Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Current Trends and Challenges of Developing and Evaluating Learning Management Systems

Many Universities recognize the necessity of using Learning Management Systems (LMSs) to increase learners' motivation, encourage interaction, provide feedback and provide support during the learning process. There are many proprietary and open source LMSs that can be found as alternative products. With the ever-growing number of LMSs, the task of developing and evaluating LMS becomes even more important. This paper discusses the factors that affect the use of LMS, the developing issues that have an impact on LMS and the evaluation processes that should be taken to select the suitable LMS. Also, it presents challenges that face LMS success, efficiency, assessment, evaluation, selection and usability. Last it shows the current trends to answer a question of how the LMS of the future will look like.
O ct 1 99 6 Optical Observations of GRO J 1655-40 in Quiescence I : A Precise Mass for the Black Hole Primary

We report photometric and spectroscopic observations of the black hole binary GRO J1655-40 in complete quiescence. In contrast to the 1995 photometry, the light curves from 1996 are almost completely dominated by ellipsoidal modulations from the secondary star. Model fits to the light curves, which take into account the temperature profile of the accretion disk and eclipse effects, yield an inclination of i = 69.50±0.08 deg and a mass ratio of Q = M1/M2 = 2.99 ± 0.08. The precision of our determinations of i and Q allow us to determine the black hole mass to an accuracy of ≈ 4% (M1 = 7.02 ± 0.22 M⊙). The secondary star’s mass is M2 = 2.34 ± 0.12 M⊙. The position of the secondary on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram is consistent with that of a ≈ 2.3 M⊙ star which has evolved off the main sequence and is halfway to the start of the giant branch. Using the new spectra we present an improved value of the spectroscopic period (P = 2. 62157±0. 00015), radial velocity semiamplitude (K = 228.2±2.2 km s), and mass function (f(M) = 3.24 ± 0.09 M⊙). Based on the new spectra of the source and spectra of several MK spectral type standards, we classify the secondary star as F3IV to F6IV. Evolutionary models suggest an average mass transfer rate for such a system of Ṁ2 = 3.4 × 10 −9 M⊙ yr −1 = 2.16 × 10 g s, which is much larger than the average mass transfer rates implied in the other six transient black hole systems, but still barely below the critical mass transfer rate required for stability. Subject headings: binaries: spectroscopic — black hole physics — X-rays: stars — stars: individual (GRO J1655-40) Visiting Astronomer at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc., under contract with the National Science Foundation. Present Address: Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Laboratory, University Park, PA 16802 National Young Investigator
A Unified Approach to Calibrate a Network of Camcorders and ToF cameras

In this paper, we propose a unified calibration technique for a heterogeneous sensor network of video camcorders and Time-ofFlight (ToF) cameras. By moving a spherical calibration target around the commonly observed scene, we can robustly and conveniently extract the sphere centers in the observed images and recover the geometric extrinsics for both types of sensors. The approach is then evaluated with a real dataset of two HD camcorders and two ToF cameras, and 3D shapes are reconstructed from this calibrated system. The main contributions are: (1) We reveal the fact that the frontmost sphere surface point to the ToF camera center is always highlighted, and use this idea to extract sphere centers in the ToF camera images; (2) We propose a unified calibration scheme in spite of the heterogeneity of the sensors. After the calibration, this multi-modal sensor network thus becomes powerful to generate high-quality 3D shapes efficiently. Fig. 1. Left: A ToF camera, Swiss Range 3000. Right: Typical output from the sensor: an intensity (amplitude) image and a 2.5D depth image. (Courtesy of MESA imaging.)
Predicting Coordination Structure by Change Impact Analysis

Empirical studies reveal a strong correlation between the alignment of design structure and organizational structure, and both software quality and productivity. Estimating how people should communicate to accommodate modification r equests have been recognized as a prominent problem in softwa re maintenance. In this paper, we contribute a pluggable frame work to anticipate coordination requirements based on change sc ope prediction, supporting interchangeable change scope pred iction algorithms either solely based on architecture or co-chang e patterns. Using modifications requests from eleven releaseof the open source Hadoop project, we evaluate our approach by comparing predicted coordination requirements with actual bug tracker communications. In our evaluation, we obtain an average precision of 68% and recall of 48% in accurately predicting coordination requirements, showing that this approach has the potential to assist managers in anticipating proble matic coordination when performing software modifications.
0 10 71 11 v 2 3 1 O ct 2 00 1 Spin Manifolds , Einstein Metrics , and Differential Topology

