Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In the Right Place at the Right Time: Asian English Accents in a Listening Test for Healthcare Professions.

The rise of medical tourism and the increasing number of international patients from Asian countries have led Thai healthcare professionals to serve a lot of Asian patients and to encounter a complexity of language use in their workplace. There is a necessity for these professionals to strive for an understanding of Asian accents spoken by the patients in order to ensure successful communication and subsequently to best provide them with highquality medical services. Therefore, the ability to understand Asian accents has become necessary for healthcare professionals. To enhance test validity and authenticity and promote beneficial washback, English proficiency tests used in healthcare professions should include a variety of Asian English accents. Unfortunately, these tests limit accents to the inner-circle varieties. With a high tendency of encountering Asian speakers, it seems unreasonable 216 | PASAA Vol. 51 January June 2016 to ignore Asian English accents and expose healthcare personnel to the inner-circle varieties only in listening tests. Thus, the inclusion of Asian English accents in a listening test for healthcare professions is significantly needed. This paper mainly discusses the rationale for incorporating Asian English accents as test input and addresses methodological concerns in the development of a listening test with various accents.
A perceptual adaptive quantizer for quality improvement of HEVC

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is a new standard under development by the ISO and ITU-T. In this work an encoder which incorporates HVS models into the basic coding structure of the recommended HEVC standard is implemented, to improve the quality of the standard coder. Since human eye ultimately decides the quality of the received signal and the sole aim of HEVC is coding efficiency and quality improvement, this can be best achieved by selecting and incorporating appropriate Human Visual System (HVS) models into the standard coding structure. The proposed coder incorporates adaptive HVS based quantization matrices to improve the quality of reconstruction. The performance of the coder is compared with that of standard codecs such as MPEG-2, H.264/AVC and HEVC without perceptual models. The performance improvement for the proposed coder is evaluated using various objective quality measures such as PSNR, MSE, MSSIM, VIF, and VSNR.
Sexual Cannibalism: High Incidence in a Natural Population with Benefits to Females

Background Sexual cannibalism may be a form of extreme sexual conflict in which females benefit more from feeding on males than mating with them, and males avoid aggressive, cannibalistic females in order to increase net fitness. A thorough understanding of the adaptive significance of sexual cannibalism is hindered by our ignorance of its prevalence in nature. Furthermore, there are serious doubts about the food value of males, probably because most studies that attempt to document benefits of sexual cannibalism to the female have been conducted in the laboratory with non-natural alternative prey. Thus, to understand more fully the ecology and evolution of sexual cannibalism, field experiments are needed to document the prevalence of sexual cannibalism and its benefits to females. Methodology/Principal Findings We conducted field experiments with the Mediterranean tarantula (Lycosa tarantula), a burrowing wolf spider, to address these issues. At natural rates of encounter with males, approximately a third of L. tarantula females cannibalized the male. The rate of sexual cannibalism increased with male availability, and females were more likely to kill and consume an approaching male if they had previously mated with another male. We show that females benefit from feeding on a male by breeding earlier, producing 30% more offspring per egg sac, and producing progeny of higher body condition. Offspring of sexually cannibalistic females dispersed earlier and were larger later in the season than spiderlings of non-cannibalistic females. Conclusions/Significance In nature a substantial fraction of female L. tarantula kill and consume approaching males instead of mating with them. This behaviour is more likely to occur if the female has mated previously. Cannibalistic females have higher rates of reproduction, and produce higher-quality offspring, than non-cannibalistic females. Our findings further suggest that female L. tarantula are nutrient-limited in nature and that males are high-quality prey. The results of these field experiments support the hypothesis that sexual cannibalism is adaptive to females.
How Informal Control Modes affect Developers' Trust in a Platform Vendor and Platform Stickiness

Although IS literature is quite rich on analyzing control modes in interorganizational relationships, there exists quite sparse empirical work on the effects of control modes on the relationship between a platform vendor and thirdparty developers in software-based platform ecosystems. Drawing on IS control literature and trust theory, we conducted an online survey with 125 game developers of the online gaming platform Steam, in which we examined the perception of clan and self-control mechanisms and how they influence developers’ trust in the platform vendor and their intention to stick with the platform. We demonstrate that clan control positively impacts both trust and stickiness, while self-control only affects the latter. Further, our results show that developers’ trust in the platform vendor serves as a mediator explaining the mechanisms of why clan control positively affects platform stickiness.
RROR A NALYSIS OF 3 D P OLYGONAL M ODEL : A S URVEY Mr

