic qualifications and a technical report on some aspect of their professional engineering work. The introduction of the technical report requires the Professional Engineering Bodies to carry out an assessment outside the traditional assessment framework of the Universities. This paper reviews and analyses the requirements of assessment systems and derives the components of such a system that will ensure that the results of the assessment of a work-based technical report will be respected and be seen as assuring comparable standards to the academic routes to engineering formation. By examining assessment separately from the processes of teaching and learning, the paper also reveals the extent of an assessment process and its costs.