Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The overlay of lower envelopes in three dimensions and its applications

Let 7 and ~ be two collections of a total of n bivariate (possibly partially-defined) algebraic functions of constant maximum degree. The minimization dlagrarns of . F, ~ are the planar subdivisions obtained by the projections of the lower envelopes of 7, ~, respectively, onto the xy-plane. We show that the combinatorial complexity of the overlay of the minimization diagrams of Y and g is 0(n2+&), for any e >0 (the actual bound that we prove is somewhat stronger). This result has several applications: (i) an O (n2ye ) upper bound on the complexity of the region in R3 enclosed between the lower envelope of one such collection of functions and the upper envelope of another collection; (ii) an efficient and simple divide-and-conquer algorithm for constructing lower envelopes in three dimensions; and (iii) a near-quadratic upper bound on the combinatorial complexity of the space of plane transversals of n compact convex simply-shaped sets in R3. * Work on this paper by the first author has been supported by National Science Foundation Grant CCR-93–01259, an NYI award, and mat thing funds from Xerox Corporation. Work on this paper by the second author has been supported by the Netherlands’ Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and partially supported by ESPRIT Basic Research Action No. 6546 (project PROMotion). Work on this paper by the third author has been supported by NSF Grant CCR-91-22103, by a Max-Planck Research Award, and by grants from the U.S.-Israeli Binational Science Foundation, the Fund for Basic Research administered by the Israeli Academy of Sciences, and the G. I. F. , the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development. t Department of Computer Science, Box 1029, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708-0129, USA $ Department of Computer Science, Utrecht University, P.O. Box 80.089, 3508 TB Utrecht, the Netherlands $ School of Mathematical Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel, and Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, New York, NY 10012, USA Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the ACM copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Association of Computing Machinery.To copy otherwise, or to repub! ish, requires a fee and/or s~ecific ~ermission
Effects of Climate Change on Plant Population Growth Rate and Community Composition Change

The impacts of climate change on forest community composition are still not well known. Although directional trends in climate change and community composition change were reported in recent years, further quantitative analyses are urgently needed. Previous studies focused on measuring population growth rates in a single time period, neglecting the development of the populations. Here we aimed to compose a method for calculating the community composition change, and to testify the impacts of climate change on community composition change within a relatively short period (several decades) based on long-term monitoring data from two plots—Dinghushan Biosphere Reserve, China (DBR) and Barro Colorado Island, Panama (BCI)—that are located in tropical and subtropical regions. We proposed a relatively more concise index, Slnλ, which refers to an overall population growth rate based on the dominant species in a community. The results indicated that the population growth rate of a majority of populations has decreased over the past few decades. This decrease was mainly caused by population development. The increasing temperature had a positive effect on population growth rates and community change rates. Our results promote understanding and explaining variations in population growth rates and community composition rates, and are helpful to predict population dynamics and population responses to climate change.
Aggregate Demand, Functional Finance and Secular Stagnation

This paper makes three main points. Fiscal policy, first, may be needed in the long run to maintain full employment and avoid secular stagnation. If fiscal policy is used in this way, second, the long-run debt ratio depends (i) inversely on the rate of growth, (ii) inversely on government consumption, and (iii) directly on the degree of inequality. The analysis, third, suggests that policies and policy debates have been misguided. The recent rediscovery of â€™secular stagnationâ€™ by Summers and others should be welcomed, but the suggested theoretical redirection is unclear and does not go far enough.
DIVISOR : DIstributed VIdeo Server fOr stReaming Ekaterini

This paper presents the design and implementation of a networking system architecture targeted to support high-speed video transmission to multiple clients. We have designed, implemented, and evaluated a high-speed, distributed Video Server, which is divided in two different components, the video encoding unit and the network protocol processing unit. The video encoding unit performs the video data encoding, while the network protocol processing unit deals with the network protocol processing. In order to provide a low-cost, scalable system, we have used commercial, off-the-shelf components. We have implemented our system using a small cluster of personal computers, connected via an optical fiber (raw ATM communication). Our initial experimental evaluation suggests that our Distributed Video Server for Streaming (DIVISOR) can efficiently provide predictable response to a large number of clients, guaranteeing Quality of Service and real-time delivery. Key-Words: Video Server, Quality of service (QoS), Video on Demand (VoD), network protocol processing, scalability 1 Also with the University of Crete 2 Currently with GlobEtech Solutions 3 Also with the University of Patras
AspectC++ – An AOP Extension for C++