We show that there exist smooth, simply connected, fourdimensional spin manifolds which do not admit Einstein metrics, but nevertheless satisfy the strict Hitchin-Thorpe inequality. Our construction makes use of the Bauer/Furuta cohomotopy refinement of the Seiberg-Witten invariant [4, 3], in conjunction with curvature estimates previously proved by the second author [17]. These methods also easily allow one to construct examples of topological 4-manifolds which admit an Einstein metric for one smooth structure, but which have infinitely many other smooth structures for which no Einstein metric can exist.
SIC Task Force appraisal of clinical diagnostic criteria for parkinsonian disorders

As there are no biological markers for the antemortem diagnosis of degenerative parkinsonian disorders, diagnosis currently relies upon the presence and progression of clinical features and confirmation depends on neuropathology. Clinicopathologic studies have shown significant false‐positive and false‐negative rates for diagnosing these disorders, and misdiagnosis is especially common during the early stages of these diseases. It is important to establish a set of widely accepted diagnostic criteria for these disorders that may be applied and reproduced in a blinded fashion. This review summarizes the findings of the SIC Task Force for the study of diagnostic criteria for parkinsonian disorders in the areas of Parkinson's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, progressive supranuclear palsy, multiple system atrophy, and corticobasal degeneration. In each of these areas, diagnosis continues to rest on clinical findings and the judicious use of ancillary studies. © 2003 Movement Disorder Society
Generalized Krein formula, determinants, and Selberg zeta function in even dimension

For a class of even dimensional asymptotically hyperbolic (AH) manifolds, we develop a generalized Birman-Krein theory to study scattering asymptotics and, when the curvature is constant, to analyze the Selberg zeta function. The main objects we construct for an AH manifold $(X,g)$ are, on the one hand, a natural spectral function $\xi$ for the Laplacian $\Delta_g$, which replaces the counting function of the eigenvalues in this infinite volume case, and on the other hand the determinant of the scattering operator $S_X(\lambda)$ of $\Delta_g$ on $X$. Both need to be defined through regularized functional: renormalized trace on the bulk $X$ and regularized determinant on the conformal infinity $(\partial\bar{X},[h_0])$. We show that $\det S_X(\lambda)$ is meromorphic in $\lambda\in{\Bbb C}$, with divisors given by resonance multiplicities and dimensions of kernels of GJMS conformal Laplacians $(P_k)_{k\in{\Bbb N}}$ of $(\partial\bar{X},[h_0])$. Moreover $\xi(z)$ is proved to be the phase of $\det S_X({n\over2}+iz)$ on the essential spectrum $\{z\in{\Bbb R}^+\}$. Applying this theory to convex co-compact quotients $X=\Gamma\backslash{\Bbb H}^{n+1}$ of hyperbolic space ${\Bbb H}^{n+1}$, we obtain the functional equation $Z(\lambda)/Z(n-\lambda)=(\det S_{{\Bbb H}^{n+1}}(\lambda))^{\chi(X)}/\det S_X(\lambda)$ for Selberg zeta function $Z(\lambda)$ of $X$, where $\chi(X)$ is the Euler characteristic of $X$. This describes the poles and zeros of $Z(\lambda)$, computes $\det P_k$ in term of $Z({n\over2}-k)/Z({n\over2}+k)$ and implies a sharp Weyl asymptotic for~$\xi(z)$.
Exciting Engineered Passive Dynamics in a Bipedal Robot

A common approach in designing legged robots is to build fully actuated machines and control the machine dynamics entirely in software, carefully avoiding impacts and expending a lot of energy. However, these machines are outperformed by their human and animal counterparts. Animals achieve their impressive agility, efficiency, and robustness through a close integration of passive dynamics, implemented through mechanical components, and neural control. Robots can benefit from this same integrated approach, but a strong theoretical framework is required to design the passive dynamics of a machine and exploit them for control. For this framework, we use a bipedal spring-mass model, which has been shown to approximate the dynamics of human locomotion. This paper reports the first implementation of spring-mass walking on a bipedal robot. We present the use of template dynamics as a control objective exploiting the engineered passive spring-mass dynamics of the ATRIAS robot. The results highlight the benefits of combining passive dynamics with dynamics-based control and open up a library of spring-mass model-based control strategies for dynamic gait control of robots.
7 Representing Time of Day Circadian Clocks

Posit ing representations and operations on them as a way of explainiug behavior was one of the major innovation:; of the cognitive revolution. Neuroscience and biology more generally also employ representations in explaining how orgaaisrns function and coordinate their Lehavior with the world a,round them. In discu:;sions of the nature of representation, theorists commonly differentiate Letwecn the vehicles of representation and thei r content what they denote. Many contentious debates in cogn it ive science, such as those pitting neural network models against symbol processing accounts, have focused on the types of vehir.le. 9 proposed for mental represeutation and whether they have the appropriate structure to succeed in bearing their contents. Philosophers, in contrast , have focused their debates on content and the particular way in which vehicles might bear content -that is, the process of representing rather than the format of representations. I will offer a novel answer to the question of how it is tha.t a represent ation has content by focusi ng ou the architectnre of representat ion. My proposal is tha t representations occur in a particular type of mechanism · one in which a control system regulates a plant ··and that we can gain traction on representations in cognitive systems by considering how this works in physical systems more generally.
An Integrated Tool for Translation-Memory Maintenance

