Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A New E-mail Agent Architecture Based on Semi-supervised Bayesian Networks

A new e-mail agent architecture with a Bayesian network (BN) has been investigated in order to detect important e-mail (IM) of office users. The BN has nodes related with users' resultant behaviors during the e-mail operation, which enables to adapt the agent for users' intentions by implicit feedbacks, called semi-supervised learning. We have investigated 5 examinees for 2 months. It is certain that our BN is so effective for the detection of IM, because we obtain an accuracy of as high as 0.924 by a fully supervised learning. Moreover, the similar accuracy can be obtained in the semi-supervised learning, where the nodes of resultant behaviors can be properly working in a cycle of the implicit feedback, as an alternative for users' questionnaires
Wheat policy reform in Egypt: adjustment of local markets and options for future reforms.

Many developing countries are in transition from a state-dominated to a more market-oriented economy. Because agriculture is of primary importance in most developing countries,the state is usually heavily involved in both input and output markets and in controlling prices and trade. However, concerns that market liberalization will result in higher consumer food prices and hurt the poor means that many countries, such as Egypt, have, at best, undertaken only partial agricultural sector reforms. It has been argued that such concerns are unwarranted and that further market liberalization is not only needed, but achievable without increasing impoverishment. IFPRI Research Report 115 sheds light on these critical issues through an analysis of wheat policy reform in Egypt.
Secured Text Message Transmission with Implementation of Concatenated CFB Cryptographic Algorithm

In the present simulated system, text message transmission has been secured with concatenated implementation of Cipher Feedback(CFB) cryptographic algorithm. It is anticipated from the numerical results that the pre-ZF channel equalization based MIMO OFDM wireless communication system outperforms in QAM digital modulation and BCH channel coding under AWGN and Raleigh fading channels . In Pre-MMSE/pre-ZF channel equalization scheme, the system shows comparatively worst performance in convolutional channel coding scheme with QAM/QPSK digital modulation. It has been observed from the present study that the system performance deteriorates with increase in noise power as compared to signal power. study of a secured MIMO Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing wireless communication system with implementation of two pre channel equalization techniques such as Pre-Minimum Mean Square Error (Pre-MMSE) and PreZero Forcing(Pre-ZF) under QPSK and QAM digital modulations.
Evolution of a 3-M⊙ star from the main sequence to the ZZ Ceti stage: the role played by element diffusion

The purpose of this paper is to present new full evolutionary calculations for DA white dwarf stars with the major aim of providing a physically sound reference frame for exploring the pulsation properties of the resulting models in future communications. Here, white dwarf evolution is followed in a self-consistent way with the predictions of time-dependent element diffusion and nuclear burning. In addition, full account is taken of the evolutionary stages prior to white dwarf formation. In particular, we follow the evolution of a 3-M⊙ model from the zero-age main sequence (the adopted metallicity is Z=0.02), all the way from the stages of hydrogen and helium burning in the core up to the thermally pulsing phase. After experiencing 11 thermal pulses, the model is forced to evolve towards its white dwarf configuration by invoking strong mass loss episodes. Further evolution is followed down to the domain of the ZZ Ceti stars on the white dwarf cooling branch. Emphasis is placed on the evolution of the chemical abundance distribution caused by diffusion processes and the role played by hydrogen burning during the white dwarf evolution. We find that discontinuities in the abundance distribution at the start of the cooling branch are considerably smoothed out by diffusion processes by the time the ZZ Ceti domain is reached. Nuclear burning during the white dwarf stage does not represent a major source of energy, as expected for a progenitor star of initially high metallicity. We also find that thermal diffusion lessens even further the importance of nuclear burning. Furthermore, the implications of our evolutionary models for the main quantities relevant for adiabatic pulsation analysis are discussed. Interestingly, the shape of the Ledoux term is markedly smoother compared with previous detailed studies of white dwarfs. This is translated into a different behaviour of the Brunt–Vaisala frequency.
Inferencing Emotions through the Triangulation of Pupil Size Data, Facial Heuristics and Self-Assessment Techniques

This paper presents a proposal for the introduction of the affective dimension in online learning applications. The paper focuses especially on affective data assessment by presenting a study of ‘emotional inference’ through the triangulation of three techniques: facial expression interpretations, pupil size and students as self-evaluators. In order to validate the combination of these techniques as a specific methodology, we planned a test with seven students interacting with a virtual learning environment. At the present time we are ready to present the first results and the correlations between the used techniques. The study is aimed to contribute to the development of truly affective computer-based learning applications. More specifically, we believe it can contribute to telemedicine as it promotes a methodology for subject emotional data analysis, being computer-based affective analysis a young field that needs new developments.
Comparing traditional face-to-face Design Studio education with modern internet-based design studios

