Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Event History Analysis

The aim of this workshop is to provide an introduction to the issues and opportunities which arise with event history data. The workshop covers various techniques of event history modeling for understanding the causes and consequences of change over time. The dependent variable in this type of analysis measures the duration of time that units spend in a state before experiencing some event. Illustrative examples include: in labor market studies, workers move between jobs; in demographic analyses, men and women dissolve unions; in social policy studies, households exit from poverty; in medical applications, patients die after organ transplantation; in political science research, countries go through a transition from one political regime to another.
Market Failure or Institutional Weakness?

Studies of the mechanisms of redundant construction formation and overcapacity commonly explain them in terms of market failure. Redundant construction policies are used as the basis for administrative control of investment and market access. This article reexamines major research that follows this line and finds that it is fundamentally flawed. Investigation shows that the main cause of enterprise overinvestment, overcapacity, and redundant construction is improper microeconomic interference by local governments under systemic distortions. This interference distorts enterprise investment behavior through the effects of cost externalization, investment subsidization, and risk externalization. Hence, redundant construction cannot be controlled administratively. The problem of redundant construction must be resolved through reforms of land-property rights and the financial system that use market competition to influence enterprise investment policies.
Deriving Access Control Policies from Requirements Specifications and Database Designs

Access control is a mechanism for achieving confidentiality and integrity in software systems. Specifying access control policies (ACPs) is a complex process that can benefit from requirements engineering techniques. In this paper, we present a method for deriving access control policies from software requirements specifications (SRS) and database designs. The approach provides prescriptive guidance for how to derive and specify ACPs. It also improves the quality of requirements specifications and the database designs by clarifying ambiguities and resolving conflicts across both artifacts. The approach provides traceability support between requirements, access control policies and design decisions, ensuring consistency among these artifacts. Examples from two projects are employed to demonstrate how the approach helps bridge the gap between requirements and design.
Regularized Large Margin Distance Metric Learning

Distance metric learning plays an important role in many applications, such as classification and clustering. In this paper, we propose a novel distance metric learning using two hinge losses in the objective function. One is the constraint of the pairs which makes the similar pairs (the same label) closer and the dissimilar (different labels) pairs separated as far as possible. The other one is the constraint of the triplets which makes the largest distance between pairs intra the class larger than the smallest distance between pairs inter the classes. Previous works only consider one of the two kinds of constraints. Additionally, different from the triplets used in previous works, we just need a small amount of such special triplets. This improves the efficiency of our proposed method. Consider the situation in which we might not have enough labeled samples, we extend the proposed distance metric learning into a semi-supervised learning framework. Experiments are conducted on several landmark datasets and the results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method.
Detection of BCR-ABL mutations in patients with CML treated with imatinib is virtually always accompanied by clinical resistance, and mutations in the ATP phosphate-binding loop (P-loop) are associated with a poor prognosis.

Imatinib-treated chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients with acquired resistance commonly have detectable BCR-ABL kinase domain mutations. It is unclear whether patients who remain sensitive to imatinib also have a significant incidence of mutations. We evaluated 144 patients treated with imatinib for BCR-ABL kinase domain mutations by direct sequencing of 40 accelerated phase (AP), 64 late chronic phase (> or = 12 months from diagnosis, late-CP), and 40 early-CP patients. Mutations were detected in 27 patients at 17 different residues, 13 (33%) of 40 in AP, 14 (22%) of 64 in late-CP, and 0 of 40 in early-CP. Acquired resistance was evident in 24 (89%) of 27 patients with mutations. Twelve (92%) of 13 patients with mutations in the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) binding loop (P-loop) died (median survival of 4.5 months after the mutation was detected). In contrast, only 3 (21%) of 14 patients with mutations outside the P-loop died (median follow-up of 11 months). As the detection of mutations was strongly associated with imatinib resistance, we analyzed features that predicted for their detection. Patients who commenced imatinib more than 4 years from diagnosis had a significantly higher incidence of mutations (18 [41%] of 44) compared with those treated within 4 years (9 [9%] of 100), P <. 0001. Lack of a major cytogenetic response (MCR) was also associated with a higher likelihood of detecting a mutation; 19 (38%) of 50 patients without a MCR had mutations compared with 8 (8.5%) of 94 with an MCR, P <. 0001. In conclusion, the detection of kinase domain mutations using a direct sequencing technique was almost always associated with imatinib resistance, and patients with mutations in the P-loop had a particularly poor prognosis.
The Use of Glass-fibers Ribbon and Composite for Prosthetic Restoration of Missing Primary Teeth-Laboratory and Clinical Research