This paper presents an integrated tool to construct and maintain translation-memory for memory-based machine translation. This tool was aimed to automate constructing and validating translation-memory both in word and in phrase levels from English-Thai parallel texts. To align English-Thai words and phrases, the crucial problems that must be resolved include multipleword-expression boundary ambiguity, wordsense ambiguity, and excessive alignment generation. The system consists of three components: (1) word-alignment tool, (2) phrase-alignment tool, and (3) validation tool. Distribution and collocation of words and phrases are analyzed to generate alignment candidates for manual selection.
Tunnel Vision: Local Behavioral Influences on Consumer Decisions in Product Search

textabstractWe introduce and test a behavioral model of consumer product search that extends a baseline normative model of sequential search by incorporating nonnormative influences that are local in the sense that they reflect consumers' undue sensitivity to recently encountered alternatives. We propose two types of such local behavioral influences that, at each stage of a search process, can manifest themselves both in which of the products inspected up to that point is deemed to be the most preferred one (the product comparison decision) and whether to terminate the search at that stage (the stopping decision). The first of these influences is that consumers respond excessively to the attractiveness of the currently inspected product, at the expense of all others ("focalism"). The second proposed behavioral influence is that consumers overreact to the difference in attractiveness between the current product and the one encountered just prior to it ("local contrast"). Converging evidence from two experiments, which combine to guarantee both high internal and high external validity, provides support for the proposed behavioral influences. Our findings demonstrate that consumers' product comparison and stopping decisions in sequential product search are jointly governed by normative principles and by the proposed local behavioral influences.
Time Domain SAR Raw Data Simulation of Distributed Targets

In this paper, a time domain stripmap mode Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) raw data simulation including both the terrain and the targets is proposed. The simulator generates SAR raw data of a scene, involving both single and double reflections in a computationally efficient manner. The inputs of the simulator are the digital elevation model of the terrain, the 3D target model, and the parameters of the SAR system. The simulator extracts a geometrically accurate reflectivity map and generates the SAR raw data in time domain. The disadvantage of time domain method is justified to be tolerable by presenting experiments on modularity performance of the simulator. Also a novel method to decrease the time domain computational complexity of the SAR raw data generation is proposed. Our method has showed very promising results in representing the scattering characteristics, the raw data, and the time domain simulation flexibility.
Foreign Policy Orientation of Turkey’s Pro‐Islamist Parties: A Comparative Study of the AKP and Refah

Abstract This study aims to discuss the foreign policies of the pro‐Islamist parties in Turkey by comparing the party programs and policies of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) and the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi). By focusing on programs and policies separately, it is argued that pro‐Islamist elements in the establishment and program of the parties do not necessarily translate to actual policies, particularly in foreign affairs. Moreover, pro‐Islamist political parties are not monolithic in terms of member composition; the parties also differ from each other. Finally, the parties might have different policies in the domestic context while employing a more pragmatic and traditionalist perspective in terms of foreign policy.
A novel algorithm for the conversion of shuffle regular expressions into non-deterministic finite automata

: Regular expressions with shuffle operators are widely used in diverse fields of computer science. The work presented here investigates the shuffling of regular expressions and their conversion into non-deterministic finite automata. The aim of the paper is to design a novel algorithm for constructing  -free non-deterministic finite automata from the shuffling of regular expressions. Non-deterministic finite automata generated using the proposed approach requires, in the worst case, 2 m+s+1 states. This is a significant improvement over other existing approaches in the literature, where the number of states reaches 2 2(m+u+k+s)-C in the worst case.
A vehicle license plate recognition algorithm in night based on HSV

In night, it is difficult to locate vehicle license plate for vehicle recognition. In this paper, the algorithm uses colorful component in HSV space depending on the character of vehicle images in night, can divide the vehicle- plate region and many noises including vehicle- lamp and it's reflection light and road- line, and can delete the region without similar color of vehicle plate but with higher saturation value.And the paper stresses the improvement on “maximum & minimum optimization of entropy thresholding method” as well as the prospects of regional character, the background distribution in the traditional character segmentation algorithm. The experimental result shows that the method is simple and fast, and it decreases the conglutination between the characters but also reduce the isolated noise point. The recognition quality of system is as good as what we expected.
Accelerating Homomorphic Evaluation on Reconfigurable Hardware Extended Version