The term Design Studio has come to inherit two commonly used definitions. It is seen as actual physical space where designing occurs and/or the conceptual and practical process of designing: one that sometimes incorporates a method of teaching centred on the activity of ‘learning by doing’. With the recent explosive growth of the Internet as a tool for mass communication, the situation now exists for educational design studios to be offered online. Over the last decade, such virtual design studios (VDS) have proliferated. In many ways, online or ‘virtual’ studios are analogous to traditional studios, yet important differences are apparent in the transition from the more familiar face-to-face method of instruction. The relatively limited published research regarding online design studios is often preoccupied with technology; consequently little examines the important issues of pedagogical content and student interaction. This paper examines contemporary online design studios in contrast to the traditional studio model. By analysing the views of two eminent theorists who have published in these fields, further comparisons can be drawn between the two processes. Through this comparative analysis of traditional and modern design studio settings and theory, criteria is suggested to guide future planning for Internet based design studio interaction. The Traditional Design Studio In order to understand the Design Studio as it exists today, it is useful to consider historical models that have led to its current form. This study examines two influential past examples of studio education — the Ecole Des Beaux Arts and the Bauhaus. Early Design Education: Ecole Des Beaux Arts 1819-1914 Known as ‘ateliers’, the studios at the Ecole Des Beaux Arts provided the basis of a pedagogical method that is still the core of design and architectural education. At the Ecole, as today, the design problem and learning by doing superseded the lecture as the primary method of teaching architecture. Once divided into ateliers, the pupils were led by a Patron (tutor). There evolved many traditions that still exist in design education today — the use of the esquisse (initial sketch solution to a problem that would be further developed), the teaching of design by practicing professionals, and the final evaluation of student work by a jury.
Simulation guiding and validation using dependence relations between events

More effective algorithms and improved computing support have extended the applications that can be effectively tackled by validation methods based on simulation (state space exploration). However, the huge state spaces and complex functionality of most applications remain major problems. We present a validation method that uses guided simulation for a functional decomposition of the system's behaviour. Essential aspects of the behaviour are expressed as dependence relations between events. They are used to jointly specify guiding constraints, delimiting the simulated functionality, and correctness requirements, describing the expected behaviour. Automata derived from these specifications run synchronised with the simulated system, applying the guiding constraints and checking on-the-fly if the correctness requirements are satisfied. This approach has been experimented during the development of Estelle specifications of complex protocols, using the Estelle Development Toolset (EDT).
Identification and classification of relations for Indian languages using machine learning approaches for developing a domain specific ontology

Information extraction and classification using Natural Language Processing techniques of layered architecture such as pre-processing task, processing of semantic analysis etc., helps in implementing further deeper evaluation techniques for the accuracy of natural language based electronic database. This paper explores relational information extraction of multilingual IndoWordNet database matching with domain specific terms. Further, extracted information are processed through conventional statistical methods, Normalized Web Distance (NWD) similarity method and two other machine learning evaluation techniques such as Support Vector Machine (SVM), Neural Network (NN) to compare with their accuracy. Results of machine leaning based techniques outperform with significant improved accuracy over conventional methods. The objective of using these techniques along with semantic web technology is to initiate a proof of concept for ontology generation by identification and classification of extracted relational information from IndoWordNet. This paper also highlights domain specific challenges and issues in developing relational model of ontology.
Emerging Functions for the Staphylococcus aureus RNome

Staphylococcus aureus is a leading pathogen for animals and humans, not only being one of the most frequently isolated bacteria in hospital-associated infections but also causing diseases in the community. To coordinate the expression of its numerous virulence genes for growth and survival, S. aureus uses various signalling pathways that include two-component regulatory systems, transcription factors, and also around 250 regulatory RNAs. Biological roles have only been determined for a handful of these sRNAs, including cis, trans, and cis-trans acting RNAs, some internally encoding small, functional peptides and others possessing dual or multiple functions. Here we put forward an inventory of these fascinating sRNAs; the proteins involved in their activities; and those involved in stress response, metabolisms, and virulence.
Interior-point methods for large-scale cone programming

