Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deterministic construction of sparse binary and ternary matrices from existing binary sensing matrices

In the present work, we discuss a procedure for constructing sparse binary and ternary matrices from existing two binary sensing matrices. The matrices that we construct have several attractive properties such as smaller density, which supports algorithms with low computational complexity. As an application of our method, we show that a CS matrix of general row size different from $p, p^2, pq$ (for different primes $p,q$) can be constructed.
Learning Depth Calibration of Time-of-Flight Cameras

We present a novel method for an automatic calibration of modern consumer Timeof-Flight (ToF) cameras. Usually, these sensors come equipped with an integrated color camera. Albeit they deliver acquisitions at high frame rates they usually suffer from incorrect calibration and low accuracy due to multiple error sources. Using information from both cameras together with a simple planar target, we will show how to accurately calibrate both color and depth camera, and tackle most error sources inherent to ToF technology in a unified calibration framework. Automatic feature detection minimizes user interaction during calibration. We utilize a Random Regression Forest to optimize the manufacturer supplied depth measurements. We show the improvements to commonly used depth calibration methods in a qualitative and quantitative evaluation on multiple scenes acquired by an accurate reference system for the application of dense 3D reconstruction.
A jamming-resistant MAC protocol for single-hop wireless networks

In this paper we consider the problem of designing a medium access control (MAC) protocol for single-hop wireless networks that is provably robust against adaptive adversarial jamming. The wireless network consists of a set of honest and reliable nodes that are within the transmission range of each other. In addition to these nodes there is an adversary. The adversary may know the protocol and its entire history and use this knowledge to jam the wireless channel at will at any time. It is allowed to jam a (1-epsilon)-fraction of the time steps, for an arbitrary constant epsilon>0, but it has to make a jamming decision before it knows the actions of the nodes at the current step. The nodes cannot distinguish between the adversarial jamming or a collision of two or more messages that are sent at the same time. We demonstrate, for the first time, that there is a local-control MAC protocol requiring only very limited knowledge about the adversary and the network that achieves a constant throughput for the non-jammed time steps under any adversarial strategy above. We also show that our protocol is very energy efficient and that it can be extended to obtain a robust and efficient protocol for leader election and the fair use of the wireless channel.
A MAC Protocol with Directional Antennas for Deafness Avoidance in Ad Hoc Networks

Directional antennas are expected to provide significant improvements over omni-directional antennas in wireless ad hoc networks. Directional MAC protocols, however, introduce new kinds of problems arising from directivity. One major problem is deafness, caused by a lack of state information from neighbor nodes (i.e., idle or busy). This paper proposes DMAC/DA (Directional MAC with Deafness Avoidance) to overcome the deafness problem. In DMAC/DA, WTS (Wait To Send) frames are transmitted by the transmitter and the receiver after the successful exchange of directional RTS (Request To Send) and CTS (Clear To Send) to notify the on-going communication to potential transmitters that may experience deafness. Furthermore, DMAC/DA is enhanced by the next packet notification to distinguish transmitters from neighbors. We evaluate our protocol through extensive simulation study with different values of parameters such as the number of flows, data size and beamwidth. The experimental results show that DMAC/DA outperforms existing directional MAC protocols, such as DMAC (Directional MAC) and MDA (MAC protocol for Directional Antennas), in terms of throughput, RTS failure ratio, and control overhead.
Combining a Formal with an Example-driven Approach for Data Integration

Integrating data sources is a general problem in many scenarios. The main problem is the heterogeneity between data sources which were created and developed separately. In the literature there exist many different approaches to solve that problem. Schema integration approaches derive an integrated schema by resolving conflicts on schema and data model level. Another kind of approaches are multidatabase languages and systems which define and verify views on top of example databases. They try to map local data to a predefined, integrated schema. In this paper we investigate how the schema integration approach GIM and the example-driven approach VIBE basing on FRAQL can be combined for a new combined approach. The combined approach benefits from the powerful mapping language FRAQL and the verification feature by using example databases and from the extensional analysis of the GIM approach. We discuss the advantages of such a combined approach and show its potential in many integration scenarios.
The Efficiency Evaluation of the College Which Based on DEA

