Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reputation for Quality

We propose a model of firm reputation in which a firm can invest or disinvest in product quality and the firm's reputation is defined as the market's belief about this quality. We analyze the relationship between a firm's reputation and its investment incentives, and derive implications for reputational dynamics. Reputational incentives depend on the specification of market learning. When consumers learn about quality through perfect good news signals, incentives decrease in reputation and there is a unique work–shirk equilibrium with ergodic dynamics. When learning is through perfect bad news signals, incentives increase in reputation and there is a continuum of shirk–work equilibria with path-dependent dynamics. For a class of imperfect Poisson learning processes and low investment costs, we show that there exists a work–shirk equilibrium with ergodic dynamics. For a subclass of these learning processes, any equilibrium must feature working at all low and intermediate levels of reputation and shirking at the top.
A New Approach to Synthesis of Static Medical Images

A collection of new algorithms for the synthesis of images of melanocytic skin lesion is briefly outlined. The main concept of the research is the attempt to “reverse” the role of the elements constituting the philosophy of so-called TDS-parameter (Total Dermatoscopic Score) briefly described in the paper. The applied methodology consists in executing the semantic analysis of the textual vector, describing the lesion. The same vector is used for the visual representation of the regarded lesion. It seems, that synthetic images generated by means of the developed algorithms can also be used as an alternative source of knowledge in relation to real digital images. It is assumed that the developed methodology can be applied in education of dermatology students and preferred medical doctors.
Visual Information in Semantic Representation

The question of how meaning might be acquired by young children and represented by adult speakers of a language is one of the most debated topics in cognitive science. Existing semantic representation models are primarily amodal based on information provided by the linguistic input despite ample evidence indicating that the cognitive system is also sensitive to perceptual information. In this work we exploit the vast resource of images and associated documents available on the web and develop a model of multimodal meaning representation which is based on the linguistic and visual context. Experimental results show that a closer correspondence to human data can be obtained by taking the visual modality into account.
DRISTI: Distributed Real-Time In-Situ Seismic Tomographic Imaging

Seismic tomographic imaging is a complex process for imaging the subsurface geological structures. It involves massive data acquisition, signal processing and computing. Traditionally, the voluminous data is logged in each station then manually gathered to a centralized location for post processing. It may take months to see the subsurface image. To see real-time subsurface dynamics, we developed a Distributed Real-Time In-Situ Seismic Tomographic Imaging (DRISTI) system. Unlike the traditional system, it has smart in-situ processing and computing capability that can compute seismic images in real-time. Additionally, each station is equipped with a low-power radio unit that enables collaborative signal processing via a mesh network. We demonstrate the capability of this system by performing experiments with real seismic data traces as well as outdoor experiments. The evaluation shows that the DRISTI system can generate the results that match the ones obtained from a traditional centralized processing. The result from an outdoor hammer shock field experiment using DRISTI system align with the scientific facts and it is able to image the subsurface characteristics.
Daylight, Shape, and Cross-Cultural Influences Through the Routes of Discoveries: The Case of Baroque Temples

Baroque temples were developed in the context of cross-cultural influences through new territories where the climatic conditions were often opposed to those prevailing in Europe. The nature of weather differences could not be predicted with the knowledge of the era and consequently, a set of gradual and successive transformations in the typologies “imported” from Europe was produced. These adaptations were lengthy, intuitive, and not always recognizable by the Metropolitan culture. Although daylight requirements played an important role in this process and its quality in baroque temples is celebrated by architectural historians, very few daylighting simulations and on-site measurements have been developed. Therefore, a twofold result is produced: Daylighting’s beneficial effects can neither be transmitted nor reproduced in other new buildings. Consequently, we discuss in this article the results of a daylighting simulation program capable of analyzing complex baroque temples around the world and to show the implications of its environmental attitude.
Probability of error for equal-gain combiners over Rayleigh channels: some closed-form solutions

The probability of error of a general equal-gain combiner (EG) in closed form is not available in the literature. By formulating the problem in the framework of signal detection and evaluating the probability of error directly from the characteristic function (CF) of the signal at the combiner output, we obtain closed-form solutions for the probability of error of the EG combiner with two or three branches operating over a Rayleigh-fading channel.
Population Genomic Analysis of Base Composition Evolution in Drosophila melanogaster