In the conic formulation of a convex optimization problem the constraints are expressed as linear inequalities with respect to a possibly non-polyhedral convex cone. This makes it possible to formulate elegant extensions of interior-point methods for linear programming to general nonlinear convex optimization. Recent research on cone programming algorithms has particularly focused on three convex cones, for which symmetric primal-dual methods have been developed: the nonnegative orthant, the second-order cone, and the positive semidefinite matrix cone. Although not all convex constraints can be expressed in terms of the three standard cones, cone programs associated with these cones are sufficiently general to serve as the basis of convex modeling packages. They are also widely used in machine learning. The main difficulty in the implementation of interior-point methods for cone programming is the complexity of the linear equations that need to be solved at each iteration. These equations are usually dense, unlike the equations that arise in linear programming, and it is therefore difficult to develop general-purpose strategies for exploiting problem structure based solely on sparse matrix methods. In this chapter we give an overview of ad hoc techniques that can be used to exploit non-sparse structure in specific classes of applications. We illustrate the methods with examples from machine learning and present numerical results with CVXOPT, a software
Combining central pattern generators with the electromagnetism-like algorithm for head motion stabilization during quadruped robot locomotion

Visually-guided locomotion is important for au- tonomous robotics. However, there are several diffi culties, for instance, the head shaking that results from the robot locomotion itself that constraints stable image acquisition and the possibility to rely on that information to act accordingly. In this article, we propose a controller architecture that is able to generate locomotion for a quadruped robot and to generate head motion able to minimize the head motion induced by locomotion itself. The movement controllers are biologically inspired in the concept of Central Pattern Generators (CPGs). CPGs are modelled based on nonlinear dynamical systems, coupled Hopf oscillators. This approach allows to explicitly specify parameters such as amplitude, offset and frequency of movement and to smoothly modulate the generated oscillations according to changes in these parameters. We take advantage of this particularity and propose a combined approach to generate head movement stabilization on a quadruped robot, using CPGs and a global optimization algorithm. The best set of parameters that generates the head movement are computed by the electromagnetism-like algorithm in order to reduce the head shaking caused by locomotion. Experimental results on a simulated AIBO robot demonstrate that the proposed approach generates head movement that does not eliminate but reduces the one induced by locomotion.
Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights

Corporations rule the world, claims Thom Hartmann, and they are despoiling it for profit. He traces the historical friction between individual rights and the corporation, culminating in a landmark 1886 court case. Since then corporations have steadily acquired power, shifted an unfair share of the tax burden, taken control of the media, and co-opted the regulatory process for their own purposes, according to Hartmann. Hartmann cites examples of the absurd and frightening power: sterile streams and undrinkable water, poisonous neighbourhoods, deathtrap trucks for an extra USD2 in profit. To end the abuses, Hartmann calls for a grassroots revolution He says it's time to understand the true costs of our consumerist society, take back the government and shift to a values-based economy. Pre-drafted legal templates encourage individuals to begin work at the local level.
Entrepreneurship Before and after Schumpeter

Although entrepreneurship has virtually disappearedfrom the sphere of economic debate, many well-known economists have contributedto the subject over the past few centuries.While English classicaleconomists like David Ricardo and Adam Smith regarded "capitalist" and"entrepreneur" as synonymous, eighteenth-century French economistRichard Cantillon recognized the unique role of the entrepreneur and regardedentrepreneurship as the willingness to take risks.Karl Marx tended toignore the entrepreneur's role in the business process. Joseph Schumpeter's writings on entrepreneurship are outlined, particularlyhis provocative argument that only technical innovation and dynamic change canproduce a positive rate of interest.The Austrian theory ofentrepreneurship (promulgated by Ludwig von Mises and Israel Kirzner) depictsthe entrepreneur as anyone who buys cheap and sells dear.Following asummary of Mark Casson’s argument that the entrepreneur as one who makesjudgments about the coordination of resources, it is argued that Schumpeter’swritings offer a particularly astute approach to the question of how the wealthof nations is created. (SAA)
New extreme point results on robust strict positive realness

This paper considers the robust strict positive real (SPR) problem for a family of plants of the form G(s,q)=N(s,q/sub n/)D/sup -1/ (s,q/sub d/)-/spl alpha/, where N(s,q/sub n/) and D(s,q/sub d/) are multiaffine in uncertain parameters q/sub n/ and q/sub d/, respectively, and /spl alpha/>0. In the discrete-time setting, this problem plays an important role in digital quantization. Several results are presented. First, we prove that this plant family is robustly SPR if and only if all "corner plants" in the family are SPR. We then show that, if this plant family is robustly SPR, it admits a multiaffine Lyapunov matrix for the Kalman-Yakubovic-Popov (KYP) inequality, i.e., the Lyapunov matrix is multiaffine in the uncertain parameters. This result is useful in robustness analysis of time-varying systems. Finally, we relate the robust SPRness of this plant family to the robust strict bounded realness (SBRness) of a plant family involving the inverse of N(s,q/sub n/)D/sup -1/ (s,q/sub d/). We show that multiaffine Lyapunov matrix for the KYP inequality of the first plant family yields a multiaffine Lyapunov matrix for the bounded real inequality of the second plant family. Finally, the robust SPR problem is considered for a more general plant family with applications in circuits and communication systems.
SWARCH and the implicit volatility of the Real/USD exchange rate

