Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Flow-Viz - An integrated digital in-line fluid characterization system for industrial applications

The continuous monitoring of rheological parameters of industrial fluids during production is of paramount importance for process and quality control. Up to now, no system capable of a complete and non-invasive in-line measurement is commercially available, so that only time discrete laboratory measurements on fluids specimens are possible. In this work a new, fully integrated ultrasound system for in-line fluid characterization, named Flow-Viz, is presented. The system measures the velocity profile of the fluid moving in a pipe through pulsed Doppler ultrasound, and combines it with the pressure drop. The electronics, featuring two ultrasound transmission/reception channels used alone or in pitch-catch configuration, includes powerful digital processing capabilities for real-time velocity profile calculation, and is fully programmable. Particular attention is paid to low-noise design for achieving the optimal performance in highly attenuating suspensions. An application is presented where the system, coupled to a non-invasive ultrasound sensor unit, performs in-line rheological measurements through the wall of a high-grade stainless steel pipe.
Interactive mining and knowledge reuse for the closed-itemset incremental-mining problem

Using concept lattices as a theoretical background for finding association rules [11] has led to designing algorithms like Charm [10], Close [7] or Closet [8]. While they are considered as extremely appropriate when finding concepts for association rules, due to the smaller amount of results, they do not cover a certain area of significant results, namely the pseudo-intents that form the base for global implications. We have proposed an approach that, besides finding all proper partial implications, also finds the pseudo-intents. The way our algorithm is devised, it allows certain important operations on concept lattices, like adding or extracting items, meaning we can reuse previously found results. It is a well-known fact that mining association rules may lead to a large amount of results. Since, the mining results are meant to be understood by the user, we have come to the conclusion that he will benefit more from starting small, with some of the items in the data base, understand a small amount of results, and then add items receiving only the extra-results. This way the number of human interventions during the "full" mining process is increased and the process becomes user-driven.
The Optimal Payment of Unemployment Insurance Benefits over Time

The primary purpose of unemployment insurance (U.I.) is no doubt to insure individuals against loss of wage income. However, U.I. is commonly believed to adversely affect job search behavior and to lengthen the duration of unemployment. With these issues in mind, this paper asks how U.I. benefits ought to be paid out over time. Specifically, the paper uses a theoretical model to determine characteristics of the time sequence of benefits that maximizes the expected utility of the unemployed, given that they act in a self-interested way and given the total size of the U.I. budget.
Performance differences between winning and losing under-19, under-21 and senior teams in men’s beach volleyball

Abstract This study aimed to compare beach volleyball performance indicators between winning and losing teams in different age groups. Game actions from the 2010 to 2011 Men’s World Championships were observed using video match analysis (6095 from under-19, 5138 from under-21 and 8705 from senior matches). Variables assessed were: number of points won in each complex of the game, number of points and errors by game action (serve, attack in side-out, attack in counterattack, block and other errors); and performance coefficient of game actions (serve, reception, set in side-out, set in counterattack, attack in side-out, attack in counterattack, block and dig). Practical significance of data was analysed using magnitude-based inferences. Results have showed similar patterns in the three age groups. There were differences in the game profile according to the game result and age group. Winning teams scored more points in counterattack: points from the opponent’s attack errors, counterattack points, block points and points from other errors. The article provides new insights to beach volleyball coaches and performance analysts, emphasising the need to consider the interaction between different performance indicators, both in training process and match analysis in beach volleyball.
The dynamics of personal and social identity formation

"Each one of us has two heritages, a "vertical" one that comes to us from our ancestors, our religious community and our popular traditions, and a "horizontal" one transmitted to us by our contemporaries and by the age we live in. It seems to me that the latter is the more influential of the two, and that it becomes more so every day. Yet this fact is not reflected in our perception of ourselves, and the inheritance we invoke most frequently is the vertical one. " (Maalouf, 2000, p. 102)
Unsupervised speaker indexing using one-class Support Vector Machines

This paper addresses the unsupervised speaker change detection problem, which is a key issue in any audio indexing process. Here, we derive a new approach based on the Kernel Change Detection algorithm introduced recently by Desobry et al. This new algorithm does not require explicit modeling of the data, and is able to deal with large dimensional acoustic feature vectors. Several experiments using RT'03 NIST data show the efficiency of the algorithm. Comparisons to the well known GLR-BIC algorithm are presented, for various parameter settings.
Continuous Chinese Handwriting Recognition with Language Model

