Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
NTCIR-5 Query Expansion Experiments using Term Dependence Models

This paper reports the results of our experiments performed for the Query Term Expansion Subtask, a subtask of the WEB Task, at the Fifth NTCIR Workshop, and the results of our further experiments. In this paper we mainly investigated: (i) the effectiveness of query formulation by composing or decomposing compound words and phrases of the Japanese language, which is based on a theoretical framework via Markov random fields, but taking into account special features of the Japanese language; and(ii) the effectivenessof thecombinationof phrase-based query formulation and pseudo-relevance feedback. We showed that pseudo-relevance feedback worked well, particularly when using query formulation with compound words.
Vascular system reconstruction from MR images using active appearance model

Vascular system recognition and spatial reconstruction using MR images consist an important element of modern health care. The developed reconstruction method successfully handles the intensity inhomogeneity or intensity non uniformity (INU), that is an undesired phenomenon during measurement and represents the main obstacle for MR image segmentation and registration methods. The segmentation is realized by a fuzzy c-means (FCM) algorithm together with the INU estimation. The proposed method determines the contours and using a medical knowledge base analysis determines the edges that are parts of the vascular system. Finally a spatial reconstruction is performed from the obtained data. Several MR databases were analyzed, and approximately a 98.5% recognition performance was obtained. The developed method can serve as excellent support for 3-D registration and visualization techniques.
Engineering properities of coal gangue with fly-ash lime

X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy were used to analyze the characteristics and differences between usual aggregate and coal gangue from the west of Inner Mongolia. The FTIR analysis results show that there are little differences in samples from three areas; however there are apparent differences spectrum absorption peaks at 3697∼3684 cm−1, 3624∼3613 cm1 and 711∼694 cm−1 in the infrared spectra; the results of FTIR and XRD experiment indicate that Wuhai coal gangue pattern is similar to aggregate; interrelated coefficient value between general aggregate and Wuhai coal gangue is the maximum; unconfined compression strength (UCS) of Wuhai coal gangue with fly ashlime was determined, and it can meet the need of base course and sub-base highway.
4-Deoxyaurone Formation in Bidens ferulifolia (Jacq.) DC

The formation of 4-deoxyaurones, which serve as UV nectar guides in Bidens ferulifolia (Jacq.) DC. , was established by combination of UV photography, mass spectrometry, and biochemical assays and the key step in aurone formation was studied. The yellow flowering ornamental plant accumulates deoxy type anthochlor pigments (6′-deoxychalcones and the corresponding 4-deoxyaurones) in the basal part of the flower surface whilst the apex contains only yellow carotenoids. For UV sensitive pollinating insects, this appears as a bicoloured floral pattern which can be visualized in situ by specific ammonia staining of the anthochlor pigments. The petal back side, in contrast, shows a faintly UV absorbing centre and UV absorbing rays along the otherwise UV reflecting petal apex. Matrix-free UV laser desorption/ionisation mass spectrometric imaging (LDI-MSI) indicated the presence of 9 anthochlors in the UV absorbing areas. The prevalent pigments were derivatives of okanin and maritimetin. Enzyme preparations from flowers, leaves, stems and roots of B. ferulifolia and from plants, which do not accumulate aurones e.g. Arabidopsis thaliana, were able to convert chalcones to aurones. Thus, aurone formation could be catalyzed by a widespread enzyme and seems to depend mainly on a specific biochemical background, which favours the formation of aurones at the expense of flavonoids. In contrast to 4-hydroxyaurone formation, hydroxylation and oxidative cyclization to the 4-deoxyaurones does not occur in one single step but is catalyzed by two separate enzymes, chalcone 3-hydroxylase and aurone synthase (catechol oxidase reaction). Aurone formation shows an optimum at pH 7.5 or above, which is another striking contrast to 4-hydroxyaurone formation in Antirrhinum majus L. This is the first example of a plant catechol oxidase type enzyme being involved in the flavonoid pathway and in an anabolic reaction in general.
The flexibility of A Service Model for Component-Based Development

The promise of component-based development – the development of large-scale applications from off-the-shelf software components – may remain elusive unless we complement the facilitating technologies with processes that are designed to take account – and advantage – of components right from the start. Blackbox components present a number of serious challenges whose impact may offset the potential benefits of their use unless they can be addressed successfully. We describe a process that makes use of a service-model to map user-requirements to components, and which offers support for some of the challenges posed: component-oriented requirements elicitation, negotiation, design, verification and change management. Our approach also supports a hybrid component/service-based development where off-the-shelf components and services can co-exist in the same system.
Design process excludes users: the co-creation activities between user and designer

