Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The principles of ambient calculus revisited

The paper presents a foundational analysis of the class of ambient calculi focussing on the spatial structures of the processes they can describe. We propose sound correct set-theoretical models for different types of ambient calculi (involving recursion, denumerable parallel composition, etc) by using special types of coalgebras - labelled flat systems of equations of set theory. These models help to understand the spatiality of the ambient processes and provide a set-theoretical description of the structural congruence. Consistently with the model, we extend the classical structural congruence, the extension proving that P|P|P|. =(recX.X|P)=(recX|X|X|.|X|P), if X does not appear free in P. In Ambient Calculus the space has a decisive influence in the behavior of a process. Consequently, replication cannot simulate recursion because the processes involving replication have always a finite or denumerable class of active actions, while there are recursive ambient processes having infinite non-denumerable active actions due to a possibly non-wellfounded spatial structure. Still recursion can successfully describe any process involving replication. Thus we propose the most expressive Recursive Ambient Calculus, interpreting replication as recursion. Using the set-theoretical model for this calculus, we construct a propositional temporal logic on top of it able to describe properties of the processes. Our logic works similarly with wellfounded and non-wellfounded processes.
A comparison of cross-company and within-company effort estimation models for Web applications

The objective of this paper is to investigate the use of cross-company and within-company cost estimation model for Web projects. The study analysis method we used was a forward, stepwise regression of web project development effort with independent variables that were used for on-line web application price quotations. Model cross-validation used two approaches: one-fold cross validation and a validation subset of 13 projects from the same company. The setting consists of Industrial Web applications from 24 different companies and 8 different countries, and the experiment units are 53 web application and hypermedia projects. The main outcome measure was an estimate of effort for each project, for each estimation model. We used the summary statistics: MMRE, Median MRE, Pred(25), mean and median of absolute residuals to evaluate the predictive accuracy of model. We also compared estimation model accuracy with an assessment of estimate accuracy provided by the participating companies. Results showed that the best fitting cross-company regression model was significantly better than the median and experts at predicting effort for 13 projects from a single company (p<0.05). The best fitting within-company regression model for the company with 13 projects was significantly better than the cross-company model (p<0.05). However the accuracy of the company 1 model was worse than the accuracy achieved by company 1 estimators. In addition, the company 1 model was an extremely poor predictor of effort for the other companies’ projects. We conclude that cross-company effort estimation model can be useful for companies that do not have past projects from which to develop their own models. However, a cross-company data set should only be used for estimation until it is possible for a Web company to build its own within-company model. For cross-company and within company models, simple measures, available early in the lifecycle, that can be estimated by clients are suitable for building effort estimation models.
Introduction to the Issue “Sport for Social Inclusion: Questioning Policy, Practice and Research”

An aspect of sport which is often highlighted is its capacity to alleviate processes of social exclusion that are experienced in different areas of life. Despite its acclaimed inclusionary nature, sport remains a site of multiple and diverse exclusionary processes (Spaaij, Magee, & Jeanes, 2014). To better understand sport's wider inclusionary outcomes, Ekholm (2013) argued that we should problematize and critically expose the underlying assumptions, distinctions, ideologies, and research positions that constitute the conceptions surrounding sport as a means for social inclusion. If such problematizing and exposing is not empirically done, sport-based social inclusion policies and programs are likely to become inadequate in the face of the exclusionary forces which such schemes seek to combat (Collins & Haudenhuyse, 2015). It is precisely the aim of this thematic issue to scrutinize such issues in relation to sport and its acclaimed potential to facilitate social inclusion and combat processes of social exclusion. The issue brings together a unique collection of international articles, written by both rising and leading scholars in the field of social sport sciences. The articles cover a wide variety of themes, theoretical perspectives, and research methods in relation to social in-/exclusion and sport.
Musical Training and the Aging Auditory System : Implications for Cognitive Abilities and Hearing Speech in Noise