In this paper, we proposed a method to recognize the handwriting of several Chinese characters or even a full sentence simultaneously. With a common single Chinese character recognition engine and a language model, the whole recognition process is divided into two optimization processes. The first is to find the best grouping scheme to segment a plurality of written strokes into characters, and the following process is to find the best character sequence corresponding to those stroke groups. Some measures are utilized to speed up both optimization processes, in order that it is applicable on portable devices. Based on our test on over 35000 characters or 2200 sentences, the overall performance is quite promising, and the positive feedback from the testers have confirmed the validity of the proposed method.
The relationship between adult basic and adult secondary educational instructional styles and learner outcomes when measured as educational gain on the national reporting system

The research activity was designed to explore the i dea of a predominance of one of two teaching styles, defined as teacher-centered or lea rner-centered, among adult basic education and adult secondary education teachers in Missouri. Th e Principles of Adult Learning Scale (Conti, 1985), consisting of 44 questions, was employed to i entify the teaching style of respondents. The scores on the survey were compared to the educa tional outcome measure provided by the Department of Education and State of Missouri with the intention that conclusions as to the efficacy of one of the two styles would be revealed . The survey was distributed to the 36 adult educatio n pr grams in Missouri Three total attempts to obtain responses were made during the s urv y period. Of the 756 fulland part-time teachers in the Missouri system, 89 surveys were re turn d but due to improperly identified or unidentified numbers, only 34 of the survey respons es were deemed usable. Requiring a minimum sample of approximately 250 upo n which to draw inferential conclusions, no generalizations could be drawn abou t the larger population of Missouri adult basic education and adult secondary education teach ers. Descriptive statistics relative to the 34 participants revealed that most of the teachers wer e female and the highest education level was the doctorate, but most teachers held masters. The sample group average age was above 40 with 42 % older than 60. As to tenure in adult educatio n 62 % of responding teachers had taught adult education for more than five years and 42% greater than 10 years. The 34 teachers favored teacher-centered instructional methods versus stude n -centered instructional methods. Teaching Styles and Learner Outcomes ii
Explicit Generalized Predictive Control of Speed and Position of PMSM Drives

This paper deals with a specific explicit design of Generalized Predictive Control (GPC) for speed and position of three-phase Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors (PMSM). Predictive algorithms are designed with single and double integrations with respect to step and ramp reference signals. Needful field weakening and current limitation are solved by specific procedures based on a local indirect tuning/amplification of the relevant GPC parameters. The proposed solution due to low computational demands is suitable for real applications. Designed algorithms and procedures are demonstrated by figures and oscillogram screenshots of representative variables measured on the 10.7 kW PMSM drive.
Shift in Phenotypic Characteristics of Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) Isolated from Diarrheal Patients in Bangladesh

Background Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) is one of the most common causes of bacterial diarrhea. Over the last decade, from 1996 to 2012, changes in the virulence antigen properties of ETEC such as heat labile (LT) and heat stable (ST) toxins, colonization factors (CFs), and ‘O’-serogroups have been observed. The aim of this prospective study was to compare changes in antigenic profiles of ETEC strains isolated from a 2% surveillance system at the icddr,b hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh between 2007–2012 and an earlier time period of 1996–1998 conducted at the same surveillance site. Methodology In the surveillance system every 50th patient attending the hospital was screened for major enteric pathogens including ETEC, Vibrio cholerae, Shigella spp. and Salmonella spp. from January 2007 to December 2012. Principal Findings Of the 15,152 diarrheal specimens tested between 2007–2012, the overall rate of ETEC isolation was 11%; of these, 43% were LT/ST, 27% LT and 30% ST positive. Isolation rate of ST-ETEC (p<0.009) and LT/ST ETEC (p<0.011) during 2007–2012 period differed significantly compared to those seen between 1996–1998. In comparison to the 1996–1998 period, difference in CF profile of ETEC isolates during 2007–2012 was observed particularly for strains expressing CS7 (12.4%), CS14 (9.5%) and CS17 (10.0%). The predominant CF types were CS5+CS6, CFA/I, CS7, CS17, CS1+CS3, CS6 and CS14. The most common serogroups among the CF positive ETEC isolates were O115, O114, O6, O25 and O8. A strong association was found between CFs and ‘O’ serogroups i.e. between CS5+CS6 and (O115 and O126); CS7 and (O114), CFA/I and (O78 and O126), CS17 and (O8 and O167) and CS1/CS2+CS3 and (O6). Conclusion The analyses show a shift in prevalence of antigenic types of ETEC over the study period; the information is important in designing effective ETEC vaccines with broad protective coverage.
The function of FUNCTION in LISP or why the FUNARG problem should be called the environment problem