This paper evaluates empirically the volatility prediction and the informational content of the exchange rate variation. The comparison is built on two different models. The rst is a markov switching model on the conditional variance – SWARCH (Hamilton, 1994). The second model is based on the Garman e Kohlhagen (1983) option pricing model, from which one extracts the implicit volatility. The results show that the SWARCH’s performance is better in both dimensions and contrast with the literature in two aspects: rst because the model with switching regime is not as usual as the ones without it, second because the best model is based on historical data rather than implicit volatility.
Influence of the counter electrode on the photovoltaic performance of dye-sensitized solar cells using a disulfide/thiolate redox electrolyte

Strong scientific interests focus on the investigation of iodine-free redox couples for their application in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs). Recently, a disulfide/thiolate-based redox electrolyte has been proposed as a valuable alternative to the conventional I3−/I− system due to its transparent and non-corrosive nature. In the work presented herein, we systematically studied the influence of different counter electrode materials on the photovoltaic performance of DSCs employing this promising organic redox electrolyte. Our investigations focused on understanding the importance of electrocatalytic activity and surface area of the electroactive material on the counter electrode, comparing the conventional platinum to cobalt sulfide (CoS) and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT). Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy has been used to study in detail the interfacial charge transfer reaction at the counter electrode. By using a high surface area PEDOT-based counter electrode, we finally achieved an unprecedented power conversion efficiency of 7.9% under simulated AM1.5G solar irradiation (100 mW cm−2) which, to the best of our knowledge, represents the highest efficiency that has so far been reported for an organic redox couple.
Can the European Union’s Market Liberalism Ensure Energy Security in a Time of ‘Economic Nationalism’?

The EU’s higher profile in energy policy matters is arguably due to the increased importance of market liberalisation as a policy objective over the last twenty years. Given the EU’s own competences in the internal market and competition policy, the European Commission has accordingly been able to play a more active role in energy policy-making. Moreover it has been active in extending this approach to its energy relations with its neighbours as manifest in the Energy Charter Treaty, the European Energy Community Treaty and bilateral agreements with third countries. The European Commission has been keen to assert the centrality of market liberalisation to its future energy policy and energy diplomacy, notwithstanding the changes that have taken place in energy markets. Given that there appears to be an increased interest in ‘national champions’ amongst both energy exporting countries and at least some EU member states, how far can the EU sustain a strategy of market liberalisation? The article will place current policy dilemmas (and the EU’s role) in the context of a shifting energy policy agenda – essentially from a supply security ‘economic nationalism’ to market liberalism and back again. It then considers how EU policy is adapting to these circumstances and assesses the effectiveness of this response.
Dynamic channel-sensitive scheduling algorithms for wireless data throughput optimization

The relative delay tolerance of data applications, together with bursty traffic characteristics, opens up the possibility for scheduling transmissions so as to optimize throughput. A particularly attractive approach in fading environments is to exploit the variations in the channel conditions and transmit to the user with the current "best" channel. We show that the "best" user may be identified as the maximum-rate user when feasible rates are weighted with some appropriately determined coefficients. Interpreting the coefficients as shadow prices, or reward values, the optimal strategy may thus be viewed as a revenue-based policy, which always assigns the transmission slot to the user yielding the maximum revenue. Calculating the optimal-revenue vector directly is a formidable task, requiring detailed information on the channel statistics. Instead, we present adaptive algorithms for determining the optimal-revenue vector online in an iterative fashion, without the need for explicit knowledge of the channel behavior. Starting from an arbitrary initial vector, the algorithms iteratively adjust the reward values to compensate for observed deviations from the target throughput rates. The algorithms are validated through extensive numerical experiments. Besides verifying long-run convergence, we also examine the transient performance, in particular the rate of convergence to the optimal-revenue vector. The results show that the target throughput ratios are tightly maintained and that the algorithms are well able to track sudden changes in channel conditions or throughput targets.