On the basis of introduce the DEA method and twelve colleges of a certain university as research target, the paper select the number of teacher and stuff, the total number of teaching equipment, the number of students and academic papers, then respectively as input indicators and output indicators. The use of the of DEA and the BCC model will conduct comprehensive analysis and evaluation for its operating efficiency and put forward a number of improvement recommendations against the departments which have lower operating efficiency.
Phishing in Finance

Phishing is continually shown to be a problem in network security. Phishing is trickery towards the user believing that he or she is communicating with a trusted source. Most phishing attacks are focused on the financial infrastructure such as financial institutions like banks and services like Paypal. We proposed a different interface than the traditional browsers which prove through past research are prone to fail in complete security. A thin client instead will be created to allow a secure connection between a client and the institution. We believe that this is a better way to prevent people from losing their private information due to phishing.
Comparative Metagenomic Analysis of Soil Microbial Communities across Three Hexachlorocyclohexane Contamination Levels

This paper presents the characterization of the microbial community responsible for the in-situ bioremediation of hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH). Microbial community structure and function was analyzed using 16S rRNA amplicon and shotgun metagenomic sequencing methods for three sets of soil samples. The three samples were collected from a HCH-dumpsite (450 mg HCH/g soil) and comprised of a HCH/soil ratio of 0.45, 0.0007, and 0.00003, respectively. Certain bacterial; (Chromohalobacter, Marinimicrobium, Idiomarina, Salinosphaera, Halomonas, Sphingopyxis, Novosphingobium, Sphingomonas and Pseudomonas), archaeal; (Halobacterium, Haloarcula and Halorhabdus) and fungal (Fusarium) genera were found to be more abundant in the soil sample from the HCH-dumpsite. Consistent with the phylogenetic shift, the dumpsite also exhibited a relatively higher abundance of genes coding for chemotaxis/motility, chloroaromatic and HCH degradation (lin genes). Reassembly of a draft pangenome of Chromohalobacter salaxigenes sp. (∼8X coverage) and 3 plasmids (pISP3, pISP4 and pLB1; 13X coverage) containing lin genes/clusters also provides an evidence for the horizontal transfer of HCH catabolism genes.
Deadline-guaranteed scheduling algorithm with improved resource utilization for cloud computing

Cloud computing is computing in which large groups of remote servers are networked to allow centralized data storage and on-line access to computer services. Cloud computing providers install and operate application software in the cloud through Software as a Service (SaaS) model. Cloud users access the software and utilizes the services by cloning tasks onto multiple virtual machines (VMs). In recent years, offering high-performance computing capacity reminds cloud providers to utilize resources fully due to limitation of resource. Enhancing resource utilization is also essential for achieving cost effectiveness. In addition, SaaS applications support various services such as email, FTP, and multimedia services with different delay requirement. Among these application multimedia service has relatively low delay requirements. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a scheduling algorithm to enhance both deadline guarantee and resource utilization. We modified the conservative backfilling algorithm by utilizing the earliest deadline first (EDF) algorithm and the largest weight first (LWF) algorithm. The proposed algorithm first score all the jobs arrived at the data center(DC) and sort the jobs in ascending order to serve high priority job first. The proposed algorithm then select the largest possible backfill job as guaranteeing deadline. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm significantly improve the performance in terms of resource utilization and deadline guarantee.
A Tale of Aborigines, Conquerors and Slaves: Alu Insertion Polymorphisms and the Peopling of Canary Islands