The relative importance of mutation, selection, and biased gene conversion to patterns of base composition variation in Drosophila melanogaster, and to a lesser extent, D. simulans, has been investigated for many years. However, genomic data from sufficiently large samples to thoroughly characterize patterns of base composition polymorphism within species have been lacking. Here, we report a genome-wide analysis of coding and noncoding polymorphism in a large sample of inbred D. melanogaster strains from Raleigh, North Carolina. Consistent with previous results, we observed that AT mutations fix more frequently than GC mutations in D. melanogaster. Contrary to predictions of previous models of codon usage in D. melanogaster, we found that synonymous sites segregating for derived AT polymorphisms were less skewed toward low frequencies compared with sites segregating a derived GC polymorphism. However, no such pattern was observed for comparable base composition polymorphisms in noncoding DNA. These results suggest that AT-ending codons could currently be favored by natural selection in the D. melanogaster lineage.
Suggestion of Practical Quantification Measuring Method of Test Design Which Can Represent the Current Status

In this paper we suggest the quantification method which can verify the efficiency of the current test design. The existing coverage measuring method cannot verify if SW safely works, and has a difficulty with a different level of understanding between a test case author and an administrator. It also provides the base to measure the outcome of the executed test. Using the suggested coverage measuring method, the test condition can be meaningfully quantified, and the effective and efficient test strategies can be established.
Image denoising based on correlations of inter-scale coefficients in contourlet domain

A new image denoising algorithm based on contourlet transform is presented in this paper. The new approach takes the correlations of inter-scale contourlet coefficients into account in the process of shrinkage, and assumes that the noise-free contourlet coefficients are correlated to their parent coefficients which locate at a different scale. By computing the relativity coefficients across scales, we consider those with smaller values are more likely the noisy coefficients. And then we remove those coefficients whose magnitudes and corresponding relativity coefficients are both small. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can not only maintain the edges of an image, but obtain higher PSNR and better visual quality.
Cost-Effective Triple-Mode Reconfigurable Pipeline FFT/IFFT/2-D DCT Processor

This investigation proposes a novel radix-42 algorithm with the low computational complexity of a radix-16 algorithm but the lower hardware requirement of a radix-4 algorithm. The proposed pipeline radix-42 single delay feedback path (R42SDF) architecture adopts a multiplierless radix-4 butterfly structure, based on the specific linear mapping of common factor algorithm (CFA), to support both 256-point fast Fourier transform/inverse fast Fourier transform (FFT/IFFT) and 8times8 2D discrete cosine transform (DCT) modes following with the high efficient feedback shift registers architecture. The segment shift register (SSR) and overturn shift register (OSR) structure are adopted to minimize the register cost for the input re-ordering and post computation operations in the 8times8 2D DCT mode, respectively. Moreover, the retrenched constant multiplier and eight-folded complex multiplier structures are adopted to decrease the multiplier cost and the coefficient ROM size with the complex conjugate symmetry rule and subexpression elimination technology. To further decrease the chip cost, a finite wordlength analysis is provided to indicate that the proposed architecture only requires a 13-bit internal wordlength to achieve 40-dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) performance in 256-point FFT/IFFT modes and high digital video (DV) compression quality in 8 times 8 2D DCT mode. The comprehensive comparison results indicate that the proposed cost effective reconfigurable design has the smallest hardware requirement and largest hardware utilization among the tested architectures for the FFT/IFFT computation, and thus has the highest cost efficiency. The derivation and chip implementation results show that the proposed pipeline 256-point FFT/IFFT/2D DCT triple-mode chip consumes 22.37 mW at 100 MHz at 1.2-V supply voltage in TSMC 0.13-mum CMOS process, which is very appropriate for the RSoCs IP of next-generation handheld devices.
The POSTECH Statistical Machine Translation Systems for NTCIR-7 Patent Translation Task

This paper describes the POSTECH statistical machine translation (SMT) systems for the NTCIR-7 patent translation task. We entered two patent translation subtasks: Japanese-to-English (KLE-je), and English-toJapanese translation (KLE-ej). The baseline systems are derived from a common phrase-based SMT framework. In addition, for Japanese-to-English translation, we adopted two kinds of methods. The first method is a word reordering model for preprocessing that reorders the words in the source sentence similarly to the order of target sentence before the decoding phase. The second is a cluster based model using syntactic information of Japanese sentences.
Imperial College London MSci Project Modelling Citation Networks