A problem common to many powerful programming languages arises when one has to determine what values to assign to free variables in functions. Different implementational approaches which attempt to solve the problem are considered. The discussion concentrates on LISP implementations and points out why most current LISP systems are not as general as the original LISP 1.5 system. Readers not familiar with LISP should be able to read this paper without difficulty since we have tried to couch the argument in ALGOL-like terms as much as possible.
Visits: A Spatiotemporal Visualization of Location Histories

Location histories are rapidly becoming easily collectable and offer new opportunities for personal reminiscing. However, while location history data contains both temporal and location information, maps provide the location content while downplaying temporal aspects and timelines focus on the temporal sequence, minimizing the spatial aspects. In contrast, autobiographical memories incorporate both time and location. To address this gap, we present Visits , a visualization system that puts time and location on equal footing. Our hybrid visualization technique, map-timelines , shows location histories as a sequence of visited places represented as map segments on a timeline. This shows the chronological order and the duration of stays, reveals repeated visits of the same place and preserves the ﬁne-grained location information of the underlying data. We demonstrate a possible use of Visits for both main types of location histories, long-term lifelogging data and short-term travel logs. Categories and Subject Descriptors (
A statistical approach with syntactic and semantic features for Chinese Textual Entailment

Recognizing Textual Entailment (RTE) is a PASCAL/TAC task in which two text fragments are processed by system to determine whether the meaning of hypothesis is entailed from another text or not. In this paper, we proposed a textual entailment system using a statistical approach that integrates syntactic and semantic techniques for Recognizing Inference in Text (RITE) using the NTCIR-9 RITE task and make a comparison between semantic and syntactic features based on their differences. We thoroughly evaluate our approach using subtasks of the NTCIR-9 RITE. As a result, our system achieved 73.28% accuracy on the Chinese Binary-Class (BC) subtask with NTCIR-9 RITE. Thorough experiments with the text fragments provided by the NTCIR-9 RITE task show that the proposed approach can significantly improve system accuracy.
Secret key capacity for multipleaccess channel with public feedback

We consider the generation of a secret key (SK) by the inputs and the output of a secure multipleaccess channel (MAC) that additionally have access to a noiseless public communication channel. Under specific restrictions on the protocols, we derive various upper bounds on the rate of such SKs. Specifically, if the public communication consists of only the feedback from the output terminal, then the rate of SKs that can be generated is bounded above by the maximum symmetric rate R*f in the capacity region of the MAC with feedback. On the other hand, if the public communication is allowed only before and after the transmission over the MAC, then the rate of SKs is bounded above by the maximum symmetric rate R* in the capacity region of the MAC without feedback. Furthermore, for a symmetric MAC, we present a scheme that generates an SK of rate R*f, improving the best previously known achievable rate R*. An application of our results establishes the SK capacity for adder MAC, without any restriction on the protocols.
Toward the automatic assessment of evolvability for reusable class libraries

Many sources agree that managing the evolution of an OO system constitutes a complex and resource-consuming task. This is particularly true for reusable class libraries, as the user interface must be preserved to allow for version compatibility. Thus, the symptomatic detection of potential instabilities during the design phase of such libraries may serve to avoid later problems. This paper presents a fuzzy logic-based approach for evaluating the interface stability of a reusable class library, by using structural metrics as stability indicators.
Ray - a secure micro kernel architecture

In this paper we present a secure micro kernel architecture (called Ray) that was designed from scratch with security goals in mind. It features some traditional security aspects like process isolation, advanced non-standard security aspects like padded non-readable memory boundaries and new contributions like memory gifts and behaviour deviation detection. This theoretical design has been implemented as a proof of concept for x86 based processors including a small set of essential drivers and user land applications in order to verify and test the claims made herein.
Bringing democratic governance into practice: policy enactments responding to neoliberal governance in Spanish public schools*

Abstract This article explores different ways in which public primary schools sustain democratic governance structures created beyond those mandated by law in Spain. These new institutional designs, while not opposed to policy text requirements of having a governing body with representatives of parents, teachers and public administration, are being carried out against the grain of the hegemonic neoliberal managerial approach. The objective was to observe the different ways that some schools apply other institutional paths to the current governing bodies by aiming at widening decision-making not only to legal representatives but to all agents. Data come from focus groups, in-depth interviews and observations carried out in four public schools during fieldwork lasting two academic years. The findings show that while some schools are broadening current legal governing bodies, others generate ad hoc bodies transforming legal ones into new institutional arrangements.
The Second Phase of the Trypillia Mega-Site Methodological Revolution: A New Research Agenda

