Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Propagation of Memory Parameter from Durations to Counts

We establish sufficient conditions on durations that are stationary with finite variance and memory parameter $d \in [0,1/2)$ to ensure that the corresponding counting process $N(t)$ satisfies $\textmd{Var} \, N(t) \sim C t^{2d+1}$ ($C>0$) as $t \rightarrow \infty$, with the same memory parameter $d \in [0,1/2)$ that was assumed for the durations. Thus, these conditions ensure that the memory in durations propagates to the same memory parameter in counts and therefore in realized volatility. We then show that any Autoregressive Conditional Duration ACD(1,1) model with a sufficient number of finite moments yields short memory in counts, while any Long Memory Stochastic Duration model with $d>0$ and all finite moments yields long memory in counts, with the same $d$. Finally, we present a result implying that the only way for a series of counts aggregated over a long time period to have nontrivial autocorrelation is for the short-term counts to have long memory. In other words, aggregation ultimately destroys all autocorrelation in counts, if and only if the counts have short memory.
Designing a reliable and stable link quality metric for wireless sensor networks

We study the problem of link quality (LQ) estimation in wireless sensor networks. Based on an extensive measurement campaign we have investigated in detail the behaviour of usual LQ estimators, such as the Packet Reception Rate (PRR), the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) and the LQI index of the CC2420 radio. All of these turn out to have shortcomings, calling for the design of a new LQ metric. We propose such a metric combining PRR and RSSI in a normalized manner. We show that for a wide variety of link conditions our metric provides stable and accurate link quality estimates. This work has a large number of potential application areas, including more accurate link-aware routing, topology control and different cross-layer optimization schemes.
eCOMPASS – TR – 047 Approximation Algorithms for Arc Orienteering Problems

In this paper we study the Arc Orienteering Problem in directed and undirected graphs. To the best of our knowledge, we give the fist approximation algorithms for both the undirected and the directed versions of the problem. Our main results are the following: (i) We give an O( log 2(m) log log(m) )−approximation algorithm for the AOP in directed graphs, where m is the number of arcs of the graph of the problem, using the O( log 2(n) log log(n) )−approximation for the OP in directed graphs found in [13]. (ii) Using the (2 + )−approximation algorithm for the unweighted version of the OP in [6], we obtain a (6+ +o(1))−approximation algorithm for the AOP in undirected graphs and a (4+ )−approximation algorithm for the unweighted version of the AOP in undirected graphs. Moreover, we prove that the Mixed Orienteering Problem (MOP) can be reduced to AOP and that any approximation algorithm for the AOP yields an approximation algorithm for the MOP.
Game-theoretic versions of Kolmogorov’s strong law of large numbers

We prove two variants of Kolmogorov’s strong law of large numbers in a completely worst-case framework, eschewing any probabilistic assumptions. The first variant is an assertion about a game involving the Bookmaker predicting the values of unprobabilized random variables; in an intuitive sense it is much stronger than the usual strong law of large numbers for martingales. The second variant is an assertion about a security market. 1 Predictive strong law of large numbers In this section we consider the following perfect-information game between 3 players, the Bookmaker, the Statistician, and the Nature. The game proceeds in trials. At each trial i, i = 1, 2, . , the Bookmaker tries to predict the real number Xi the Nature is to produce at the end of the trial. His prediction consists of two numbers, Ei and Di ≥ 0; roughly, Ei is the Bookmaker’s expectation of Xi, and Di is his expectation of the accuracy Li := (Xi−Ei) (measured by the Brier scoring rule, see Dawid [1]) of the prediction Ei. ∗The research described in this publication was made possible in part by Grant No. MRS000 from the International Science Foundation.
Robust state-feedback stabilization of jump linear systems

We consider a linear system subject to Markovian jumps, with a time-varying, unknown-but-bounded transition probability matrix. We derive LMI conditions ensuring various second-moment stability properties for the system. The approach is then used to generate mode-dependent state-feedback control laws which stabilize the system in the mean-square sense. When the transition probability matrix is constant and known, our conditions are necessary and sufficient.
Framing e-HRM in a cross-national context

