Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Model driven development of context aware software systems

This paper presents the first results of an ongoing work towards the realization of a model driven development framework for context awareness. Its core element consists of a domain specific modeling language called CAMEL (Context Awareness ModEling Language), and defined as a UML extension. CAMEL can be used to enrich a UML model of an application with elements related to contexts and context dependent behaviors. The resulting UML+CAMEL model is the starting point for model transformation aimed at generating executable code or other artifacts. CAMEL is implemented by an Eclipse plugin.
Discriminative Machine Translation Using Global Lexical Selection

Statistical phrase-based machine translation models crucially rely on word alignments. The search for word-alignments assumes a model of word locality between source and target languages that is violated in starkly different word-order languages such as English-Hindi. In this article, we present models that decouple the steps of lexical selection and lexical reordering with the aim of minimizing the role of word-alignment in machine translation. Indian languages are morphologically rich and have relatively free-word order where the grammatical role of content words is largely determined by their case markers and not just by their positions in the sentence. Hence, lexical selection plays a far greater role than lexical reordering. For lexical selection, we investigate models that take the entire source sentence into account and evaluate their performance for English-Hindi translation in a tourism domain.
The power of the feed-forward sweep

Vision is fast and efficient. A novel natural scene can be categorized (e.g. does it contain an animal, a vehicle? ) by human observers in less than 150 ms, and with minimal attentional resources. This ability still holds under strong backward masking conditions. In fact, with a stimulus onset asynchrony of about 30 ms (the time between the scene and mask onset), the first 30 ms of selective behavioral responses are essentially unaffected by the presence of the mask, suggesting that this type of “ultra-rapid” processing can rely on a sequence of swift feed-forward stages, in which the mask information never “catches up” with the scene information. Simulations show that the feed-forward propagation of the first wave of spikes generated at stimulus onset may indeed suffice for crude re-cognition or categorization. Scene awareness, however, may take significantly more time to develop, and probably requires feed-back processes. The main implication of these results for theories of masking is that pattern or metacontrast (backward) masking do not appear to bar the progression of visual information at a low level. These ideas bear interesting similarities to existing conceptualizations of priming and masking, such as Direct Parameter Specification or the Rapid Chase theory.
Virtual Organization as a Source of Competitive Advantage: A Framework from the Resource-Based View

A framework is developed for viewing the centralization issues of organizations to consider to what degree a virtual organization may help a firm obtain competitive advantage. Utilizing the concepts of flexibility and synergy, the framework can serve as a guide for practitioners to help determine what degree of synergy and flexibility a given organizational form would bring and what its suggested category of competitive advantage would be. Implications and suggestions for future research are also discussed.
Prediction of disordered regions in proteins from position specific score matrices

We describe here the results of using a neural network based method (DISOPRED) for predicting disordered regions in 55 proteins in the 5th CASP experiment. A set of 715 highly resolved proteins with regions of disorder was used to train the network. The inputs to the network were derived from sequence profiles generated by PSI‐BLAST. A post‐filter was applied to the output of the network to prevent regions being predicted as disordered in regions of confidently predicted alpha helix or beta sheet structure. The overall two‐state prediction accuracy for the method is very high (90%) but this is highly skewed by the fact that most residues are observed to be ordered. The overall Matthews' correlation coefficient for the submitted predictions is 0.34, which gives a more realistic impression of the overall accuracy of the method, though still indicates significant predictive power. Proteins 2003;53:573–578. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Draft Optimal Oil Exploration under Climate Treaties

In this paper we focus on how an international carbon treaty will influence the exploration of oil in Non-OPEC countries. We present a numerical intertemporal global equilibrium model for the fossil fuel markets where the world is divided into three demand regions: OECD-Europe, Rest-OECD and Non-OECD. An initial resource base for oil is given in the Non-OPEC region, however, the resources change over time due to depletion, exploration and discovery. As OPEC as a whole has vast resources, we do not consider oil exploration in this region. The international oil market is modelled with a cartel (OPEC) and a competitive fringe on the supply side. To determine optimal exploration and production, we follow a Nash-Cournot approach. In addition to the oil market, we also model the markets for natural gas and coal to cover substitution effects in demand. When studying the effects of different climate treaties on oil exploration, two contrasting incentives apply. If a constant international carbon tax is introduced, the producer price of oil will fall giving an incentive to delay oil production and exploration. However, the rise in the oil price will also be less which gives an incentive to accelerate production, and, therefore, also to find new oil fields. The last incentive proves to be the strongest which means that an international carbon treaty will accelerate oil exploration in Non-OPEC countries.
Rehabilitation centred design