Various applications of computer graphics, (like animation, scientific visualization, and virtual reality) involve the manipulation of geometric models. They are generally represented by triangular meshes due to its wide acceptance to process on rendering systems. The need of realism and high visual fidelity and the latest advances on scanning devices has increased complexity and size of triangular meshes. The original 3D model gets modified because of activities like approximation, transmission, processing and storage etc. Mostly the modification occurs due to simplification approaches which primarily use geometric distance metric as their simplification criteria. But it is hard to measure a small distance error accurately whereas other geometric or appearance error (like high curvature, thin region, color, texture, normals and volumetric) has greater importance. Hence it is essential to understand the applicability of various parameters to evaluate the quality of 3D model. This paper briefly surveys the various errors analysis techniques, error metrics and tools to assess the quality of 3D mesh models.
Mesh Routing for Low-Power Mobile Ad-Hoc Wireless Sensor Networks Using DYMO-low

A wireless sensor network (WSN) is a wireless network consisting of spatially distributed nodes with optionally attached sensors for monitoring physical and environmental conditions such as temperature, sound, vibration, pressure, motion or pollutants, at different locations. WSNs can serve a variety of applications in commercial and industrial environments to monitor even difficult to reach areas in a cost-effective way. Due to size and cost limitations, the main challenge in the field is achieving suitable performance with minimal memory, processing and bandwidth usage for maximum energy efficiency, as the only power source is the included battery. To achieve connectivity throughout the network, a routing protocol is needed to allow for decentralized network configuration and for reconfiguration in the event of a blocked path. Mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) are peer-based, where each participant acts as a repeater for its neighbors in order to create a reliable selfhealing network. The goal of this project is the implementation and evaluation of DYMO-low, a dynamic MANET on-demand routing protocol for low power wireless personal area networks (LoWPAN). LoWPANs are characterized by striving for maximum energy efficiency. The protocol provides for on demand route discovery so that a path between the source and destination is established when it is needed, minimizing memory usage. It adapts to changes in network typology and provides point to point routes between nodes within the network. The size of data exchanged for network discovery and reconfiguration is reduced to achieve better performance and energy efficiency. This report describes the DYMO-low algorithm in detail and a particular implementation. A testing environment is created and the protocol is evaluated, measuring several timing characteristics.
PROPOSAL AND VALIDATION OF AN OBJECTIVE METHOD FOR QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF SPEECH CODECS AND COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

This work presents a method of objective quality assessment of telephony band codecs (300 – 3400 Hz) that assembles the main characteristics of the methods found in the literature, named “Medida Objetiva de Qualidade de Voz” (MOQV). An analysis of its performance is presented, based on a set of experiments available in a database of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Such performance analysis provides an ample characterization of the method allowing the determination of the circumstances where its use is adequate, besides providing subsidies to its use face to several practical situations.
A non-time based action executor for the coordinated hybrid agent framework

In this paper, a non-time based action executor is proposed for the Coordinated Hybrid Agent (CHA) framework for the control of multi-agent systems. The non-time based agent is designed for multiple intelligent vehicles. Non-time based motion controllers have been successfully applied to many areas such as robot motion control, multi-robot coordination, force and impact control, robotic teleoperation and manufacturing automation. In this research, we use the non-time based action executors for the hybrid control layer of the CHA framework. Multi-agent control is designed for multiple intelligent vehicles. Simulations using two intelligent vehicles are conducted to investigate the performance of the proposed approach. The CHA framework with non-time based hybrid controllers can coordinate and control two vehicles to track the road successfully.
SANA: Secure and Scalable Aggregate Network Attestation

Large numbers of smart connected devices, also named as the Internet of Things (IoT), are permeating our environments (homes, factories, cars, and also our body - with wearable devices) to collect data and act on the insight derived. Ensuring software integrity (including OS, apps, and configurations) on such smart devices is then essential to guarantee both privacy and safety. A key mechanism to protect the software integrity of these devices is remote attestation: A process that allows a remote verifier to validate the integrity of the software of a device. This process usually makes use of a signed hash value of the actual device's software, generated by dedicated hardware. While individual device attestation is a well-established technique, to date integrity verification of a very large number of devices remains an open problem, due to scalability issues. In this paper, we present SANA, the first secure and scalable protocol for efficient attestation of large sets of devices that works under realistic assumptions. SANA relies on a novel signature scheme to allow anyone to publicly verify a collective attestation in constant time and space, for virtually an unlimited number of devices. We substantially improve existing swarm attestation schemes by supporting a realistic trust model where: (1) only the targeted devices are required to implement attestation; (2) compromising any device does not harm others; and (3) all aggregators can be untrusted. We implemented SANA and demonstrated its efficiency on tiny sensor devices. Furthermore, we simulated SANA at large scale, to assess its scalability. Our results show that SANA can provide efficient attestation of networks of 1,000,000 devices, in only 2.5 seconds.
Automated Software Testing Using Model-Checking