Guest editorial Preface i Truly international comparative e-HRM research is scarce. The comparative studies available are basically non-theoretical and do not refer to cultural or national contextual aspects as an explanatory factor. Most of the e-HRM research originates from the US and from Europe. All the studies on e-HRM so far have not been suitable to conclude anything on whether e-HRM in Western countries and non-Western countries looks similar or is developing similarly or not. We propose a research framework for cross-national or cross-cultural e-HRM research that is based on a constructivist view of the relationship between technology and organization, adopting the lines of thought of Orlikowski (1992, 2000) and DeSanctis and Poole (1994). It can be used as a framework for international comparative e-HRM research. It is suitable for this purpose as it tries to be all-encompassing, including the main focus areas of e-HRM research so far (goals, implementation, adoption, outcomes, HRM transformation), and therefore allows comparison of these areas and variables across borders in a multinational context. It supports the convergence-divergence debate is the relevant debate where international comparative e-HRM research should be positioned as it offers a relevant and rich explanatory ground for differences and similarities across national and cultural boundaries. Nowadays, IT and HRM are indissolubly connected. Human resource information systems (HRIS), often integrated as a HRM module of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system like SAP or Oracle, are used to improve HRM in terms of administrative and analytical purposes (Kanthawongs, 2004). The greatest benefits of implementation of HRIS' are the quick response and access to information, and the greatest barrier is insufficient financial support (Ngai & Wat, 2006). Since the middle of the 1990s, the influence of the internet has become noticeable in the field of human resource management (HRM) (Bondarouk & Ruël, 2009). Human resource information systems (HRIS) started to become more of an internet-based technology. The focus changed from mainly supporting the HRM department to targeting the effectiveness of managers and employees. The term e-HRM, which stands for electronic HRM, is used for labelling HRM services provided through the use of internet technology. The term ESS, employee self-service, is also used to refer to web-based HRM technology. That e-HRM is not a temporary phenomenon is illustrated by a recent study which examined the adoption of e-HRM in Europe. The results show national adoption rates varying from less than 20 to almost 90 …
Non-Monotone Comparative Statics in Games of Incomplete Information

This paper analyses comparative statics for two classes of n-player games of incomplete information with continuous action spaces. The two classes are defined by differences in the payoff and behaviour of the weakest type: the lowest value bidder or highest cost firm. We show that in "weakly competitive games", including all-pay auctions and some oligopoly models, weak types will respond to a stochastically higher distribution of types by playing less aggressively. In "strongly competitive" games, all types play more aggressively. Furthermore, we show that a decrease in dispersion of types, in the sense of a refinement of second order stochastic dominance, although also associated with an increase in competitiveness, may in addition result in less aggressive play by strong types in both strongly and weakly competitive games.
Locator / ID Separation : Study on the cost of Mappings Caching and Mappings Lookups

Very recent activities in the IETF and in the Routing Research Group (RRG) of the IRTG focus on defining a new Internet architecture, in order to solve scalability issues related to interdomain routing. The approach that is being explored is based on the separation of the end-systems’ addressing space (the identifiers) and the routing locators’ space. This separation is meant to alleviate the routing burden of the Default Free Zone, but it implies the need of distributing and storing mappings between identifiers and locators on caches placed on routers. In this technical report we evaluate the cost of maintaining these caches and requesting these mappings when the distribution mechanism is based on a pull model. Taking as a reference the LISP protocol, we base our evaluation on real Netflow traces collected on the border router of our campus network. We thoroughly analyze the impact of the locator/ID separation, and related cost, showing that there is a trade-off between the dynamism of the mapping distribution protocol, the demand in terms of bandwidth, and the size of the caches.
Gathering Experience Knowledge from Iterative Software Development Processes