Stroke is a significant cause of disability, and is predicted to become a greater burden as population demographics shift. Research suggests that the completion of rehabilitation exercises can considerably improve function in damaged limbs, yet these exercises can be both boring and frustrating for patients to complete at home. New technologies create possibilities to support rehabilitation in motivating and entertaining ways, and, in this paper, we present a case study that illustrates the work of designing such technologies for a single user. Participation in this case study has highlighted some interesting tensions between designing for rehabilitation and designing for the user.
Predicting treatment outcome of a preventive and early intervention for sub-threshold and mild panic disorder

Introduction: Each year, 2% to 3% of the adult population is affected by Panic Disorder (PD). The aim of this study is to investigate variables predicting post-treatment effect sizes of a preventive and early intervention in PD. Method: Data concerning demographic information, initial symptom severity and personal variables were collected. A total of 166 participants suffering from panic symptoms followed the ‘Don’t Panic’ course during 8 weeks. Pearson correlations were conducted to explore bivariate relationships between pre-treatment measurements and post-treatment effect sizes. Next, multiple linear regression analyses for all outcome measures with forced entry were completed to investigate the predictive value of the significant findings found in the bivariate analyses. Results: Initial symptom severity proved to be predictive for treatment outcome of all corresponding outcome measures. Demographic variables were of little predictive value. The participants’ expectations of treatment effectiveness explained little but significant additional variance for several outcome measures. Discussion: Participants suffering from more severe pre-treatment symptoms seem to reach more improvement after the course. Additionally, participants with higher expectations of treatment effectiveness show significantly more improvement on several outcome measures after the course. Overall, the ‘Don’t Panic’ course appeared to be suitable for a broad target population, since its efficacy was not clearly restricted by demographics.
Planar Markov modeling for Arabic writing recognition: advancement state

In this paper, we show how planar hidden Markov models (PHMM) can offer great potential to solve difficult Arabic character recognition problems, especially its cursivness. A convenient architecture is defined for printed Arabic sub-words. It yields an easy solution to implement the modeling of the different morphological variations of the Arabic writing, i.e., vertical and variable horizontal linkages. A more flexible architecture, developed for Arabic handwritten words, is under test. The structure proposed presents the aptitude to absorb the variability of the manuscript. Indeed, the experiments have shown promising results and directions for further improvements. In the present paper, we describe both retained architectures, showing the applicability of the PHMM to the Arabic complexities. This is owed precisely to the definition of the PHMM, which permits to follow efficiently the natural variations in bands of the Arabic script.
More extensions of weak oblivious transfer

Oblivious Transfer (OT) is a primitive of asymmetrically distributing information between users, proposed to build Secure Computations. In this letter, we propose an informationtheoretical variant of OT that requires weak assumptions and can be therefore more easily implemented with transmission media. We show then that One-out-of-two Oblivious Transfer (O-OT), the central version of OT, can be reduced to this Weak OT (WOT) with arbitrary small loss of security, i.e. secure O-OT can be realised from our WOT.
Characterizing Long-tail SEO Spam on Cloud Web Hosting Services

The popularity of long-tail search engine optimization (SEO) brings with new security challenges: incidents of long-tail keyword poisoning to lower competition and increase revenue have been reported. The emergence of cloud web hosting services provides a new and effective platform for long-tail SEO spam attacks. There is growing evidence that large-scale long-tail SEO campaigns are being carried out on cloud hosting platforms because they offer low-cost, high-speed hosting services. In this paper, we take the first step toward understanding how long-tail SEO spam is implemented on cloud hosting platforms. After identifying 3,186 cloud directories and 318,470 doorway pages on the leading cloud platforms for long-tail SEO spam, we characterize their abusive behavior. One highlight of our findings is the effectiveness of the cloud-based long-tail SEO spam, with 6% of the doorway pages successfully appearing in the top 10 search results of the poisoned long-tail keywords. Examples of other important discoveries include how such doorway pages monetize traffic and their ability to manage cloud platform's countermeasures. These findings bring such abuse to the spotlight and provide some insights to eliminating this practice.
The Efficacy of Phonological Processing Treatment on Stuttering Severity in Persian Pre-School Children