Classical, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y chromosome markers have been used to examine the genetic admixture in present day inhabitants of the Canary Islands. In this study, we report the analysis of ten autosomal Alu insertion polymorphisms in 364 samples from the seven main islands of the Archipelago, and their comparison to continental samples. The detection of population‐specific alleles from the Iberian Peninsula and Northwest Africa, as well as their affinities on the basis of genetic distances and principal component analysis, support a clear link between these populations. Coincident with previous results, the Canarian gene pool can be distinguished as being halfway between those of its putative parents, although with a major Iberian contribution (62‐78%). Both the substantial Northwest African contribution (23‐38%), and the minor sub‐Saharan African input (3%), suggest that the genetic legacy from the aborigines and slaves still persists in the Canary Islanders.
Detection of N526K-substituted penicillin-binding protein 3 conferring low-level mutational resistance to β-lactam antibiotics in Haemophilus influenzae by disc diffusion testing on Mueller-Hinton agar according to EUCAST guidelines.

OBJECTIVES EUCAST has recently authorized a new disc diffusion test for routine antimicrobial susceptibility testing of Haemophilus influenzae, calibrated to EUCAST MIC breakpoints. We investigated whether disc diffusion testing as recommended by EUCAST could discriminate strains of H. influenzae carrying the N526K substitution in penicillin-binding protein 3 from the wild-type population. METHODS A total of 170 recent clinical isolates, genetically characterized for the presence of acquired and mutational resistance mechanisms, were tested by disc diffusion of β-lactam antibiotics on supplemented Mueller-Hinton agar. Tentative epidemiological breakpoint values for the presence of the N526K substitution were suggested for various β-lactams, and the performances were calculated. RESULTS Epidemiological cut-off values of 19/20 mm for ampicillin (2 μg) and 11/12 mm for benzylpenicillin (1 U) accurately categorized 96% of the study strains, and outperformed cephalosporin-containing discs in the discrimination of mutational resistance in β-lactamase-non-producing isolates. Current EUCAST interpretative criteria for the categorization of clinical resistance showed concordance between resistance rates based on MIC and zone diameter breakpoints for both ampicillin and cefuroxime, but categorization of individual isolates was not consistent. CONCLUSIONS Disc diffusion testing of H. influenzae accurately identified β-lactamase-non-producing isolates with the N526K substitution by use of discs containing low amounts of penicillins. Cephalosporin-containing discs could detect mutational resistance in β-lactamase-producing isolates, but performed with reduced specificity.
A Critical Risk Analysis of Absenteeism in the Work Place

This study seeks to validate the fact that there is a problem of absenteeism amongst employees in different workplaces and analyzes the impact of a persistent absenteeism by employees on the organization. Employees can be absent at work for various reasons or just deciding to be rebellious as a sign of registering some concerns especially associated with job dissatisfaction in the workplace. Absenteeism in the workplace is catastrophic as it hinders performance and results. Organisations, therefore, should put mechanisms in place that would be geared towards curbing this rampant attitude that should not be entertained. The researcher in this article, based on a narration and assembly of several kinds of literature, explore and expound the types of absenteeism and what influences employees to stay away from work as well as solution to arrest the situation. There is a need for management to countermeasure issues of absenteeism because they impact negatively to the finances, an image of the organization and derail progress too. A qualitative approach was considered when compiling this paper in order to analyse the topic.
Comparison of standard laminectomy with an optimized ejection method for the removal of spinal cords from rats and mice

Abstract For researchers seeking to collect spinal cord samples from mice and rats while avoiding acid decalcification, few options are available. Laminectomy is the standard method which yields high quality samples, yet is time consuming and technically difficult. Ejection of the cord from the vertebral column is another technique commonly used; however, the literature suggests that this method can damage the spinal tissues and is typically avoided when histology of samples is the desired endpoint. Here, we describe an optimized method for ejection of spinal cords from rats and mice, and compare histological quality of these samples with those collected via laminectomy. Our results show that ejection can yield high quality spinal cord samples and may be suitable for use as an alternative to laminectomy.
A Switched-Capacitor Band-Pass Filter For Low-Voltage Applications