User needs are a fundamental element of design. If the design process does not properly reflect user needs, the design will be severely compromised. Therefore, it is worthwhile to investigate how the user is, and user needs are, understood in the design process. In this article, three accepted linear process models for web site and interactive media design are reviewed in terms of the designer and user participation. The article then proposes a user-evolving collaborative design process which is built on co-creation activities between designer and user. Co-creation activities across the entire design process structurally and ontologically reposition the users, and user needs, centrally, which allows the designers to holistically approach to the user needs through building a partnership with the users. Co-creation creates an equal evolving participatory process between user and designer towards sharing values and knowledge and creating new domains of collective creativity.
Sexual consent in K–12 sex education: an analysis of current health education standards in the United States

ABSTRACT In the USA, universities have recently developed policies and programmes on sexual consent education. But waiting until students enroll in higher education may be too late to begin this work. To examine the extent that K–12 health education standards promote sexual consent education, we conducted a pilot study and found that only two of eighteen states explicitly mentioned sexual consent in their health education standards. Using a small sample (n = 4 states), we then identified four themes as making implicit reference to sexual consent: communication skills, decision making, personal space and interpersonal relationships. Finally, in a robust sample (n = 18 states), we conducted a content analysis of published standards regarding these themes related to sexual consent. Our analysis suggests that sexual consent is likely not discussed in sex education at K–12 schools. We recommend the more explicit inclusion of sexual consent in health education curricula via the identified themes that already exist in most or all standards, emphasising the importance of teaching young people about the nuances of sexual consent and its communication before they become sexually active.
Quaternion Orthogonal Design based Sphere Decoder for MIMO Systems

In Land Mobile Satellite Communication system, MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) Polarization Diversity along with spatial and temporal diversity is studied and analyzed. In general diversity, schemes offer better link reliability. Therefore, to achieve this, a combination of space, time and polarization diversity schemes is proposed. In this work, Orthogonal Space- Time Polarization Block Codes is generalized using quaternions which is a generalization of an orthogonal complex number. To decode OSTPBC, Sphere Decoding algorithm is used. Sphere Decoding is an effective technique to find the solution of Maximum Likelihood Decoding. But computational complexity is still high in the traditional Sphere Decoding. To further reduce the complexity of SD, Contraction Factor scheme is introduced which will speed up the contraction in each layer of the sphere radius and reduce the decoding complexity.
Trends in Tobacco Smoke Exposure and Blood Lead Levels Among Youths and Adults in the United States: The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1999–2008

Introduction Tobacco smoke is a source of exposure to thousands of toxic chemicals including lead, a chemical of longstanding public health concern. We assessed trends in blood lead levels in youths and adults with cotinine-verified tobacco smoke exposure by using 10 years of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Methods Geometric mean levels of blood lead are presented for increasing levels of tobacco smoke exposure. Regression models for lead included age, race/ethnicity, poverty, survey year, sex, age of home, birth country, and, for adults, alcohol consumption. Lead levels were evaluated for smokers and nonsmokers on the basis of age of residence and occupation. Results Positive trend tests indicate that a linear relationship exists between smoke exposure and blood lead levels in youths and adults and that secondhand smoke exposure contributes to blood lead levels above the level caused by smoking. Conclusion Youths with secondhand smoke exposure had blood lead levels suggestive of the potential for adverse cognitive outcomes. Despite remediation efforts in housing and the environment and declining smoking rates and secondhand smoke exposure in the United States, tobacco smoke continues to be a substantial source of exposure to lead in vulnerable populations and the population in general.
Applying Genetic Algorithm for Prioritization of Test Case Scenarios Derived from UML Diagrams

Software testing involves identifying the test cases which discover errors in the program. However, exhaustive testing of software is very time consuming. In this paper, a technique is proposed to prioritize test case scenarios by identifying the critical path clusters using genetic algorithm. The test case scenarios are derived from the UML activity diagram and state chart diagram. The testing efficiency is optimized by applying the genetic algorithm on the test data. The information flow metric is adopted in this work for calculating the information flow complexity associated with each node of the activity diagram and state chart diagram. If the software requirements change, the software needs to be modified and this requires re – testing of the software. Hence, to take care of requirements change, a stack based approach for assigning weights to the nodes of activity diagram and state chart diagram has also been proposed. In this paper, we have extended our previous work of generating test case scenarios from activity diagram by also considering the concurrent activities in nested activity diagram.
A Proposed Integrity Equation for WAAS MOPS