Much of our daily communication occurs in the presence of background noise, compromising our ability to hear. While understanding speech in noise is a challenge for everyone, it becomes increasingly difficult as we age. Although aging is generally accompanied by hearing loss, this perceptual decline cannot fully account for the difficulties experienced by older adults for hearing in noise. Decreased cognitive skills concurrent with reduced perceptual acuity are thought to contribute to the difficulty older adults experience understanding speech in noise. Given that musical experience positively impacts speech perception in noise in young adults (ages 18–30), we asked whether musical experience benefits an older cohort of musicians (ages 45–65), potentially offsetting the age-related decline in speech-in-noise perceptual abilities and associated cognitive function (i.e., working memory). Consistent with performance in young adults, older musicians demonstrated enhanced speech-in-noise perception relative to nonmusicians along with greater auditory, but not visual, working memory capacity. By demonstrating that speech-in-noise perception and related cognitive function are enhanced in older musicians, our results imply that musical training may reduce the impact of age-related auditory decline. Citation: Parbery-Clark A, Strait DL, Anderson S, Hittner E, Kraus N (2011) Musical Training and the Aging Auditory System: Implications for Cognitive Abilities and Hearing Speech in Noise. PLoS ONE 6(5): e18082. doi:10.1371/journal.pone. 0018082 Editor: Peter Csermely, Semmelweis University, Hungary Received October 15, 2010; Accepted February 22, 2011; Published May 4, 2011 Copyright: 2011 Parbery-Clark et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: National Science Foundation: Small Grants for Exploratory Research No. 0842376. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: nkraus@northwestern.edu
Developing a Model for Managing Production Performance of Small and Medium Enterprises in Sweden

The study developed a model for production performance management of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Sweden. The developed model works for assessing, follow up and improvement in production performance. SMEs differ in size, structure, culture, competition, management practices, resource availability and lot more when compared with large organizations. SMEs also lack in effective performance management framework as most of the framework developed are designed for large organizations. Production is core and critical value adding process especially for SMEs manufacturer for their survival and growth. SMEs are more motivated with doing rather than measuring it. Taking all these consideration a comprehensive model is developed which consists of four major steps. The model starts with studying of company’s strategy, and then there are steps for design of production performance measurement which works for identifying details strategically aligned performance measures. Benchmarking step is included to compare performance with best practices, finally measurements results are analysed and improvement actions are taken to continuously improve the production performance. Developed model based on literature study, multiple case study (three case studies) are being conducted to check model applicability. The result of case studies supports the applicability and formulated problem is also well-answered by developed model.
LATEX DSL: A Coverage Control Protocol for heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in wireless sensor networks. Since the sensor nodes have limited available power, energy conservation is a critical issue in all researches about sensor networks. Developing a coverage control protocol to prolong networks life is one of the most important solutions. Based on analyzing the existing coverage control approaches and the features of heterogeneous sensor networks, we propose a distributed coverage control strategy based on location information (DSL) for heterogeneous sensor networks. In DSL, each node calculates the coverage degree locally, and the node scheduling strategy is based on weak time synchronization scheme. Under the premise of guaranteeing nodes k-coverage precisely , DSL can make as more as possible nodes inactive. Simulation results demonstrate that our protocol can reduce the number of active nodes effectively while achieve the required coverage degree, balance the energy consumption and maintain long network
Decoupling Level: A New Metric for Architectural Maintenance Complexity

Despite decades of research on software metrics, we still cannot reliably measure if one design is more maintainable than another. Software managers and architects need to understand whether their software architecture is "good enough", whether it is decaying over time and, if so, by how much. In this paper, we contribute a new architecture maintainability metric---Decoupling Level (DL)---derived from Baldwin andClark's option theory. Instead of measuring how coupled an architecture is, we measure how well the software can be decoupled into small and independently replaceable modules. We measured the DL for 108 open source projects and 21 industrial projects, each of which has multiple releases. Our main result shows that the larger the DL, the better thearchitecture. By "better" we mean: the more likely bugs and changes can be localized and separated, and the more likely that developers can make changes independently. The DL metric also opens the possibility of quantifying canonical principles of single responsibility and separation of concerns, aiding cross-project comparison and architecture decay monitoring.
Transmit antenna diversity in Ricean fading MIMO channels with co-channel interference

Transmitantennadiversity usingclosedloop andopen loop modesarecomparedin environmentswith line of sightpropagationandspatiallyandtemporallynon-white noise.Theconnectionbetweenthefeedbackchannelcapacity in closedloop modesandthechannelcoherence time is investigated.It is shown that in LOS environments,therequirementsonthefeedbackchannelbit rate is lower. Furthermore, wederivedthebeamformingvector in closedloop transmitdiversitywith directionalinterferenceandshowedhow thisgivesanequivalentgain in SNR of about3 dB at the recei ver, even at a beamformingweightphaseresolutionof 90 .
Hashing Functions can Simplify Zero-Knowledge Protocol Design (too)