A switched-capacitor (SC) biquad band-pass filter for very low-voltage applications is designed and fabricated in 1mum CMOS process, which can operate at 1V supply voltage, consuming 287muW at room temperature. In the SC filter circuit proposed, a novel rail-to-rail operational amplifier is used to obtain the maximum dynamic range. The band-pass filter has BW-3dB=101Hz at its central frequency of 376Hz
Functional Genomic and Serological Analysis of the Protective Immune Response Resulting from Vaccination of Macaques with an NS1-Truncated Influenza Virus

We are still inadequately prepared for an influenza pandemic due to the lack of a vaccine effective for subtypes to which the majority of the human population has no prior immunity and which could be produced rapidly in sufficient quantities. There is therefore an urgent need to investigate novel vaccination approaches. Using a combination of genomic and traditional tools, this study compares the protective efficacy in macaques of an intrarespiratory live influenza virus vaccine produced by truncating NS1 in the human influenza A/Texas/36/91 (H1N1) virus with that of a conventional vaccine based on formalin-killed whole virus. After homologous challenge, animals in the live-vaccine group had greatly reduced viral replication and pathology in lungs and reduced upper respiratory inflammation. They also had lesser induction of innate immune pathways in lungs and of interferon-sensitive genes in bronchial epithelium. This postchallenge response contrasted with that shortly after vaccination, when more expression of interferon-sensitive genes was observed in bronchial cells from the live-vaccine group. This suggested induction of a strong innate immune response shortly after vaccination with the NS1-truncated virus, followed by greater maturity of the postchallenge immune response, as demonstrated with robust influenza virus-specific CD4+ T-cell proliferation, immunoglobulin G production, and transcriptional induction of T- and B-cell pathways in lung tissue. In conclusion, a single respiratory tract inoculation with an NS1-truncated influenza virus was effective in protecting nonhuman primates from homologous challenge. This protection was achieved in the absence of significant or long-lasting adverse effects and through induction of a robust adaptive immune response.
Variational inequalities and the pricing of Americanoptions yPatrick

This paper is devoted to the derivation of some regularity properties of pricing functions for American options and to the discussion of numerical methods, based on the Bensoussan-Lions methods of varia-tional inequalities. In particular, we provide a complete justiication of the so-called Brennan-Schwartz algorithm for the valuation of Ameri-can put options.
An analysis of some common scanning techniques for lossless image coding

We analyze the performance of context-based lossless image coding techniques in conjunction with the Hilbert and raster scans. Our analysis shows that, under certain reasonable assumptions, the raster scan is indeed better than the Hilbert scan, thereby dispelling the popular notion that using a Hilbert scan would always lead to improved performance.
RevProbe: detecting silent reverse proxies in malicious server infrastructures

Web service operators set up reverse proxies to interpose the communication between clients and origin servers for load-balancing traffic across servers, caching content, and filtering attacks. Silent reverse proxies, which do not reveal their proxy role to the client, are of particular interest since malicious infrastructures can use them to hide the existence of the origin servers, adding an indirection layer that helps protecting origin servers from identification and take-downs. We present RevProbe, a state-of-the-art tool for automatically detecting silent reverse proxies and identifying the server infrastructure behind them. RevProbe uses active probing to send requests to a target IP address and analyzes the responses looking for discrepancies indicating that the IP address corresponds to a reverse proxy. We extensively test RevProbe showing that it significantly outperforms existing tools. Then, we apply RevProbe to perform the first study on the usage of silent reverse proxies in both benign and malicious Web services. RevProbe identifies that 12% of malicious IP addresses correspond to reverse proxies, furthermore 85% of those are silent (compared to 52% for benign reverse proxies).
RLIMS-P 2.0: A Generalizable Rule-Based Information Extraction System for Literature Mining of Protein Phosphorylation Information