In recent years there has been widespread growth in the number of proposed differential augmentation systems for GPS. Such systems are being developed by both civil authorities and commercial interests. The most stringent application of these systems is precision approach for aviation, where the system provides vertical and horizontal guidance. Precision approach has very strict requirements for accuracy, integrity, continuity and availability, and these become more stringent as the decision height decreases. To date, it appears that the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) will be able to meet the accuracy requirements all the way down to a 200 foot decision height. However, the requirements on integrity and availability will require special attention. In order to guarantee integrity, confidence bounds must be sufficiently large so as to always cover the error of the broadcast correction. However, to maintain availability, the confidence bounds cannot be unduly conservative. As such, careful choice of the integrity equation is paramount. This paper derives an integrity equation for the position solution starting from the expected distribution of errors on the corrected pseudorange measurements. We show that the details of the integrity equation depend on these expected error distributions. As a further complication, the integrity requirement applies individually to each aircraft conducting precision approach and not to an ensemble average over the airspace as a whole. Thus, there is some question as to how to calculate and apply confidence bounds. An additional constraint is the bandwidth limitation on the corrections. There are a limited number of bits with which to send corrections and confidences to the user. An integrity equation which significantly increases the amount of information broadcast to the user is not practical. The proper integrity equation must take all of these constraints into consideration. We propose an equation which satisfies the integrity requirement while maximizing availability. Additionally this equation is fully compatible with the WAAS Minimum Operational Performance Standards (MOPS) and requires no additional bits beyond the current specification. The bits used for integrity also serve to weight the measurements for the position solution. The proposed integrity equation has been verified through Monte Carlo simulation. In addition, this equation is applied to real data from the National Satellite Test Bed (NSTB) network.
Fast Approximation of Distance Between Elastic Curves using Kernels

Elastic shape analysis on non-linear Riemannian manifolds provides an efficient and elegant way for simultaneous comparison and registration of non-rigid shapes. In such formulation, shapes become points on some high dimensional shape space. A geodesic between two points corresponds to the optimal deformation needed to register one shape onto another. The length of the geodesic provides a proper metric for shape comparison. However, the computation of geodesics, and therefore the metric, is computationally very expensive as it involves a search over the space of all possible rotations and re- parameterization. This problem is even more important in shape retrieval scenarios where the query shape is compared to every element in the collection to search. In this paper, we propose a new procedure for metric approximation using the framework of kernel functions. We will demonstrate that this provides a fast approximation of the metric while preserving its invariance properties.
Ju l 2 00 1 Stacking non-BPS D-Branes

We present a candidate supergravity solution for a stacked configuration of stable non-BPS D-branes in Type II string theory compactified on T /Z2. This gives a supergravity description of nonabelian tachyon condensation on the brane worldvolume. BROWN-HET-1263 IC/2001/27
Towards a rich and updated web services database

Web Services Composition (WSC) is one of the main benefits of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), however, its optimization is still a highly discussed research topic. In order to have an optimal composition, and therefore the best composite service, the composition mechanism must meet the requirements and issues of this process. Among the most important needs, we focus on the quality of web services involved, since the functional properties are not sufficient to determine the most appropriate service to meet the business goal. Researchers in this area propose different approaches and architectures to integrate Quality Of Service (QoS) values as a selection criterion, but they don't mention how to automatically generate those information and they don't consider the QoS values variations. They evaluate the QoS once and use calculated values in a static way. In our research work, we propose to automate the web service database filling. So, we don't have to manually read the WSDL file and extract necessary information for each operation. Moreover, we propose a QoS monitor component to calculate and update stored QoS values.
Rag2-deficient IL-1 Receptor Antagonist-deficient Mice Are a Novel Colitis Model in Which Innate Lymphoid Cell-derived IL-17 Is Involved in the Pathogenesis