Objectives Correct phonological encoding is crucial to fluent speech production. Phonological working memory and phonological awareness are important phonological processes that affect phonological encoding. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of phonological processing on stuttering severity of Persian pre-school children. Materials & Methods Six children were targeted in this study in Ahvaz City, southern Iran in 2018, with Quasi-experimental design (Before and after clinical trial). These children participated in a treatment protocol, scheduled in 13-sessions. The treatment protocol of the phonological processing included nonword repetition in the phonological working memory and phonological awareness therapy. Overall, 30 nonwords were taken to examine the phonological working memory. The Persian test of language development was taken to examine phonological awareness. Stuttering severity measurements were performed with pre- and post-treatment. The severity rating was instructed to the parents based on Guitar protocol. They were asked to keep score every day until the end of the treatment sessions, and they reported the score to the therapist. Results The stuttering severity score in pre and post-treatment was significant (P=0.027), and in the follow-up, phase was not significant (P=0.236); stuttering severity was reduced in children who stutter. Moreover, the severity rating score reported by parents during treatment was significant (P= 0.0001). This showed a reduction in stuttering severity. Conclusion The poor performance of phonological awareness and phonological working memory in phonological processing affect stuttering severity. Treatment of sub-systems of phonological processing can have an important role in reducing stuttering severity and increasing speech fluency.
The Interface Between Violence, Disability, and Poverty: Stories From a Developing Country

People with disabilities are vulnerable to multiple forms of violence in their everyday lives, including structural violence, deprivation, and physical, emotional, and sexual exploitation. Despite increasing reports of violence against people with disabilities, little is known about this phenomenon, especially in the context of poverty. Furthermore, the various types of violence have traditionally been studied in isolation, which has led to a limited understanding of the nature and persistence of violence in society, and has affected our understanding of the relationship between different forms of violence. In this article, we explore the relationship between violence, disability, and poverty among people living in a rural area of South Africa. Thirty adults with a variety of disabilities living in 12 rural villages in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa participated in the study. Each of the participants was provided with an opportunity to tell their life story. Narrative inquiry and participant observation were used to explore the ways in which violence pervades the participants’ everyday experiences. Results were analyzed using thematic analysis and suggest that in the context of poverty, it is impossible to separate the experience of disability from the experience of violence. Structural violence was shown to underpin all other forms of interpersonal violence, making persons with disabilities vulnerable to additional forms of exploitation, and serve to further isolate people with disabilities from society, compromising both health and human rights. The findings suggest that an understanding of contextual factors is fundamental to understanding the relationship between violence and disability.
SOX9 is a potent activator of the chondrocyte-specific enhancer of the pro alpha1(II) collagen gene

The identification of mutations in the SRY-related SOX9 gene in patients with campomelic dysplasia, a severe skeletal malformation syndrome, and the abundant expression of Sox9 in mouse chondroprogenitor cells and fully differentiated chondrocytes during embryonic development have suggested the hypothesis that SOX9 might play a role in chondrogenesis. Our previous experiments with the gene (Col2a1) for collagen II, an early and abundant marker of chondrocyte differentiation, identified a minimal DNA element in intron 1 which directs chondrocyte-specific expression in transgenic mice. This element is also a strong chondrocyte-specific enhancer in transient transfection experiments. We show here that Col2a1 expression is closely correlated with high levels of SOX9 RNA and protein in chondrocytes. Our experiments indicate that the minimal Col2a1 enhancer is a direct target for Sox9. Indeed, SOX9 binds to a sequence of the minimal Col2a1 enhancer that is essential for activity in chondrocytes, and SOX9 acts as a potent activator of this enhancer in cotransfection experiments in nonchondrocytic cells. Mutations in the enhancer that prevent binding of SOX9 abolish enhancer activity in chondrocytes and suppress enhancer activation by SOX9 in nonchondrocytic cells. Other SOX family members are ineffective. Expression of a truncated SOX9 protein lacking the transactivation domain but retaining DNA-binding activity interferes with enhancer activation by full-length SOX9 in fibroblasts and inhibits enhancer activity in chondrocytes. Our results strongly suggest a model whereby SOX9 is involved in the control of the cell-specific activation of COL2A1 in chondrocytes, an essential component of the differentiation program of these cells. We speculate that in campomelic dysplasia a decrease in SOX9 activity would inhibit production of collagen II, and eventually other cartilage matrix proteins, leading to major skeletal anomalies.
Commercially derived hybrid electric drive (HED) systems for efficiency and power generation on naval ships

There are essentially two kinds of power and propulsion system architectures in use today: Segregated and Integrated. The hybrid architecture combines aspects of both of these into a single ship design. It can also be considered to be partially integrated power system architecture. Dalton [1] describes the trade-offs in selecting power system architectures.
Iron Acquisition and Regulation in Campylobacter jejuni