This paper proposes that experience knowledge would be beneficial for iterative software development. In this paper, experience knowledge- based artifacts have been linked to Extreme Programming via peer reviews. Experience knowledge can be defined as human experiences documented with the object of exploiting them in the organization. Extreme Programming has been selected to represent iterative software development processes. Systematically gathering experiences would support building evidence for improving and teaching iterative software development processes. This paper presents one possible solution as to how to put experience knowledge in practice in the context of iterative software development processes. It also reports results from projects where experience knowledge has been studied. The main findings of this paper are two ways in which experience knowledge- based artifacts can be used with iterative software development, and that peer reviews are a good way to collect and treat experience knowledge-based artifacts.
Classification of colonic polyps using Hidden Markov Models

Colonic polyps appear as elliptical protrusions on the inner wall of the colon. Previous algorithms assumed the shape of a polyp to be a spherical cap, so these algorithms are not flexible when the polyps are various cap shapes. This paper proposes an explicit parametric model for the polyps. The model captures the overall shape of the polyp and is used to derive the probability distribution of features relevant to polyp detection. The probability distribution represents the glocal properties of the candidates (where glocal properties capture both the global information and local information of the object). A unit sphere, referred to as a brilliant sphere, is used to represent the glocal information of the polyp. The observation sequence is obtained for the polyp candidates from the brilliant sphere information, and the observation sequence is then assessed by explicit models for classification.
Reducing Grounded Learning Tasks To Grammatical Inference

It is often assumed that 'grounded' learning tasks are beyond the scope of grammatical inference techniques. In this paper, we show that the grounded task of learning a semantic parser from ambiguous training data as discussed in Kim and Mooney (2010) can be reduced to a Probabilistic Context-Free Grammar learning task in a way that gives state of the art results. We further show that additionally letting our model learn the language's canonical word order improves its performance and leads to the highest semantic parsing f-scores previously reported in the literature.
SIGMA: A Simulator Infrastructure to Guide Memory Analysis

In this paper we present SIGMA (Simulation Infrastructure to Guide Memory Analysis), a new data collection framework and family of cache analysis tools. The SIGMA environment provides detailed cache information by gathering memory reference data using software-based instrumentation. This infrastructure can facilitate quick probing into the factors that influence the performance of an application by highlighting bottleneck scenarios including: excessive cache/TLB misses and inefficient data layouts. The tool can also assist in perturbation analysis to determine performance variations caused by changes to architecture or program. Our validation tests using the SPEC Swim benchmark show that most of the performance metrics obtained with SIGMA are within 1% of the metrics obtained with hardware performance counters, with the advantage that SIGMA provides performance data on a data structure level, as specified by the programmer.
The Moderating Role of Absorptive Capacity in the Assimilation of Enterprise Information Systems

We attempt to understand how external institutional forces affecting ERP assimilation within organizations need not impact all organizations uniformly but instead can be moderated by the enterprises’ knowledge-based capabilities. Building on an institutional model of ERP assimilation, we investigate the role of absorptive capacity (ACAP) in ERP assimilation. Specifically we examine how the ACAP of an organization can enhance or retard the effect of institutional forces on the degree of ERP assimilation. Following a recent framework we operationalize ACAP as potential ACAP (PACAP) and realized ACAP (RACAP) and find that both dimensions affect ERP assimilation in different ways. While both, PACAP and RACAP, have a direct positive impact on assimilation, PACAP moderates the impact of mimetic forces on assimilation whereas RACAP moderates the effect of normative pressures. While we find overall a strong support for our hypothesized model, interestingly, we also find that RACAP negatively moderates the effect of mimetic pressures on assimilation. We discuss the contributions of this study to a better understanding of IT assimilation processes.
Topology and prediction of RNA pseudoknots