More and more software developers get in touch with aspect-oriented programming (AOP). By providing means to modularize the implementation of crosscutting concerns, it stands for more reusability, less coupling between modules, and better separation of concerns in general. Today, solid tool support for AOP is available, for instance, by JBoss (JBoss AOP), BEA (AspectWerkz), and IBM (AspectJ and the AJDT for Eclipse). However, all these products are based on the Java language. For C and C++ developers none of the key players offers AOP support, yet. This article introduces AspectC++, which is an aspectoriented language extension for C++. A compiler for AspectC++, which transforms the source code into ordinary C++ code, is developed as an open source project. The AspectC++ project began with a research prototype in 2001 that has gained maturity over the years. Today, the AspectC++ language and weaver has been successfully applied in a number of real-world projects in industry and academia and IDE integration into Eclipse and Microsoft VisualStudio.NET makes the first steps a child’s play. Our AspectC++ introduction will start with an example that can be considered the “Hello World” of AOP. It will illustrate the basic language elements like aspects, pointcuts, and advice, which some readers might already know from the AspectJ language. We will then quickly step beyond these AspectJ-like language elements by looking into an AspectC++ version of the well-known observer pattern and into “Generic Advice”. This unique AspectC++ feature combines the power of aspects with generic and generative programming in C++.
Genetic algorithm based system identification and PID tuning for optimum adaptive control

In this paper the genetic algorithm optimization technique, is successfully applied in system identification and PID tuning for optimum adaptive control. In the proposed approach, two independent genetic algorithms were used sequentially. The first one is used for system model identification and the second one for PID controller tuning. Once the plant model was identified the parameters found are used to tune the PID controller. The performance of the system for a first order plant whose dynamic characteristics changes in time are presented. The results show the cascaded genetic algorithms system capability to adapt the controller to dynamic plant characteristics changes in order to increase system performance and reliability. The comparison to the conventional Ziegler-Nichols method shows the GA based system superiority
A Multicentre Database for Normative Brainstem Auditory Evoked Potentials (BAEPs) in Children: Methodology for Data Collection and Evaluation

Background: The influence of physiological and methodological factors on recordings of brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEPs) is greater in children than in adults. Objective: To collect and evaluate BAEP data in normal children, and measure intra- and inter-laboratory variability. Methods: Seven hundred and fifty unselected BAEP recordings were collected and evaluated from children ranging from neonates to 14-year-olds by eight laboratories in Italy. Results: In newborns, three laboratories showed satisfactory concordance; wave I was more broadly distributed than wave V and IPL I-V. The evaluation of pooled BAEP data from the older children showed that laboratories with age-matched data gave overlapping results; those with unmatched-age data differed significantly. The sound intensities of the laboratories did not significantly affect absolute BAEP latencies or IPLs. Females had shorter latencies than males; the difference was not significant. A single exponential regression model was an adequate but not the best predictor of normal data. Conclusions: The pooled data were consistent with the physiological maturation of the brainstem acoustic pathway. The BAEPs was reliably normalised using the natural logarithm of age. The differences between Centres were related to sample size, measurement accuracy, and inclusion and selection criteria. Significance: The creation of multicentre common database from an unmatched data collection is feasible and reliable enough for clinical diagnosis and multicentre clinical research.
A Modified Fuzzy C-Mean for Clustering Data with Attributes of Different Degrees of Importance

Aqueous alkaline coating compositions for metal substrates comprising a water soluble salt of an acrylic polymer which contains carboxyl groups, a divalent metal ion, a volatile base and a defoamer. The acrylic polymer is present in the coating composition in an amount greater than about 0.25 gm/liter and less than about 5.0 gm/liter.
Evaluating Defect Prediction Models for a Large Evolving Software System

A plethora of defect prediction models has been proposed and empirically evaluated, often using standard classification performance measures. In this paper, we explore defect prediction models for a large, multi-release software system from the telecommunications domain. A history of roughly 3 years is analyzed to extract process and static code metrics that are used to build several defect prediction models with Random Forests. The performance of the resulting models is comparable to previously published work. Furthermore, we develop a new evaluation measure based on the comparison to an optimal model.
Designing personalized web applications

The goal of this paper is to argue the need to approach the personalization issues in Web applications from the very beginning in the application’s development cycle. Since personalization is a critical aspect in many popular domains such as e-commerce, it important enough that it should be dealt with through a design view, rather than only an implementation view (which discusses mechanisms, rather than design options). We present different scenarios of personalization covering most existing applications. Since our design approach is based on the Object-Oriented Hypermedia Design Method, we briefly introduce i the way in which we build Web application models as object -oriented views of conceptual models. We show how we specify personalized Web applications by refining views according to users’ profiles or preferences; we show that an object -oriented approach allows maximizing reuse in these specifications. We discuss some implementation aspects and compare our work with related approaches, and present some concluding remarks.
Robotic System for Mapping 3D in-wall Information for Craftsmen