We introduce RLIMS-P version 2.0, an enhanced rule-based information extraction (IE) system for mining kinase, substrate, and phosphorylation site information from scientific literature. Consisting of natural language processing and IE modules, the system has integrated several new features, including the capability of processing full-text articles and generalizability towards different post-translational modifications (PTMs). To evaluate the system, sets of abstracts and full-text articles, containing a variety of textual expressions, were annotated. On the abstract corpus, the system achieved F-scores of 0.91, 0.92, and 0.95 for kinases, substrates, and sites, respectively. The corresponding scores on the full-text corpus were 0.88, 0.91, and 0.92. It was additionally evaluated on the corpus of the 2013 BioNLP-ST GE task, and achieved an F-score of 0.87 for the phosphorylation core task, improving upon the results previously reported on the corpus. Full-scale processing of all abstracts in MEDLINE and all articles in PubMed Central Open Access Subset has demonstrated scalability for mining rich information in literature, enabling its adoption for biocuration and for knowledge discovery. The new system is generalizable and it will be adapted to tackle other major PTM types. RLIMS-P 2.0 online system is available online (http://proteininformationresource.org/rlimsp/) and the developed corpora are available from iProLINK (http://proteininformationresource.org/iprolink/).
A multicurrency extension of the lognormal interest rate Market Models

Abstract. The Market Models of the term structure of interest rates, in which forward LIBOR or forward swap rates are modelled to be lognormal under the forward probability measure of the corresponding maturity, are extended to a multicurrency setting. If lognormal dynamics are assumed for forward LIBOR or forward swap rates in two currencies, the forward exchange rate linking the two currencies can only be chosen to be lognormal for one maturity, with the dynamics for all other maturities given by no–arbitrage relationships. Alternatively, one could choose forward interest rates in only one currency, say the domestic, to be lognormal and postulate lognormal dynamics for all forward exchange rates, with the dynamics of foreign interest rates determined by no-arbitrage relationships.
MOCCA - a system that learns and recommends visual preferences based on cultural similarity

We demonstrate our culturally adaptive system MOCCA, which is able to automatically adapt its visual appearance to the user's national culture. Rather than only adapting to one nationality, MOCCA takes into account a person's current and previous countries of residences, and uses this information to calculate user-specific preferences. In addition, the system is able to learn new, and refine existing adaptation rules from users' manual modifications of the user interface based on a collaborative filtering mechanism, and from observing the user's interaction with the interface.
A Robust Algorithm for Iris Localization Based on Radial Symmetry

Previous algorithms have good localization performance for iris images captured in the ideal condition. However, in practice, the quality of iris image is greatly influenced by luminance, eyelashes, hair or glasses frame, which is easy to cause mis- localization. In order to improve the robustness of iris localization, this paper proposes a new localization algorithm based on the radial symmetry transform, in which the radial symmetry characteristic of the pupil is fully used to realize iris localization. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can efficiently avoid the interference of luminance and other bad conditions, and realize robust precise localization in a real-time system.
Factors Affecting Business Success of Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Thailand

This study attempted to identify factors that are affecting business success of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Thailand. The intention of this study is to provide the understanding on how people should start their business by looking at all the factors affecting business success hence help to reduce the risk of failure and increase chances of success. The study examined eight factors that influence the SMEs business success. These factors are: SMEs characteristic, management and know-how, products and services, Customer and Market, the way of doing business and cooperation, resources and finance, Strategy, and external environment. The theoretical framework has been drawn out and questionnaire was designed based on the factors chosen. Eight hypotheses were developed to find out factors that are affecting Business Success of SMEs in Thailand. The entire hypotheses were successfully tested with SPSS and five hypotheses were accepted. The regression analysis result shown that the most significant factors affecting business success of SMEs in Thailand were SMEs characteristics, customer and market, the way of doing business, resources and finance, and external environment.