Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Type systems for the masses: deriving soundness proofs and efficient checkers

The correct definition and implementation of non-trivial type systems is difficult and requires expert knowledge, which is not available to developers of domain-specific languages (DSLs) in practice. We propose Veritas, a workbench that simplifies the development of sound type systems. Veritas provides a single, high-level specification language for type systems, from which it automatically tries to derive soundness proofs and efficient and correct type-checking algorithms. For verification, Veritas combines off-the-shelf automated first-order theorem provers with automated proof strategies specific to type systems. For deriving efficient type checkers, Veritas provides a collection of optimization strategies whose applicability to a given type system is checked through verification on a case-by-case basis. We have developed a prototypical implementation of Veritas and used it to verify type soundness of the simply-typed lambda calculus and of parts of typed SQL. Our experience suggests that many of the individual verification steps can be automated and, in particular, that a high degree of automation is possible for type systems of DSLs.
Behavior Classes for Specification and Search of Complex Services and Processes

In the Web there are a large number of (business) services with complex behavior, such as e-commerce Web sites that require multiple interactions with the user, as well as an increasing number of Web automation scripts to coordinate the execution of multiple complex services. However, while there are a quite a few search techniques for atomic Web services, search techniques for complex services are still rare and only foundational. In this paper, we present \textit{behavior classes} that have formal semantics as well as human comprehensible names in order to foster usability of specification of constraints, and efficiency of search for complex services and processes. Our approach enables automatic methods for (i) assigning behavior classes to complex behavior descriptions, (ii) checking consistency of such a classification, and (iii) computing behavior class hierarchies. Furthermore, human comprehensible names for the behavior classes increase usability by allowing for shorter service descriptions and requests. Our evaluation results show that a behavior class hierarchy can be exploited as an indexing structure to gain performance of search.
Recommendations for reporting context in studies of web browsing behaviour

The study of web browsing behaviour is a relatively young and developing researching domain. Research in this area is complicated by the fact that the Web and its user population are constantly growing and evolving. This can make it difficult for researchers to evaluate previous work in the proper context, particularly when detailed information about the user population, experimental methodology, and results is not presented. Therefore, we present eight categories of contextual information that, when not reported, make it difficult to replicate the work, make comparisons between current work and the reported work, and build upon this reported work to advance the field. We have conducted a survey of recently published papers that studied user behaviour on the Web and examined the contextual information currently reported.
A Java Network File System for Network Computers

We introduce and discuss the Java Network File System (jnfs), a network file system for Network Computers (ncs). jnfs works on all nc–compliant nc devices, provides authentication and authorization support, works with other file systems such as nfs and ntfs, and offers reasonable performance. 1 Background and Motivation Network Computers, or ncs, are “low–cost, easy–to–use network computing devices” [1]. The concept of the nc was introduced last year to address the costs and complexities of owning and maintaining personal computers (pcs). The two central tenets of the nc are . to be cheaper and easier to maintain and use than pcs, and to provide access to corporate networks and the Internet. They are cheaper because they don’t provide local storage, and lack the processing and video capabilities (as well as the other bells and whistles) that are standard on today’s pcs. They are easier to maintain because servers control the software management, including downloading applications as they are needed, primarily using Sun’s platform independent Java [6]. 1.1 Network Computer Reference Profile The Network Computer Reference Profile (ncrp) is a set of guidelines offered by Apple, IBM, Netscape, Oracle and Sun as a “common denominator
Are Canadian Stakeholders Resting on Their Laurels? A Comparative Study of the Athlete Pathway Through the Swedish and Canadian Male Ice Hockey Systems

Organizations in a sport system compete against one another while working together to sustain a competitive environment and to provide opportunities for competition at the provincial/state, national, or international level. This paper is a multicase study comparison of the elite sport development systems of Canada and Sweden to explore the differences and similarities between their approaches to the delivery of ice hockey. Semistructured interviews took place with participants from North America and Europe. Additional data came from media articles from Canada and Sweden. Findings revealed six themes/characteristics: the cost of hockey, residential boundaries, the player selection process, skill development, early specialization, and coaching. The results suggest that Canadian and Swedish hockey systems offer two different approaches to elite player development (closed vs. open systems), resulting in different trajectories regarding international success in the World Junior Championships and in the number .
Experiencing Physical Education Through the Filter of Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties

This chapter explores issues around children's voice, physical education and social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) in England. Research has previously highlighted the physical, social, effective and cognitive benefits of participation in physical education (PE) (Bailey, 2006). Furthermore, practical, physical and expressive creative experiences in education have been cited as being an important constituent when educating children with SEBD (Cole & Visser, 1998). However, research has yet to address the experiences of the child with SEBD alongside the ideological benefits of their participation in PE. After a period of sensitisation to the field, in a number of pilot schools, a total of 24 weeks were spent immersed in the cultures of two mainstream schools in the West of England. After six weeks of local familiarisation, during which field notes and research diaries were kept, weekly interviews with each of six case study participants commenced. This process resulted in an intensely interactive and personal process of engagement (Sparkes, 1994) which was at times magnified when working in a PE environment. In this research, a PE environment afforded opportunities to spend time and build trust through co-participation in the negotiation of socially constructed roles in the subject. The six case study participants whose experiences have been studied make reference to, amongst others, their affinity towards the physical nature of PE, the perception of it being a subject allowing for freedoms not found elsewhere in the curriculum and one which cemented both the positive and negative social systems in relation to their relationships with peers. Inductive processes of analysis utilising constant comparison methods between data sources have generated data which shows signs of both the idiosyncratic nature of multiple truths and some common ground in their experiences.
Real-time dynamic wrinkles

This paper proposes a new method for designing dynamic wrinkles that appear and disappear according to the underlying deformation of tissues. The user positions and orients wrinkling tools on a mesh. During animation, geometric wrinkles are generated in real-time in the regions covered by the tools, mimicking resistance to compression of tissues. The wrinkling feature can be added to any existing animation. When the local resolution of the mesh is not sufficient, our tool refines it according to the wrinkle's finest feature. As our results show, the technique can be applied to a variety of situations such as facial expression wrinkles, joint wrinkles or garment wrinkles
On the greedy heuristic for matchings

Heuristics are widely employed in practice for approximating solutions to problems of combinatorial optimization. The reduced running time of an heuristic often compensates for the difference from exact optimality in the solution obtained. This has led to theoretical interest in quantifying the efficiency of heuristics. The most common measure of solution quality is the performance ratio, the worst case of the ratio of heuristic solution value to optimal solution value. Theoretical investigations have included problems which are polynomial time solvable [7, 81 as well as problems which are NP-hard.
3-D Structure Assisted Reference View Generation for H.264 Based Multi-View Video Coding

A 3D geometry-based multi-view video coding (MVC) method is proposed. In order to utilize the spatial redundancies between multiple views, the scene geometry is estimated as dense depth maps. The dense depth estimation problem is modeled by using a Markov random field (MRF) and solved via the belief propagation algorithm. Relying on these depth maps of the scene, novel view estimates of the intermediate views of the multi-view set is obtained with a 3D warping algorithm, which also performs hole-filling in the occlusion regions. The proposed MVC method, based on H.264 standard, encodes a number of reference views in a standard manner, whereas the residuals of the novel view predictions are encoded separately. The proposed MVC method is compared against the well-known JMVM compression algorithm, yielding competitive performances, while additionally providing 3D structure information of the observed scene.
On constrained manipulation in robotics-assisted minimally invasive surgery

Results of a study on the restricted motion of manipulators in robotics-assisted minimally invasive surgery are presented in this paper. The governing equations of trocar kinematics are derived and the constrained manipulation is generically formulated in terms of the trocar geometry as well as the kinematics of the manipulator. The results are validated through a numerical simulation with a Mitsubishi PA10-7C arm. Following this analysis, by utilizing the constrained manipulation formulation, a modified measure of manipulability, specifically applicable to surgical tasks, is proposed. The measure is proven to be frame-invariant and dimensionally homogeneous for manipulators with similar joints (revolute or prismatic). Furthermore, the measure is shown to be capable of quantifying the impact of trocar constraints on surgical task performance when the remote center of motion is maintained through active compliant motion control.
Vigor for In Vitro Culture Traits in S. melongena   ×   S. aethiopicum Hybrids with Potential as Rootstocks for Eggplant