We create three simple citation network models: Models A, B and SH and compared these with a real citation network, hep-th. Model A references uniformly and preferentially, Model B adds a time decay factor and the SH Model includes a one step walk away. The final SH Model produces the best fit including a σ plot that is constant and large. In the SH Model a new publication references r publications with via a normal distribution mean 12.0, standard deviation 3.0. The new publication references ‘core papers’ preferentially with time decay or uniformly with time decay with probability p and 1-p, respectively. The time decay is an exponential time decay with attention span TAS1/2. The new publication can also reference another paper via a one step walk away from a core paper with probability q. The parameters p, q and TAS1/2were supported by the literature. However, we determined these parameters with three original measures or constraints. The first constraint is the proportion of papers within the hep-th arXiv citation network which have no citations, z = 0.169. The second is the number of core papers within the network, hep-th has 3.9. The last constraint is the halflife curve. In our SH Model we find (p, q)= (0.55, 0.20) and TAS1/2 =200 papers. q=0.20 implies 70% of references are copied from a core paper’s bibliography. TAS1/2=200 papers implies that authors are likely to reference several core papers from the proceeding, approximately, 400 papers. Therefore, gaining citations early is important to gaining citations in the future. We discovered two important things. Firstly, referring to time in terms of publications (‘rank time’) not years is crucially important in eliminating bias in many citation network measures (e.g. the in-degree distribution). Secondly, we observe the out-degree of the hep-th arXiv data and fit a lognormal to it. We input this lognormal probability distribution into the SH Model (replacing the normal mean 12.0 standard deviation 3.0). Although the out-degree determined by the normal and lognormal give similar similar in-degree distributions, they are not the same and therefore the out-degree distribution does effect the in-degree distribution. Neither of these points have raised by the literature.
Evolution of microbiological analytical methods for dairy industry needs

Traditionally, culture-based methods have been used to enumerate microbial populations in dairy products. Recent developments in molecular methods now enable faster and more sensitive analyses than classical microbiology procedures. These molecular tools allow a detailed characterization of cell physiological states and bacterial fitness and thus, offer new perspectives to integration of microbial physiology monitoring to improve industrial processes. This review summarizes the methods described to enumerate and characterize physiological states of technological microbiota in dairy products, and discusses the current deficiencies in relation to the industry’s needs. Recent studies show that Polymerase chain reaction-based methods can successfully be applied to quantify fermenting microbes and probiotics in dairy products. Flow cytometry and omics technologies also show interesting analytical potentialities. However, they still suffer from a lack of validation and standardization for quality control analyses, as reflected by the absence of performance studies and official international standards.
Surgical Treatment of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer with Isolated Synchronous Brain Metastases

This study is a retrospective examination of our experiences with patients who underwent treatment of isolated synchronous brain metastases coupled with primary non-small cell lung cancer. From January 1995 to June 2004, 12 patients presented with isolated synchronous brain metastases coupled with primary non-small cell lung cancer. The patient was comprised of 8 men and 4 women. The median age was 52 yr, in a range of 32 to 75 yr. Median follow-up duration was 10.6 months, in a range of 2 to 55.8 months. Recurrence developed in 7 patients, and the median interval from 1st treatment to recurrence was 4.5 months (2.8-6.5 months). The overall 1-yr survival rate was 61.7%. The 1-yr survival rates for pathologic N0 and N1 cases were 75% and 66.7%, respectively. The median survival duration for pathologic N2 was 6.2 months (95% CI, 4.8-7.5 months). The 1-yr survival rate for cases of single brain metastasis was 75%. Based on our current observations, we could speculate that aggressive management of primary non-small cell lung cancer and isolated synchronous brain metastases was beneficial in a selected group of patients, as long as the brain lesions and pulmonary lesions were limited or resectable.
The Teaching-Learning Process and Postsecondary At-Risk Reading Students: Cognitive, Metacognitive, Affective, and Instructional Variables Explaining Academic Performance.

This study investigates the combined effect of student characteristics and instructional method on at-risk college students' academic performance. It examines the relationship of student characteristics and instructional methods to the performance variables of students' grades in a mandatory reading/study course for reading-deficient students; students' scores on a college reading placement examination (exiting scores); and students' grade point averages in self-selected, reading-intensive core curriculum courses earned during the quarter subsequent to completion of the reading/study course. Multiple regression commonality analyses indicate that students' cognitive aptitude for college contributed the largest proportion and the only statstically significant variance to the college placement examination exiting scores and to subsequent grade point averages in reading-intensive core-curriculum courses. The at-risk students' metacognitive awareness of reading/study requirements for college and their affect toward learning in college appeared to have had little effect on their performance. Teaching method contributed the largest proportion and statistically significant variance to students' grades with a small effect on grade point average in subsequent reading classes. Students who were in whole language classes received higher grades in the reading/study course; students with reading/learning strategy training earned the highest grade point averaget subsequent core curriculum courses. Those who received basic reading skills instruction earned the lowest subsequent grade point averages in reading-intensive, core-curriculum courses. (Contains 112 references.) (Author/NAV) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** The Teaching-Learning Process and Postsecondary At-Risk Reading Students: Cognitive, Metacognitive, Affective, and Instructional Variables Explaining Academic Performance Rosemarie Stallworth-Clark Janice S. Scott Sherrie L. Nist Georgia Southern University Clayton State College University of Georgia
How to withstand mobile virus attacks (extended abstract)