The first phase of the Trypillia mega-sites' methodological revolution began in 1971 with aerial photography, magnetic prospection, and archaeological excavations of huge settlements of hundreds of hectares belonging to the Trypillia culture in Ukraine. Since 2009, we have created a second phase of the methodological revolution in studies of Trypillia mega-sites, which has provided more significant advances in our understanding of these large sites than any other single research development in the last three decades, thanks partly to the participation of joint Ukrainian-foreign teams. In this paper, we outline the main aspects of the second phase, using examples from the Anglo-Ukrainian project ‘Early urbanism in prehistoric Europe: the case of the Trypillia mega-sites', working at Nebelivka (also spelled ‘Nebilivka’), and the Ukrainian-German project ‘Economy, demography and social space of Trypillia mega-sites', working at Taljanky (‘Talianki’), Maydanetske (‘Maydanetskoe’), and Dobrovody, as well as the smaller site at Apolianka.
Adaptive RAID: Introduction of optimized storage techniques for scalable media

This paper gives an introduction on the current challenges when storing and accessing movies in a very high quality, e.g. in the field of digital cinema or digital archiving. In contrast to the existing RAID configurations for performance improvements of disk drives, adaptive RAID approaches to be used with scalable media such as JPEG 2000 are introduced. These algorithms allow for assured real-time playback of several storage technologies including standard disk drives as well as cartridges when storing scalable data.
The Indian Buffet Process: Scalable Inference and Extensions

Many unsupervised learning problems seek to identify hidden features from observations. In many real-world situations, the number of hidden features is unknown. To avoid specifying the number of hidden features a priori, one can use the Indian Buffet Process (IBP): a nonparametric latent feature model that does not bound the number of active features in a dataset. While elegant, the lack of efficient inference procedures for the IBP has prevented its application in large-scale problems. The core contribution of this thesis are three new inference procedures that allow inference in the IBP to be scaled from a few hundred to 100,000 observations. This thesis contains three parts: (1) An introduction to the IBP and a review of inference techniques and extensions. The first chapters summarise three constructions for the IBP and review all currently published inference techniques. Appendix C reviews extensions of the IBP to date. (2) Novel techniques for scalable Bayesian inference. This thesis presents three new inference procedures: (a) an accelerated Gibbs sampler for efficient Bayesian inference in a broad class of conjugate models, (b) a parallel, asynchronous Gibbs sampler that allows the accelerated Gibbs sampler to be distributed across multiple processors, and (c) a variational inference procedure for the IBP. (3)A framework for structured nonparametric latent feature models. We also present extensions to the IBP to model more sophisticated relationships between the co-occurring hidden features, providing a general framework for correlated non-parametric feature models.
Improving block sharing in the Write Anywhere File Layout file system

It is often useful in modern file systems for several files to share one or more data blocks. Block sharing is used to improve storage utilization by storing only one copy of a block shared by multiple files or volumes. This thesis proposes an approach, called Space Maker, which uses garbage collection techniques to simplify the up-front cost of file system operations, moving some of the more difficult block tracking work, such as the work required to clean-up after a file delete, to a back-end garbage collector. Space Maker was developed on top of the WAFL file system used in NetApp hardware. The Space Maker is shown to have fast scan performance, while decreasing the front-end time to delete files. Other operations, like file creates and writes have similar performance to a baseline system. Under Space Maker, block sharing is simplified, making a possible for new file system features that rely on sharing to be implemented more quickly with good performance.
A Collaborative Learning Management System for the Health Integration

The lines of action of the regional healthcare area “ASUR” of Ancona (Italy) try to reach the unity, not the uniqueness of the overall set of social and health services. According to the health integration plan, the programmatic indications coming from the Administrative Department have to find a concrete realization on the territory. This can be effectively done just involving all the public and private subjects which can assure the health integration. The collaborative learning management system presented in this article is a communication platform that collects all the knowledge acquired by the social and health care operators promoting discussion spaces where innovative solutions for health integration can arise. These are structured as Integrated Care Pathways and undergo clinical trials before being accepted as organizational standards. The system is based on an organizational blogosphere, and social network analysis is used to identify the social and health care staff members which have the widest view of what happens within their organizations. These can be contacted for an interview by the regional Consulting and Service Centre for the Health Integration or they can be invited to open a discussion space on the main health integration problems.
On exploring performance evaluation in the Netherlands: a research design

J. Bossert F.A. Roozen Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Faculty of Economics and Econometrics De Boelelaan 1105, room 3A-36 1081 HV Amsterdam The Netherlands tel. 31 20 5484316 fax. 31 20 6462645 email froozen@econ.vu. nl