Il1rn−/− mice spontaneously develop arthritis and aortitis by an autoimmune mechanism and also develop dermatitis by an autoinflammatory mechanism. Here, we show that Rag2−/−Il1rn−/− mice develop spontaneous colitis with high mortality, making a contrast to the suppression of arthritis in these mice. Enhanced IL-17A expression in group 3 innate lymphoid cells (ILC3s) was observed in the colon of Rag2−/−Il1rn−/− mice. IL-17A-deficiency prolonged the survival of Rag2−/−Il1rn−/− mice, suggesting a pathogenic role of this cytokine in the development of intestinal inflammation. Although IL-17A-producing T cells were increased in Il1rn−/− mice, these mice did not develop colitis, because CD4+Foxp3+ regulatory T cell population was also expanded. Thus, excess IL-1 signaling and IL-1-induced IL-17A from ILC3s cause colitis in Rag2−/−Il1rn−/− mice in which Treg cells are absent. These observations suggest that the balance between IL-17A-producing cells and Treg cells is important to keep the immune homeostasis of the colon.
Role stress and turnover intentions among information technology personnel in South Africa: The role of supervisor support

Orientation: High turnover of information technology (IT) personnel is a major problem facing many global and local organisations. An increasingly important area of turnover research of IT personnel experiencing role stress involves examining their perceptions of supervisor support. Research purpose: This study aimed to examine the effects of role-related stress and supervisor support on job satisfaction, job performance and IT turnover intentions. Motivations for the study: It is important to assess from both a theoretical and a practical perspective the extent to which turnover can be explained by relational factors such as supervisor support. Research design, approach and method: An online voluntary survey yielded a sample of 163 respondents. Six constructs were measured: turnover intention, job performance, job satisfaction, supervisor support, role ambiguity and role conflict. A total of 158 usable responses were subjected to descriptive, correlation and regression analysis. Mediation and moderation effects were assessed using a multiple regression bootstrapping procedure. Main findings: Role ambiguity has a greater impact on job satisfaction than role conflict. Job satisfaction fully mediated the relationship between role stress and turnover intention. Supervisor support mediated the relationship between role stressors and job satisfaction and role stressors and job performance. There was no evidence in favour of a moderating role of supervisor support. Practical and managerial implications: Higher priority should be given to tackling role ambiguity. Supervisor support can increase job satisfaction, improve job performance and ultimately reduce turnover intentions, despite the presence of role stress. Contribution or value-add: Human resource managers and IT managers could use these results to improve job performance and staff retention.
Integration of WiFi and WiMAX-Mesh Networks

As one of the promising applications of IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX) WMANs is to provide backhaul (infrastructure) support for IEEE 802.11 (WiFi) WLANs based mobile hotspots, integrating IEEE 802.16 and IEEE 802.11 is definitely an attractive and inevitable challenge. In this paper we present a novel architecture for integrating IEEE 802.16-mesh with IEEE 802.11. Indeed this architecture adds the mesh capability to the already existing integrated WMAN-WLAN networks. Integrated WiFi-WiMAX and WiFi-WiMAX-mesh networks are simulated and their performance is compared and discussed in terms of not only throughput and delay but also packet loss. We show that the mesh architecture has indeed superior performance due to the inherent properties of mesh networking paradigm.
Implementing graph grammars for intelligence analysis in OCaml

We report on implementing graph grammars for intelligence analysis in OCaml. Graph grammars are represented as elements of an algebraic data type in OCaml. In addition to algebraic data types, we use other concepts from functional programming languages to implement features of graph grammars. We use type checking to perform graph pattern matching. Graph transformations are defined as implicit coercions derived from structural subtyping proofs, subset types, lambda abstractions, and analytics. An analytic is a general-purpose OCaml function whose output is required to match a graph pattern described by an element of an algebraic data type. By using a strongly-typed language for representing graphs, we can ensure graphs produced from a graph transformation will match a specific schema. This is a high priority requirement for intelligence analysis.
Maxillofacial Bone Healing in a Patient Post Gastric Bypass Surgery: A Case Report

Gastric bypass surgery with subsequent changes in both bone metabolism and bone density leading to increased fractures and mineral deficiencies are proven concepts. Whether the patient undergoes gastric bypass surgery during maxillofacial healing or has maxillofacial surgery within a year of prior gastric bypass surgery, the effect on bony healing of the maxillofacial region remains to be studied. We provide a case report of failed reconstruction due to significant bone loss and graft resorption in a patient who underwent gastric bypass surgery 4 months after a mandibular reconstruction procedure.