White-box testing grants specialists to choose if a program is mostly consistent with its foreordained lead and plan through the appraisal of transitional estimations of elements during program execution. These transitional characteristics are regularly recorded as an execution follow made by watching code implanted into the program. After program execution, the characteristics in an execution follow are stood out from values foreseen by the predefined direct and plan. Inconsistencies among envisioned and genuine characteristics can provoke the divulgence of bumbles in the specific and its use. This paper delineates an approach to manage (1) affirm the execution follows made by watching declarations during white-box testing using a model checker as a semantic scene; (2) organize various execution follows into obvious indistinguishable quality packages subject to necessities points of interest written in straight temporary justification (LTL); and (3) use the counter-model age frameworks found in most model-checker instruments to create new examinations for uninhabited likeness portions.
TIMOLOL MALEATE A GOLD STANDARD DRUG IN GLAUCOMA USED AS OCULAR FILMS AND INSERTS: AN OVERVIEW

The majority of eye diseases are treated with topical eye drops. The meagre bioavailability and beneficial answer exhibited by these conventional eye drops due to fast precorneal elimination of the drug may be surmount by the use of in situ gelling systems that are instilled as drops into the eye and undergo a sol-to-gel transition in the cul-de-sac. In recent years, increased attention has been given to the development of new systems for the delivery of ocular medication. A number of ocular delivery systems lengthen the extent of drug action by enhancement of corneal absorption; these include suspension, soluble gels and emulsions, hydrophilic ocular inserts, ion-pair associations, liposomes, niosomes, nanosuspension, nanoparticles and prodrugs. Other delivery systems endow with a controlled release of drugs, thus avoiding the pulse-entry with which side-effects are associated. These systems can be based on any of several different mechanisms, and include both erodible and nonerodible matrices, wafers. Timolol maleate was the first β-blocker to be used as an antiglaucoma agent and to date remains as the standard because none of the newer beta blockers were found to be more effective. Timolol maleate has the longest record of safety and efficacy to lower IOP and is administered via eye drops one or more times per day. The critical step is to develop a formulation for timolol maleate that leads to sustained delivery for long time.
Partialmatchingof rigid shapes

Matchingof rigid shapesis an importantproblemin numerousapplicationsacrosstheboundaryof computervision, patternrecognitionandcomputergraphicscommunities.A particularlychallengingsettingof this problem is partialmatching,wherethe two shapesaredissimilarin general,but have significantsimilar parts. In this paper , we show anapproachallowing to find matchingpartsof rigid shapeswith controllablesizeandregularity. Theregularity termweuseis similar to thespirit of theMumford-Shahfunctional. Numericalexperimentsshow that the regularizedpartial matching producesbetterresultscomparedto thenon-regularizedone. 1 Intr oduction Shapematchingis oneof the cornerstoneproblemsarisingin many applications acrosstheboundariesof computervision,patternrecognitionandcomputergraphicscommunities.By sayingmatching, weactuallyreferhereto two separateproblems: similarity andcorrespondence. The first problemconsistsof computinga “distance”betweenthe shapesand is usuallydealtwith in computervision and patternrecognitionapplications.Thepurposeof thesecondis finding thematching pointsbetweentheshapes;it arisesin computergraphicscommunityin shape synthesisapplications.Usually, thetwo problemsareinter-relatedand onecanbe solvedasabyproductof theother. Many matchingalgorithmsexist in the literaturedependingon the natureof shapesand their representation.A morecomplicatedsettingof shapematching is encounteredwhenthe shapeshave similar partsbut aredissimilarasa whole. For example,the shapesof a centauranda humanfall into this category [8]. A 1 T ec hn io n C om pu te r S ci en ce D ep ar tm en t T ec hn ic al R ep or t C IS -2 00 802 2 00 8
Speech emotion recognition based on Arabic features

This paper presents the principal phase of extraction and recognition of the basic emotions in the Arabic speech applied to five emotional states were taken into effect; neutral, sadness, fear, anger and happiness. Emotional speech database REGIM_TES [1] was created and evaluated to provide all practical experiences of extraction. The selected descriptors in our study are; Pitch of voice, Energy, MFCCs, Formant, LPC and the spectrogram. Descriptors showed the importance of the Arabic language on the physiological events and the influence of culture on emotional behavior. A comparative study between the kernel functions has enabled us to promote the RBF kernel SVMs multiclass classifier [15] performing the classification phase.
Subsonic propellers in a strong wind as anomalous X-ray pulsars