In Crypto93 , Damgard showed that any constant-round protocol in which the verifier sends only independent, random bits and which is zero-knowledge against the honest verifier can be transformed into a protocol (for the same problem) that is zero-knowledge in general . His transformation was based on the interactive hashing technique of Naor, Ostrovsky, Venkatesan and Yung, and thus the resulting protocol had very large round-complexity.
Message-driven based energy-efficient routing in heterogeneous delay-tolerant networks

Delay-Tolerant Network (DTN) nodes are mostly energy-limited devices that run on battery power. DTN routing strategies on such resource-constrained nodes therefore need to be energy efficient. Contemporary routing protocols such as Two-Hop Routing (2HR) and Epidemic Routing (ER) due to their conservative nature, use same forwarding strategy for all types of messages irrespective of their lifetime and delivery probability requirements. This inherently impacts the energy consumption via unwanted forwards. We propose a message-driven based algorithm add-on to the existing routing protocols, that enables intelligent forwards based on individual message lifetime and delivery requirements, thereby improving energy efficiency. Further we analytically model the performance of these protocols in a realistic DTN setting that comprises of nodes with different transmission radii. The results show that the routing protocols with the proposed energy-efficient add-on improves the energy efficiency up to 60% and 75% for the respective 2HR and ER protocols. The analysis is validated by extensive simulation results.
A Threat-Aware Signature Based Intrusion-Detection Approach for Obtaining Network-Specific Useful Alarms

We present a model and architecture that enhances the traditional signature based intrusion detection engine with threat-awareness capability. Signature based network intrusion detection systems use a set of signatures S to evaluate captured network traffic for detecting intrusions. However, due to dynamic changes in the threat level of a network, only a subset of signatures s of S is relevant to the network at any given instance. Hence, we introduce a component called a dynamic threat profiler that periodically learns the changing nature of threats in a network. We model and prove the efficacy of the threat-aware signature based intrusion detection approach for obtaining network-specific useful alarms. We also present our architecture and discuss its internal functions. Finally, we present our experiments based on various threat scenarios and the results obtained, which show that network-specific useful alarms formed 95 percent of the alarms that were generated using our model, when compared with the traditional signature-based detection engine where useful alarms form only 30 percent of the generated alarms.
Fast reinforcement learning of dialog strategies

Dialog management is a critical component of an effective spoken language application. It is also one of the most difficult and time consuming to engineer. This paper examines the application of reinforcement learning and Markov decision processes (MDPs) to the problem of learning the dialog strategies. It extends work done at AT&T in two directions. First it examines the ability of RL to learn optimal strategies in the presence of speech recognition errors. Second, it describes a technique for reducing the amount of data required to train these models. This is significant as the difficulty of training MDP-based dialog managers is a serious roadblock to deploying them in realistic applications.
Deployment of High Altitude Platforms network: A game theoretic approach

The High Altitude Platforms (HAPs) have been considered as a promising technique for providing wireless communication and other services. They operate at an altitude from 17km to 22km, which exploit both advantages of satellites and terrestrial wireless communication networks. It is possible to deploy HAPs network rapidly and adjust them dynamically to cover specific regions requiring communication services. In this paper, the problem of deploying HAPs network to provide wireless communication for terrestrial users is investigated. The aim of deployment is to providing communication services to ground users as many as possible with quality of service (QoS) guaranteed. To find an optimal solution, we model the problem as a potential game. And a restricted spatial adaptive play (RSAP) learning algorithm is introduced for the game. Using this algorithm, the HAPs can be deployed to cover the user areas in a self-organized manner with high QoS achieved. Finally, the simulation results also demonstrate that the HAPs network can achieve the optimal deployment.
Automatic Expansion of Feature-Level Opinion Lexicons

In most tasks related to opinion mining and sentiment analysis, it is necessary to compute the semantic orientation (i.e., positive or negative evaluative implications) of certain opinion expressions. Recent works suggest that semantic orientation depends on application domains. Moreover, we think that semantic orientation depends on the specific targets (features) that an opinion is applied to. In this paper, we introduce a technique to build domain-specific, feature-level opinion lexicons in a semi-supervised manner: we first induce a lexicon starting from a small set of annotated documents; then, we expand it automatically from a larger set of unannotated documents, using a new graph-based ranking algorithm. Our method was evaluated in three different domains (headphones, hotels and cars), using a corpus of product reviews which opinions were annotated at the feature level. We conclude that our method produces feature-level opinion lexicons with better accuracy and recall that domain-independent opinion lexicons using only a few annotated documents.
Using lexical chains to build hypertext links in newspaper articles