This paper presents a robotic system for autonomously scanning wall surfaces by means of inductive, capacitive and AC measurements in order to gather information about flush-mounted power lines, water pipes and cavities. From these data the system generates a 3D map with in-wall information. Algorithms for surface scanning are described enabling robust methods for data acquisition and fusion of the scanning and localization data. The paper describes and evaluates two methods for reconstructing surface and in-wall information: The first one uses occupancy grid mapping along with the elaborated sensing model of the wall scanner, the second is a combination of scanning and mapping. The created 3D map is made available to a second system that projects the map onto the wall surface, removing distortions induced by the lack of a perpendicular projection. That system provides craftsmen the additional information to prevent hitting wires or water pipes when performing drilling tasks. The utilized robots make use of the robot software framework ROS. Keywords: Autonomous wall scanning, in-wall information, flush-mounted piping and electric installations, sensor fusion and localization to a 3D-map, projection of in-wall information, SLAM, occupancy grid mapping, ROS
Author ' s personal copy Finding the features that represent stimuli

In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: a b s t r a c t We develop a model for finding the features that represent a set of stimuli, and apply it to the Leuven Concept Database. The model combines the feature generation and similarity judgment task data, inferring whether each of the generated features is important for explaining the patterns of similarity between stimuli. Across four datasets, we show that features range from being very important to very unimportant , and that a small subset of important features is adequate to describe the similarities. We also show that the features inferred to be more important are intuitively reasonable, and present analyses showing that important features tend to focus on narrow sets of stimuli, providing information about the category structures that organize the stimuli into groups. A common assumption in cognitive psychology is that stimuli can be represented in terms of the presence or absence of a set of features. This assumption provides a representational foundation for many models of higher-level cognitive processes, including models of memory (e. It also serves as a useful basis for understanding mental representations themselves, since it makes possible formal analyses. Having assumed that stimuli are represented by features, it is possible to develop quantitative measures of how features relate to each other, how features distribute themselves across categories, and so on. In this paper, we investigate both of these aspects of feature representation, and so pursue related methodological and theoretical goals. Methodologically, we develop a model for finding feature representations, and apply it to the Leuven Concept Dataset (De Deyne et al., 2008). Theoretically, we explore what the features found by our model can tell us about the nature of mental representation. We show the representations found by our model are reasonable and the included features are likely to be important to participants judgments of similarity. Moreover, we explore whether the features people use tend to belong to many stimuli or few, how they relate to category structures over stimuli, and which sorts of features are the most salient ones. The outline of the paper is as follows. First, we provide the intuition behind and formal characterization of the model for …
PprM, a Cold Shock Domain-Containing Protein from Deinococcus radiodurans, Confers Oxidative Stress Tolerance to Escherichia coli

Escherichia coli is a representative microorganism that is frequently used for industrial biotechnology; thus its cellular robustness should be enhanced for the widespread application of E. coli in biotechnology. Stress response genes from the extremely radioresistant bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans have been used to enhance the stress tolerance of E. coli. In the present study, we introduced the cold shock domain-containing protein PprM from D. radiodurans into E. coli and observed that the tolerance to hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) was significantly increased in recombinant strains (Ec-PprM). The overexpression of PprM in E. coli elevated the expression of some OxyR-dependent genes, which play important roles in oxidative stress tolerance. Particularly, mntH (manganese transporter) was activated by 9-fold in Ec-PprM, even in the absence of H2O2 stress, which induced a more than 2-fold increase in the Mn/Fe ratio compared with wild type. The reduced production of highly reactive hydroxyl radicals (·OH) and low protein carbonylation levels (a marker of oxidative damage) in Ec-PprM indicate that the increase in the Mn/Fe ratio contributes to the protection of cells from H2O2 stress. PprM also conferred H2O2 tolerance to E. coli in the absence of OxyR. We confirmed that the H2O2 tolerance of oxyR mutants reflected the activation of the ycgZ-ymgABC operon, whose expression is activated by H2O2 in an OxyR-independent manner. Thus, the results of the present study showed that PprM could be exploited to improve the robustness of E. coli.
Immunocompromised Children with Severe Adenoviral Respiratory Infection