Homomorphic encryption allows computation on encrypted data and makes it possible to securely outsource computational tasks to untrusted environments. However, all proposed schemes are quite inefficient and homomorphic evaluation of ciphertexts usually takes several seconds on high-end CPUs, even for evaluating simple functions. In this work we investigate the potential of FPGAs for speeding up those evaluation operations. We propose an architecture to accelerate schemes based on the ring learning with errors (RLWE) problem and specifically implemented the somewhat homomorphic encryption scheme YASHE, which was proposed by Bos, Lauter, Loftus, and Naehrig in 2013. Due to the large size of ciphertexts and evaluation keys, on-chip storage of all data is not possible and external memory is required. For efficient utilization of the external memory we propose an efficient double-buffered memory access scheme and a polynomial multiplier based on the number theoretic transform (NTT). For the parameter set (n = 16384, dlog2 qe = 512) capable of evaluating 9 levels of multiplications, we can perform a homomorphic addition in 0.94ms and a homomorphic multiplication in 48.67ms.
Radiolytic Reduction Characteristics of Artificial Oligodeoxynucleotides Possessing 2-Oxoalkyl Group or Disulfide Bonds

A number of advances have been made in the development of modified oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs), and chemical or physical properties of which are controlled by external stimuli. These intelligent ODNs are promising for the next generation of gene diagnostics and therapy. This paper focuses on the molecular design of artificial ODNs that are activated by X-irradiation and their applications to regulation of hybridization properties, conformation change, radiation-activated DNAzyme, and decoy molecules.
Power Allocation for Artificial-Noise Secure MIMO Precoding Systems

This paper investigates the power allocation problem for artificial noise (AN) secure precoding systems, and proposes closed-form solutions for maximizing the achievable secrecy rate. It is assumed that the transmitter knows the full channel information at the legitimate receiver, and knows only the statistics of the channel information at the eavesdropper. Lower bounds are derived for the secrecy rates in multiple-input single-output channels with single or multiple eavesdroppers and multiple-input multiple-output channels with multiple eavesdroppers. When the number of transmit antennas is sufficiently large, the bounds are tight, and closed-form solutions can be derived from these bounds. The analytical results suggest simple and yet informative solutions as follows: Let the numbers of receive antennas at the legitimate receiver and at the eavesdropper be Nr and Nr,e, respectively. The system should distribute Nr,e/(Nr+Nr,e) of the power to AN in the high SNR regime, and distribute zero power to AN in the low SNR regime; the rate loss due to the eavesdropper is -Nr log(Nr/(Nr+Nr,e))-Nr,e log(Nr,e/(Nr+Nr,e)) bits/sec/Hz in the high SNR regime and nearly negligible in the low SNR regime. The derived results also show that equal power and water-filling power allocations lead to similar solutions and rate loss. Simulation results corroborate the theoretical results.
Neoadjuvant modified TPF (docetaxel, cisplatin, fluorouracil) for patients unfit to standard TPF in locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma: a study of 48 patients

TPF (docetaxel, cisplatin, fluorouracil) is the standard chemotherapy used for induction in locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (LAHNSCC). Its toxicity limits it to younger patients with good functional status and without significant comorbidity. Since modified TPF (mTPF) demonstrated higher tolerability with similar efficacy in gastric cancer, we tested this scheme on frail patients. From July 2010 to July 2014, the files of the 48 patients treated for LAHNSCC with mTPF in three French institutions were retrospectively collected. mTPF was chosen because of age>70 years, or severe denutrition, or PS>1, or severe comorbidities or after severe toxicity of standard TPF. During the first 4 cycles, 2 patients died, 14 secondary hospitalizations were required and 10 patients stopped treatment due to no lethal toxicity. Two patients died during radiotherapy. The response rate was 83% (19% complete response). With a median follow-up of 15.2 months, 4 patients died during treatment, 8 died of non-head and neck cancer related disorders, 18 progressed (17 deaths) and 18 were free of disease. The median overall survival was 18.5 months (95% IC: 16.9-30.0). mTPF is effective in terms of response rate compared with the standard TPF and could become a new option in induction for frail patients with LAHNSCC.
Do Eligibility Criteria Influence Unemployment

Economic research suggests that the amount and duration of unemployment benefits can increase equilibrium rate of unemployment, but the literature has overlooked the effects of other restrictions on benefits, namely the length of the qualifying period and the base period. We develop a Mortensen-Pissarides type matching model in which we integrate the following policy parameters: the base period, the qualifying period, unemployment benefits and a finite benefit duration. A worker is only entitled to unemployment benefits if he has completed the statutory qualifying period within the base period. We show that there is a trade-off between the eligibility parameters and the benefit parameters. A country that combines a high level of unemployment benefits with a long benefit duration can neutralize the effect on the unemployment rate with a long qualifying period and/or a short base period. Key-words: Matching model, unemployment insurance, eligibility criteria, benefit parameters, labor market policy JEL-Code: J41, J64, J68