The appearance of subsonic propellers situated in a strong wind is discussed. We show that it is similar to the appearance of anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs) provided the mass and the magnetic moment of neutron stars are M � 1.4 M� , and µ � 2 × 10 30 Gc m 3 , respectively, and the strength of the wind is u Mc � 3 × 10 17 gs −1 . Under these conditions, the spin periods of subsonic propellers are limited within the range of 5-15 s, and the expected spin-down rates are close to u P � 7 × 10 −11 ss −1 . The mass accretion rate onto the stellar surface is limited to the rate of plasma penetration into its magnetosphere at the boundary. As this process is governed by the reconnection of the field lines, the accretion rate onto the stellar surface constitutes 1−2% of u Mc. In this case the X-ray luminosity of the objects under consideration can be evaluated as LX ∼ 4 × 10 35 erg s −1 . The model predicts the existence of at least two spatially separated sources of the X-ray emission: hot spots at the stellar surface, and the hot atmosphere surrounding the magnetosphere of the star. The ages of the subsonic propellers under the conditions of interest are limited to <10 5 yr.
ANTECEDENTS OF CONSISTENCY BETWEEN RESOURCE ALLOCATION DECISIONS AND CORPORATE STRATEGY CONCEPT

This paper investigates the antecedents of consistency between corporate strategy concept and individual resource allocation decisions in the Swiss pharmaceutical companies Ciba and Sandoz from 1989 through their merger to form Novartis in 1996. We present a model from which we derive hypotheses regarding the influence of organizational and decision-specific factors on consistency. We test these hypotheses using data on 493 resource allocation decisions, applying maximum likelihood ordered logit estimation. Results indicate that factors specific to individual resource allocation decisions are far more important for their consistency with the prevailing corporate strategy concept than organizational factors. In particular, the longer the time lag between the announcement of a corporate strategy concept and individual resource allocation decisions, the lower the likelihood of high consistency levels. As to the role of organizational factors, lower decision-making levels tend to be associated with higher consistency levels.
An Attack-Resilent Sampling Mechanism for Integrated IP Flow Monitors

Abstract— This paper introduces an adaptive packet sampling mechanism for IP flow monitors that are incorporated into network elements. Such monitors have limited resources that can be rapidly exhausted by network attacks such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) and port scanning. The mechanism provides resilience against these types of network attacks by adapting its packet sampling rate according to the available resources in the monitor, and on the flow statistics. Results are presented that show how the sampling mechanism is able to constrain the number of flow entries to available memory resources and how it meets a key criterion of IP flow monitoring systems under duress, whereby the monitoring performance degrades gracefully during attack periods.
Performance Evaluation of PCA Filter In Clustered Based Intrusion Detection System

The study, analysis and exploration of recent development of data mining applications such as classification and clustering is one of the needs for machine learning algorithms to be applied to large scale data will lead to acquire the direction of future research. It would be future demand in IDS for detecting the intrusions in mobile network. This paper presents the comparison of different clustering techniques. Also focus on the effect of Principal Component Analysis filter on these clustered based methods.The aim of this paper is to investigate the performance of different clustering methods for a set of large data. The algorithms are tested on intrusion detection data set. A fundamental review on the selected clustering techniques is presented for introduction purposes. The KDD data set is used for this purpose. Subsequently, clustering technique that has the potential to significantly improve the conventional methods will be suggested for the use in intrusion detection in mobile network data.
A cladogram and taxonomy for emotions

A selection of character traits for emotions, desires and attitudes were used to construct a cladogram showing their potential relationships. A cladogram is possible if a theorised interaction desire is used as the original motivation behind these more complex neocortical developments. A distinction is made between desires, natural emotions, caged emotions and attitudes as responses to increasingly intransigent blocks that reduce the level of freedom needed to be wild, and obstruct the naive desire for positive interaction.
Practice Schedule and the Learning of Motor Skills in Children and Adults: Teaching Implications.

Understanding how motor skills are learned influences how one teaches effective motor skill attainment. Educators must ask, “Does repetitive practice of the same task make for better performance or does contextual variability (random practice) offer some benefit when learning motor skills? ” Studies on the effects of Contextual Interference may provide some insight. Contextual interference (CI) studies typically use simple tasks involving movements already acquired by adults, which may account for random practice benefits. In contrast, children do not consistently demonstrate CI effects, as tasks usually require acquisition of a new movement pattern. In this experiment, adults and children ((8-10 yrs old) threw a Frisbee to targets for 54 trials under random or blocked conditions. Having had considerable throwing experience with other throwing objects, adults were expected to benefit from random practice. For children, a blocked practice advantage was predicted as it provides for devising and stabilizing a suitable movement pattern. Retention/retraining trials were administered 30 minutes after acquisition and seven days later. Two transfer tests were given after the delayed retention test: (a) same throwing object/different target distances (SODT), which required re-scaling the practiced movement, and (b) different throwing object (ropeball)/same target distances (DOST) which required a new movement pattern. Throwing accuracy was measured by absolute error from the target. Both age groups showed a blocked practice benefit on retention and SODT transfer tests. Findings from this experiment suggest that task variables and stage of learning are important determinants of CI effects and thus should influence how we teach motor skill attainment.