Purpose. To investigate the impact of severe respiratory adenoviral infection on morbidity and case fatality in immunocompromised children. Methods. Combined retrospective-prospective cohort study of patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) in four children's hospitals with severe adenoviral respiratory infection and an immunocompromised state between August 2009 and October 2013. We performed a secondary case control analysis, matching our cohort 1 : 1 by age and severity of illness score with immunocompetent patients also with severe respiratory adenoviral infection. Results. Nineteen immunocompromised patients were included in our analysis. Eleven patients (58%) did not survive to hospital discharge. Case fatality was associated with cause of immunocompromised state (p = 0.015), multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (p = 0.001), requirement of renal replacement therapy (p = 0.01), ICU admission severity of illness score (p = 0.011), and treatment with cidofovir (p = 0.005). Immunocompromised patients were more likely than matched controls to have multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (p = 0.01), require renal replacement therapy (p = 0.02), and not survive to hospital discharge (p = 0.004). One year after infection, 43% of immunocompromised survivors required chronic mechanical ventilator support. Conclusions. There is substantial case fatality as well as short- and long-term morbidity associated with severe adenoviral respiratory infection in immunocompromised children.
On the convexity of the kobayashi metric on a taut complex manifold

Let M be an m-dimensional complex manifold. We recall the definition of the Kobayashi-Royden pseudo-metric on M : FM (ξ) = inf{t > 0| ∃f ∈ O(∆,M) such that tf∗(d/dζ|ζ=0) = ξ}, (1.1) where ξ ∈ T pM is a holomorphic tangent vector, ∆ = {ζ ∈ C| |ζ| < 1}, and O(∆,M) = {f : ∆ → M | f is a holomorphic mapping}. Then, FM has the following properties: (i) FM (ξ) ≥ 0 for any ξ ∈ T pM ; (ii) FM (λξ) = |λ|FM (ξ) for any λ ∈ C; (iii) FM is upper semi-continuous on the holomorphic tangent bundle T pM , moreover if M is taut, that is, O(∆,M) is a normal family; (iv) FM is continuous on TM ; (v) FM (ξ) = 0 if and only if ξ = 0. Hence we see that FM is a metric on M , if M is taut. Let v ∈ TpM be a real tangent vector. We can uniquely write v = ξ + ξ̄ with ξ ∈ T pM . We set FM (v) = 2FM (ξ). Then FM induce a pseudodistance dM on M as follows:
Epoch extraction from allpass residual of speech signals

Identification of epochs from speech signals is a prominent task in speech processing. In this paper, epoch extraction is attempted from phase spectrum of speech signals. The phase spectrum of speech is modelled as an allpass (AP) filter by minimizing entropy of energy in the associated error signal. The AP residual thus obtained contains prominent unambiguous peaks at epoch locations. These peaks in AP residual constitute a set of candidate epoch locations from which appropriate ones are identified using a dynamic programming algorithm. The proposed method is evaluated on a subset of CMU Arctic database and it is observed that it delivered better epoch extraction performance than the prominent speech events estimation method-DYPSA. In case of telephone channel speech, the proposed method significantly outperformed zero frequency resonator based method also.
Dissipative functional microarrays for classification of crystallization patterns

AbstractIn this article, we describe a new method of extracting informationfrom signals, called functional dissipation, that proves to be surpris-ingly eﬀective for enhancing classiﬁcation of high resolution, texture-richdata as in ourcase study of crystallizationpatterns. Our algorithmbypasses to some extent the need to have very specialized feature ex-traction techniques, and can potentially be used as an intermediate,feature enhancement step in any classiﬁcation scheme.Functional dissipation is based on signal transforms, but uses thetransformsrecursivelyto uncoverimportant features. We generateran-dom masking functions and ‘extract’ features with several generalizedgreedy regression iterations. In each iteration, the recursive processmodiﬁes several coeﬃcients of the transformed signal with the largestabsolute values according to the speciﬁc masking function; in this waythe greedy regression is turned into a slow, controlled, dissipation ofthe structure of the signal. The idea is that some unknown statisticalfeatures of the original signal can be detected in the dissipation processat least for some of the masking functions.Keywords: Featuresenhancement, classiﬁcation, greedyregression,non-linear iterative maps.
Lazy caching

This paper examines cache consistency conditions for multiprocessor shared memory systems. It states and motivates a weaker condition than is normally implemented. An algorithm is presented that exploits the weaker condition to achieve greater concurrency. The algorithm is shown to satisfy the weak consistency condition. Other properties of the algorithm and possible extensions are discussed.