We initiate a study of distributed adversarial model of computation in which faults are non-stationary and can move through the network, analogous to a spread of a virus or a worm. We show how local computations (at each processor) and global computations can be made robust using a constant factor resilience and a polynomial factor redundancy in the computation.
Relaxing safely: verified on-the-fly garbage collection for x86-TSO

We report on a machine-checked verification of safety for a state-of-the-art, on-the-fly, concurrent, mark-sweep garbage collector that is designed for multi-core architectures with weak memory consistency. The proof explicitly incorporates the relaxed memory semantics of x86 multiprocessors. To our knowledge, this is the first fully machine-checked proof of safety for such a garbage collector. We couch the proof in a framework that system implementers will find appealing, with the fundamental components of the system specified in a simple and intuitive programming language. The abstract model is detailed enough for its correspondence with an assembly language implementation to be straightforward.
The Homological Nature of Entropy

We propose that entropy is a universal co-homological class in a theory associated to a family of observable quantities and a family of probability distributions. Three cases are presented: (1) classical probabilities and random variables; (2) quantum probabilities and observable operators; (3) dynamic probabilities and observation trees. This gives rise to a new kind of topology for information processes, that accounts for the main information functions: entropy, mutual-informations at all orders, and Kullback–Leibler divergence and generalizes them in several ways. The article is divided into two parts, that can be read independently. In the first part, the introduction, we provide an overview of the results, some open questions, future results and lines of research, and discuss briefly the application to complex data. In the second part we give the complete definitions and proofs of the theorems A, C and E in the introduction, which show why entropy is the first homological invariant of a structure of information in four contexts: static classical or quantum probability, dynamics of classical or quantum strategies of observation of a finite system.
Menstrual cycle effects on sacculocollic reflex pathway

Abstract Introduction: Female sex hormones such as oestrogen and progesterone are found to have direct effects in the sensitivity of cochlea, till central auditory cortex by bringing the variation in vascularity in these regions. The aim of the present study was to assess the influence of sex hormones produced during menstrual cycle on the sacculocollic reflex pathway. Method: Twenty female subjects in the age range of 18–25 years with no vestibular pathologies participated in the study. Cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potential test was administered on all the subjects in three phases of menstrual cycle, that is, follicular phase (1–4 days), luteal phase (12–15 days) and menstrual phase (22–25 days). Results: Friedman Chi-square test of difference among repeated measures was done to check the significant differences in mean latency and amplitude values of cVEMP across three phases of menstrual cycle. Although there were differences in the mean latency and amplitude of cVEMP peaks across three phases of menstrual cycle, the statistical analysis revealed no significant effect of different phases of menstrual cycle on the latency or amplitude parameters of cVEMP. Conclusions: There is no significant effect of different phases of menstrual cycle on the latency or amplitude parameters of cVEMP.
Voice based automatic person identification system using Vector Quantization

This paper presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of a research work for developing an automatic person identification system using voice biometric. The developed automatic person identification system mainly used toolboxes provided by MATLAB environment. To extract features from voice signals, Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) technique was applied producing a set of feature vectors. Subsequently, the system uses the Vector Quantization (VQ) for features training and classification. In order to train and test the developed automatic person identification system, an in-house voice database is created, which contains recordings of 100 persons' usernames (50 males and 50 females) each of which is repeated 30 times. Therefore, a total of 3000 utterances are collected. This paper also investigates the effect of the persons' gender on the overall performance of the system. The voice data collected from female persons outperformed those collected from the male persons, whereby the system obtained average recognition rates of 94.20% and 91.00% for female and male persons, respectively. Overall, the voice based system obtained an average recognition rate of 92.60% for all persons.
Flexible Tree Kernels based on Counting the Number of Tree Mappings

Functions counting the number of common sub-patterns between trees have been promising candidates for kernel functions for trees in learning systems. There are several viewpoints of how two patterns between two trees can be regarded as the same. In the tree edit distance, these viewpoints have been well formalized as the class of tree mappings, and several distance measures have been proposed according to the classes of tree mappings. In this paper, we address the design problem of new flexible tree kernels corresponding to four representative classes of tree mappings. Therefore, first, we develop four counting functions for tree mappings according to the four classes. Secondly, we prove that three of the four counting functions are kernel functions, and the other is not.