MOTIVATION Several dynamic programming algorithms for predicting RNA structures with pseudoknots have been proposed that differ dramatically from one another in the classes of structures considered. RESULTS Here, we use the natural topological classification of RNA structures in terms of irreducible components that are embeddable in the surfaces of fixed genus. We add to the conventional secondary structures four building blocks of genus one in order to construct certain structures of arbitrarily high genus. A corresponding unambiguous multiple context-free grammar provides an efficient dynamic programming approach for energy minimization, partition function and stochastic sampling. It admits a topology-dependent parametrization of pseudoknot penalties that increases the sensitivity and positive predictive value of predicted base pairs by 10-20% compared with earlier approaches. More general models based on building blocks of higher genus are also discussed. AVAILABILITY The source code of gfold is freely available at http://www.combinatorics. cn/cbpc/gfold.tar. gz. CONTACT duck@santafe.edu SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
EFFECT OF THICKNESS OF OVERLAYING CLAY LAYER OF LOWLAND REGION ON SENSITIVITY OF LATERAL DEFLECTION OF LONG PILES EMBEDDED IN NON- HOMOGENEOUS SOIL - PART I: THEORETICAL FORMULATION

2 ABSTRACT: The importance of sensitivity analysis of soil-structure interaction system is embodied in two facts, that is, the soil is a nature-made material that affects the system's performance and the sensitivity theory constitutes an inherent part of the behavior of the system. Moreover, the access to the supporting system is limited. Therefore, it is essential to have a reliable basis for the assessment of how changes of the parameters of the system affect its performance. The paper presents the study of sensitivity of laterally loaded piles using the distributed parameter sensitivity method. Other available sensitivity methods are briefly described in the paper. The theoretical formulation of the sensitivity of the lateral head deflection of piles embedded in non-homogeneous soil to changes in the design parameters is derived. The non-homogeneous soil consists of soft clay overlying sand and the design parameters are those that define the pile and the adjacent clay and sand. The formulation resulted in obtaining sensitivity operators that can show along the pile length where and how the change of each parameter affects the change of lateral pile-head deflection. The formulation provides the basis for studying the effect of the thickness of the overlying clay on the sensitivity results.
Hypertrophic Scar Formation on Application of Terpenoid Fraction of Tuberous Root of Mirabilis jalapa L. on Excision Wound Model in Wistar Albino Rats

The study was designed to evaluate the effects of hydromethanolic extract of tuberous root of M. jalapa and its terpenoid and flavonoid fractions on cutaneous wound healing in Wistar Albino rats. The hydromethanolic extract was subfractionated by sequential extraction in solvents (moderately nonpolar to polar). The extract and its (terpenoid and flavonoid) fractions were used for cutaneous wound healing studies by using excision wound model on rat. Their effects on wound contraction rate, biochemical and histological changes, and expression of growth factors such as collagen 3A, basic fibroblast growth factor, and vascular endothelial growth factor were investigated. The results indicated that flavonoid treated group showed significant decrease (P < 0.05) in antioxidant enzyme level as compared to control in wound healing process, whereas terpenoid fraction showed significant increase (P < 0.05) in expression of growth factor levels but regeneration and remodeling stages were delayed due to formation of thicker ulcus layer and also there were no hair follicle-like blood capillaries formation which ultimately may lead to formation of hypertrophic scar of wound. Therefore, from this study, it can be concluded that terpenoid fraction prolongs proliferation phase and hence may have tendency to convert the wound into hypertrophic wound.
Prognostic value of choline and betaine depends on intestinal microbiota-generated metabolite trimethylamine-N-oxide.