We discuss an automatic method for the construction of hypertext links within and between newspaper articles. The method comprises three steps: determining the lexical chains in a text, building links between the paragraphs of articles, and building links between articles. Lexical chains capture the semantic relations between words that occur throughout a text. Each chain is a set of related words that captures a portion of the cohesive structure of a text. By considering the distribution of chains within an article, we can build links between the paragraphs. By comparing the chains contained in two different articles, we can decide whether or not to place a link between them. We also present the results of an experiment designed to measure inter-linker consistency in the manual construction of hypertext links between the paragraphs of newspaper articles. The results show that inter-linker consistency is low, but better than that obtained in a previous experiment.
MACHINE LEARNING AND COMPUTER VISION @ CVPRLAB-UNIPARTHENOPE

The report includes some recent research activities carried out by the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition group of the Department of Science and Technology, University Parthenope of Naples (http://cvprlab.uniparthenope.it). The activities cover different aspects related to Machine Learning and Computer Vision and are carried out in the context of a variety of applied projects, where results and know-how from those activities are exploited.
Atomic Diffusion and Mixing in Old Stars. I. Very Large Telescope FLAMES-UVES Observations of Stars in NGC 6397

We present a homogeneous photometric and spectroscopic analysis of 18 stars along the evolutionary sequence of the metal-poor globular cluster NGC 6397 ([Fe/H] ≈ -2), from the main-sequence turnoff point to red giants below the bump. The spectroscopic stellar parameters, in particular stellar parameter differences between groups of stars, are in good agreement with broadband and Strömgren photometry calibrated on the infrared flux method. The spectroscopic abundance analysis reveals, for the first time, systematic trends of iron abundance with evolutionary stage. Iron is found to be 30% less abundant in the turnoff point stars than in the red giants. An abundance difference in lithium is seen between the turnoff point and warm subgiant stars. The impact of potential systematic errors on these abundance trends (stellar parameters, the hydrostatic and LTE approximations) is quantitatively evaluated and found not to alter our conclusions significantly. Trends for various elements (Li, Mg, Ca, Ti, and Fe) are compared with stellar structure models including the effects of atomic diffusion and radiative acceleration. Such models are found to describe the observed element-specific trends well, if extra (turbulent) mixing just below the convection zone is introduced. It is concluded that atomic diffusion and turbulent mixing are largely responsible for the subprimordial stellar lithium abundances of warm halo stars. Other consequences of atomic diffusion in old metal-poor stars are also discussed.
A games semantics for reductive logic and proof-search

Theorem proving, or algorithmic proof-search, is an essential enabling technology throughout the computational sciences. We explain the mathematical basis of proof-search as the combination of reductive logic together with a control r ´ egime. Then we present a games semantics for reductive logic and show how it may be used to model two impor� ) ` � � - [ ] ` [�] : [�] @ @ � � [[ ]] [�] ! [[�]]
The Effects of Self-Construal and Perceived Control on Privacy Concerns

Recent advances in mobile computing technology have led to a proliferation of location-based services (LBS). Although LBS offer users the flexibility of accessing networks and services while on the move, potential privacy violations have emerged as a contentious issue because information related to the consumer’s identity, movements, behavior, and habits are available to the LBS provider. Adopting the psychological control and self-construal perspectives, this paper focuses on three leading mechanisms that can alleviate privacy concerns in the LBS context. We draw from the control agency and self-construal theories to propose a framework linking three mechanisms (privacy-enhancing technology, industry self-regulation, and government legislation) to privacy concerns through the mediating effects of perceived control the moderating role of self-construal. We test the predictions of the framework using data obtained from 141 mobile phone users through an experiment. Results show that all the three mechanisms are effective in increasing perceived control, which in turn mitigates privacy concerns. We also find that people who value independent-self prefer personal control through technology-based mechanisms; whereas people who value interdependent-self prefer proxy control through industry self-regulation and through government legislation. In addition to enhancing our theoretical understanding of information privacy in the LBS context, these findings have important implications for LBS providers and consumers, as well as for regulatory bodies and LBS technology developers.