Hybrids of Solanum melongena and S. aethiopicum are of interest as rootstocks of eggplant, as they are highly vigorous and can incorporate resistance to several diseases. However, hybridization between both species is difficult. Therefore, protocols for in vitro culture are of great interest for their micropropagation and biotechnological breeding. We assessed the organogenesis response from leaf explants in four interspecific hybrids and in their parents testing two organogenic media: SIM-A, containing 6-benzylaminopurine and kinetin, and SIM-B, which contains thidiazuron. A higher regeneration capacity in the hybrids compared to their parents was observed. Whereas in interspecific hybrids and in one accession of S. melongena similar regeneration rates were observed for SIM-A and SIM-B, higher regeneration was found in the rest of genotypes when thidiazuron was used. Rooting ability in the interspecific hybrids was lower in in vitro micropropagated plants (35–60%) than in plants regenerated from explants (100%). The addition of indolbutiric acid (1 mg L−1) induced roots in nonrooted genotypes. In summary, we have adjusted in vitro culture conditions for regenerating and rooting S. melongena × S. aethiopicum hybrids. We have also demonstrated that these hybrids are heterotic for regeneration, which may be of interest for basic science studies.
Smart-Evac: Big Data-Based Decision Making for Emergency Evacuation

Smart-Evac manages emergency evacuation systems after a natural disaster. Unlike existing disaster risk reduction (DRR) systems, Smart-Evac takes cloud computing and big data characteristics into consideration during decision making. The authors consider human anxiety to be a major contributor to network congestion immediately following a disaster. They envision tracing clusters of trapped peoples where network usage is comparatively high. The Smart-Evac system ranks these clusters based on volume, velocity, and variety (the 3Vs of big data). Based on this ranking, the system provides immediate evacuation service to the top-listed clusters to mitigate the exponential rise of network congestion. The system used the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to achieve the proper ranking of the clusters to support decision makers efficiently. In addition, Smart-Evac provides immediate cloud-based basic healthcare facilities and ambulatory medical services to victims after successful evacuation. Immediate priority-based healthcare in turn reduces the haphazard rush to nearby hospitals.
Workforce Planning with a Parallel Genetic Algorithm

A workforce planning problem is formulated here as a mixed-integer program and then solved with Cplex. Our experiments show that Cplex is capable of solving to optimality of near optimality small “structured” problem instances but it fails to solve those considered “unstructured”. We describe the development of a parallel genetic algorithm capable of finding high-quality solutions to both structured and unstructured problem instances. Additional enhancements to the genetic algorithm are necessary to improve upon competitive approaches to solving the problem at hand.
Indo-Caribbean Women from Trinidad and Guyana: Hardships, Conflict, and Resiliency

Abstract: This study contributes to the literature on Asian Indian women who have emigrated from Trinidad and Guyana (Indo-Caribbeans) and who are now residing in the US. Using a qualitative design comprised of four ninety-minute interviews, I explored the experiences of immigration, ways of coping, and feelings regarding empowerment for a group of seven women between the ages of forty and forty-nine. Findings were similar to previous research on Asian Indian women and revealed negative experiences with gender inequality, domestic violence, spousal alcohol abuse, and increased role strain following immigration. The women reported that their relationships with other women were helpful and psychologically supportive and enabled them to cope with various hardships. These findings contrast with research findings that have described women’s relationships as primarily competitive and undermining of one another. The findings further suggest that clinicians working with Indo-Caribbean women should explore stresses of immigration, cultural differences between the women’s country of origin and the host country, and identifying ways of coping.
Joint transform correlator based on joint image feature extraction using swarm intelligence method

An image feature extraction method based on Swarm Intelligence is used in the preprocessing of joint image in joint transform correlator. The Swarm Intelligence based image processing method is superior to the conventional image processing method in its robust, flexible, fault tolerant, scalable, and highly parallelizable characteristic. The output results from the classical JTC without image preprocessing and the JTC with Sobel operator based joint image feature extraction are compared with that of the JTC when using the Swarm Intelligence to extract the feature of joint image. Experiment results show the performance improvement of JTC using the feature extraction method based on Swarm Intelligence.
Acceleration plethysmogram based biometric identification

This paper presents the feasibility study of Acceleration Plethysmogram (APG) based biometric identification system. APG signals are obtained from the second derivative of the Photoplethysmogram (PPG) signal. It has been reported from previous literature that APG signals contain more information as compared to the PPG signal. Thus, in this paper, the robustness and reliability of APG signal as a biometric recognition mechanism will be proven. APG signals of 10 subjects were acquired from the Multiparameter Intelligent Monitoring in Intensive Care II Waveform Database (MIMIC2WDB) which contains PPG signals with a sampling frequency of 125 Hz. The signals were later converted into an APG waveform. Then, discriminating features are extracted from the APG morphology. Finally, these APG samples were classified using commonly known classification techniques to identify individuals. Based on the experimentation results, APG signal when using Bayes Network gives an identification rate of 97.5 percentage as compared to PPG signal of 55 percentage for the same waveform. This outcome suggests the feasibility and robustness of APG signals as a biometric modality as compared to PPG signals.
Financially Linked Independent Directors and Bankruptcy Reemergence: The Role of Director Effort