ABSTRACT Iron affects the physiology of bacteria in two different ways: as a micronutrient for bacterial growth and as a catalyst for the formation of hydroxyl radicals. In this study, we used DNA microarrays to identify the C. jejuni genes that have their transcript abundance affected by iron availability. The transcript levels of 647 genes were affected after the addition of iron to iron-limited C. jejuni cells. Several classes of affected genes were revealed within 15 min, including immediate-early response genes as well as those specific to iron acquisition and metabolism. In contrast, only 208 genes were differentially expressed during steady-state experiments comparing iron-rich and iron-limited growth conditions. As expected, genes annotated as being involved in either iron acquisition or oxidative stress defense were downregulated during both time course and steady-state experiments, while genes encoding proteins involved in energy metabolism were upregulated. Because the level of protein glycosylation increased with iron limitation, iron may modulate the level of C. jejuni virulence by affecting the degree of protein glycosylation. Since iron homeostasis has been shown to be Fur regulated in C. jejuni, an isogenic fur mutant was used to define the Fur regulon by transcriptome profiling. A total of 53 genes were Fur regulated, including many genes not previously associated with Fur regulation. A putative Fur binding consensus sequence was identified in the promoter region of most iron-repressed and Fur-regulated genes. Interestingly, a fur mutant was found to be significantly affected in its ability to colonize the gastrointestinal tract of chicks, highlighting the importance of iron homeostasis in vivo. Directed mutagenesis of other genes identified by the microarray analyses allowed the characterization of the ferric enterobactin receptor, previously named CfrA. Chick colonization assays indicated that mutants defective in enterobactin-mediated iron acquisition were unable to colonize the gastrointestinal tract. In addition, a mutation in a receptor (Cj0178) for an uncharacterized iron source also resulted in reduced colonization potential. Overall, this work documents the complex response of C. jejuni to iron availability, describes the genetic network between the Fur and iron regulons, and provides insight regarding the role of iron in C. jejuni colonization in vivo.
DSP based modular face recognition system

In this study we develop a complete face recognition system using a CMOS camera and DM6437 Digital Video Development Platform. The face recognition system consists of several processing sub modules. First face region is detected in captured video frames. Then face regions are scaled into fixed sized images by using DSP VPFE resizer and are divided into overlapping sub-regions. Independent features are extracted by applying DCT to each sub region. Discriminating features are determined by Fisher Discrimating Value and variable length of features are selected from each region. Then faces are classified by Nearest Neighbour Classifier. Detected and identified faces are shown on the screen, connected to s-video output of the DM6437 EVM. Thus, by utilizing video processing environment of DM6437 we realize a low cost face recognition system.
Rapid diagnosis of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis by use of Reagent Strips

We studied the use of reagent strips for diagnosis of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) in cirrhotic patients with ascites. A reagent strip for leukocyte esterase designed for the testing of urine with a colorimetric 5‐grade scale (0 to 4) was used to evaluate ascitic fluid in 228 nonselected paracentesis performed in 128 cirrhotic patients. We diagnosed 52 SBP and 5 secondary bacterial peritonitis by means of polymorphonuclear cell count and classical criteria. When we considered positive a reagent strip result of 3 or 4, sensitivity was 89% (51 of 57), specificity was 99% (170 of 171), and positive predictive value was 98%. When we considered positive a reagent strip result of 2 or more, sensitivity was 96% (55 of 57), specificity was 89% (152 of 171), and negative predictive value was 99%. In conclusion, the use of reagent strips is a rapid, easy to use, and inexpensive tool for diagnosis of ascitic fluid infection. A positive result should be an indication for empirical antibiotic therapy, and a negative result may be useful as a screening test to exclude SBP. (Hepatology 2003;37:893‐896.)
A Memory Accounting Interface for The Java Programming Language

Widespread use of the Internet infrastructure for deploying services creates new issues and raises serious concerns regarding the security of their execution environment. Ideas of employing dynamic distributed systems for mounting e-services on the web are gaining strength. The main idea behind their proposed design is the use of distributed extensions. This permits execution of un-trusted service code at clients, content distribution service machines or proxies, in order to make the dynamic services more effective. Over the past few years Java has surfaced as an attractive option for constructing web services and programming their execution environment. Java provides the capability of automatic memory operations but fails to provide an accounting interface. In order to make the services more secure the language needs a robust resource accounting interface. This paper discusses the design and implementation of a memory accounting interface as a key component of resource management. We discuss the design, implementation and issues regarding the implementation of this system. To consider its practical application, we evaluate the performance and accuracy of this system.