AIMS Recent metabolomics and animal model studies show trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO), an intestinal microbiota-dependent metabolite formed from dietary trimethylamine-containing nutrients such as phosphatidylcholine (PC), choline, and carnitine, is linked to coronary artery disease pathogenesis. Our aim was to examine the prognostic value of systemic choline and betaine levels in stable cardiac patients. METHODS AND RESULTS We examined the relationship between fasting plasma choline and betaine levels and risk of major adverse cardiac events (MACE = death, myocardial infraction, stroke) in relation to TMAO over 3 years of follow-up in 3903 sequential stable subjects undergoing elective diagnostic coronary angiography. In our study cohort, median (IQR) TMAO, choline, and betaine levels were 3.7 (2.4-6.2)μM, 9.8 (7.9-12.2)μM, and 41.1 (32.5-52.1)μM, respectively. Modest but statistically significant correlations were noted between TMAO and choline (r = 0.33, P < 0.001) and less between TMAO and betaine (r = 0.09, P < 0.001). Higher plasma choline and betaine levels were associated with a 1.9-fold and 1.4-fold increased risk of MACE, respectively (Quartiles 4 vs. 1; P < 0.01, each). Following adjustments for traditional cardiovascular risk factors and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, elevated choline [1.34 (1.03-1.74), P < 0.05], and betaine levels [1.33 (1.03-1.73), P < 0.05] each predicted increased MACE risk. Neither choline nor betaine predicted MACE risk when TMAO was added to the adjustment model, and choline and betaine predicted future risk for MACE only when TMAO was elevated. CONCLUSION Elevated plasma levels of choline and betaine are each associated with incident MACE risk independent of traditional risk factors. However, high choline and betaine levels are only associated with higher risk of future MACE with concomitant increase in TMAO.
OCR Based Thresholding

In large-scale digitization processes, several common tasks are performed to provide an electronic version of a paper document. One of the first steps is the thresholding of the image, which is necessary for the following procedures to work properly. Many binarization methods have been proposed to solve this problem, but they need to be tuned on the target document corpus to obtain best results. In this paper, we introduce a full automatic thresholding method for printed document analysis. The purpose is to obtain the most suitable binarizer for a given document image according to the quality of the output of an OCR system. Tuning can be done either on a full page or on sample text-lines extracted from a page image. As opposed to existing methods, the tuning is directly goal-directed and does neither depend on subjective visual evaluation nor on non-representative performance criteria. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach on a subset of 740 pages from the Google 1000 Books dataset. Results show, that by choosing the right binarizer parameters with the Recognition Driven Thresholding (RDT) method the words-in-dictionary error rate of an OCR system can be reduced by 6%.
LES TERRITOIRES FRANÇAIS : DIAGNOSTIC ET GOUVERNANCE

Reforme des regions, nouvelle carte intercommunale, budgets des collectivites territoriales… les territoires francais n’ont jamais ete autant au cœur des debats publics. Et, face aux enjeux de la mondialisation, de la decentralisation et du developpement durable, leur apprehension est toujours plus complexe. Clarifier les concepts, proposer des methodes adaptees pour comprendre, evaluer et gerer ces nouvelles realites territoriales, tels sont les objectifs de cet ouvrage. Apres avoir explique en quoi consiste la gouvernance territoriale et la maniere dont il faut la decrypter, il presente une methodologie claire et raisonnee de diagnostic des territoires : etude spatiale, conduite d’entretiens, constitution de grilles d’analyses… en montrant notamment comment effectuer des comparaisons pertinentes. Il propose ensuite une application approfondie de ces concepts et methodes a un certain nombre de villes francaises (Annonay, Pont-a-Mousson, Vitre…) dont les resultats offrent des enseignements pouvant convenir a tout type de territoire. Un ouvrage indispensable pour les etudiants en geographie, en urbanisme et amenagement, ainsi que pour tous les acteurs impliques dans le developpement local des collectivites territoriales.
Mobile applications for incident reporting systems in urban contexts: lessons learned from an empirical study

Many governments are now promoting the use of mobile applications allowing citizens to report incidents in their neighborhood to the administration. Such applications are sought to sense the quality of the environment thus enabling authorities to promote safety and well-being among citizens. However, little is known about how users perceive incident reporting systems and which factors affect the user experience (UX) and the perception of risk. In this paper we present some lessons learned from an empirical study involving twenty users engaged in reporting urban incidents using a mobile application. A significant result from the present study is to point out how and which UX dimensions can be effectively used as triggers to motivate users to report incidents. Based on citizens' perception of urban incidents, we discuss how to build innovative incident reporting systems that can improve the communication between citizens and administrations.