This study examines if the effort of financially linked independent (FLI) directors enable firms to reemerge from bankruptcy, a major organizational crisis. Using a sample of 307 bankrupt U.S. firms with instrumental variables regression methodology, I find that the efforts of these directors are critical for firm reemergence. FLI directors’ efforts increase the likelihood of reemergence as well as improve access to financial resources. In contrast, I do not find any evidence that non-FLI directors’ efforts are associated with reemergence. I also find that resourceful but uninvolved directors are not helpful for firms trying to navigate their way out of bankruptcy. My study highlights (a) the changing nature of roles played by directors in various lifecycle stages, (b) the greater importance of resource provisioning over monitoring during reemergence, and (c) that efforts of FLI directors, and not others director categories, matter for reemergence. Overall, my study extends research that suggests directors’ motivation may cause differential firm outcomes and provides evidence that directors do not always put in their best effort on behalf of their firms. This, I suggest, has profound implications for corporate governance research and practice.
A Feature-Preserving Filtering Algorithm for Point Set Surface and Surface Attributes Based on Robust Statistics

With the increasing use of three-dimensional (3D) scanning tools and correspond-ing growth in the number and complexity of scanned objects or models, there is an in-creasing need in the development of robust and efficient processing techniques for scanned raw data, also referred to as point set surface and surface attributes. We present a features-preserving filtering algorithm for point set surface and surface attributes. The proposed approach is based on robust statistics, by constructing robust prediction frame- work for first-order estimation of points and surface attributes. Experiments show that the proposed approach preserves the sharp features and the edges of surface attributes while smoothing point set surface and corresponding attributes.
Quartet Puzzling: A Quartet Maximum-Likelihood Method for Reconstructing Tree Topologies

A versatile method, quartet puzzling, is introduced to reconstruct the topology (branching pattern) of a phylogenetic tree based on DNA or amino acid sequence data. This method applies maximum-likelihood tree reconstruction to all possible quartets that can be formed from n sequences. The quartet trees serve as starting points to reconstruct a set of optimal n-taxon trees. The majority rule consensus of these trees defines the quartet puzzling tree and shows groupings that are well supported. Computer simulations show that the performance of quartet puzzling to reconstruct the true tree is always equal to or better than that of neighbor joining. For some cases with high transition/transversion bias quartet puzzling outperforms neighbor joining by a factor of 10. The application of quartet puzzling to mitochondrial RNA and tRNAVd’ sequences from amniotes demonstrates the power of the approach. A PHYLIP-compatible ANSI C program, PUZZLE, for analyzing nucleotide or amino acid sequence data is available.
Religious literacy in the context of theology and religious studies.

‘Theology and Religious Studies’ has become, in the UK, a catch-all phrase for the academic study of religion. Several universities have a ‘Department of Theology and Religious Studies’ (Kings College London, Nottingham, Leeds, Chester, Glasgow, and several others), advocacy for the field is carried out by a body called ‘Theology and Religious Studies UK’ (TRS UK, formerly the Association of University Departments of Theology and Religious Studies, or AUDTRS), and in 2000 representatives of British university departments of divinity, theology, religion, religious studies, biblical studies and various combinations of those terms met under the auspices of the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) and agreed on a ‘benchmarking statement’ for the field using the phrase ‘Theology and Religious Studies’ as their heading.
Testing voice-based biometrics authentication platforms for Romanian utterances through infrequent consonant clusters

Investigating the occurrence rate of two-letters consonant clusters in the Romanian lexicon, we rank the clusters by their frequency and determine those with minimal occurrence rates. Our table of infrequent consonant clusters can be used to construct Romanian utterances for voice-based biometrics authentication platforms. The main message of our results is that one should go beyond the somewhat standard distribution of phones when describing the phonetical balance of the test phrases/utterances used in calibration of these platforms. To this end, we propose the distribution of clusters as the closest complementary statistical indicator. Our results are relevant for a wide range of voice-based cyber-security solutions.
Temperature-aware idle time distribution for energy optimization with dynamic voltage scaling

With new technologies, temperature has become a major issue to be considered at system level design. In this paper we propose a temperature aware idle time distribution technique for energy optimization with dynamic voltage scaling (DVS). A temperature analysis approach is also proposed which is accurate and, yet, sufficiently fast to be used inside the optimization loop for idle time distribution and voltage selection.