Very few modalities can be used for restoring missing primary anterior teeth, although the impact of missing anterior teeth during early childhood can be harmful. In the permanent dentition the use of glass-fibers ribbon and composite materials are frequently used for restoring missing teeth with no or minimal preparation. The purpose of this study was to examine the possibility to use the glass-fibers ribbon (ever-Stick from GC Corporation, Japan) together with esthetic composite materials (G-aenial A1 from GC Corporation, Japan) for restoring anterior primary teeth and to determine the best methodology and bonding system to be used. The effect of etching time was analyzed using 20-80 sec on primary buccal enamel with SEM and the results showed that at least 60 second is necessary in order to remove the prismless layer and to affect the prismatic layer similar (as observed by SEM) to the 20 sec etching time on permanent enamel. Three bonding systems (SE Bond by Kurary, Japan, Scotchbond Universal by 3M/ESPE, Germany and G-aenial bond by GC Company, Japan) were compared for bonding the glass-fibers ribbon to the primary enamel and microtensile strength analyses were performed. Mean tensile strength ranged from 10.9 to 13 MPa with no statistically significant differences between all three systems. Based on the laboratory results it can be concluded that the glass-fibers ribbon together with the composite material can be used clinically to restore missing primary teeth for esthetic and functional reasons. Two clinical cases are presented that show favorable results.
Characterization and modeling of a gallium nitride power HEMT

In this paper, a simple and accurate circuit-simulator compact model for gallium nitride (GaN) high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) is proposed and validated under both static and switching conditions. A novel feature of this model is that it is valid also in the third quadrant, which is important when the device operates as a freewheeling diode. The only measurements required for the parameter extraction are simple I-V static characteristics and C-V characteristics. A double-pulse test-bench is built to characterize the resistive and inductive switching behavior of the GaN device. A simulation model is built in Pspice software tool, considering the parasitic elements from associated with the PCB interconnections and other components (load resistor, load inductor and current shunt monitor). The Pspice simulation results are compared with experimental results. The comparison shows good agreement between simulation and experimental results under both resistive and inductive switching conditions. Operation in the third quadrant under inductive switching is also validated.
Exploring Emergent Semantic Communities from DBLP Bibliography Database

In this paper, we construct a word association network from DBLP bibliography records and detect its evolution progress based on community discovery algorithm CPM and CPMw. We found that the network is of complex network characteristics, and the detected semantic communities can be classified into two categories: giant community and small community. They differ in size and content, and behave differently in the network evolution. Discovering the evolution of network and the emergent semantic communities can help researchers grasp the state of arts of the related field, identify emergent issues and thus inspire new idea to solve scientific questions.
Growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis biofilms containing free mycolic acids and harbouring drug-tolerant bacteria

Successful treatment of human tuberculosis requires 6–9 months' therapy with multiple antibiotics. Incomplete clearance of tubercle bacilli frequently results in disease relapse, presumably as a result of reactivation of persistent drug‐tolerant Mycobacterium tuberculosis cells, although the nature and location of these persisters are not known. In other pathogens, antibiotic tolerance is often associated with the formation of biofilms – organized communities of surface‐attached cells – but physiologically and genetically defined M. tuberculosis biofilms have not been described. Here, we show that M. tuberculosis forms biofilms with specific environmental and genetic requirements distinct from those for planktonic growth, which contain an extracellular matrix rich in free mycolic acids, and harbour an important drug‐tolerant population that persist despite exposure to high levels of antibiotics.
Methodology for designing and creating Hindi speech corpus

In this paper we have described the methodologies that we have used in data collection and recording for our Hindi Text to Speech system. Design of the speech corpus plays a very important role in overall quality of the text-to-speech system. A huge text corpus of one million words was created for existing text-to-speech system. We have crawled text from many domains like financial, government, current news etc. along with pre-built dictionaries. For the very first time, we have also generated and incorporated text from Hindi Short-Messaging-Service (SMS). The efforts were made to make the generic speech corpus for Hindi. The crawled text was first filtered for correctness e.g. spelling mistakes, validity to Hindi, word lengths etc. The filtered words were then carefully analyzed and ensured that phonetically balanced text is prepared. This cured text is then recorded by professional recordist in a studio environment. The recorded speech data is then processed and annotated to generate the final speech corpus. The paper explains the speech corpus creation process, beginning with text data crawling, filtering, recording and annotation phases. The final speech corpus thus generated is used in the Hindi Text-to-Speech system with the MOS of 2.8.
Performance analysis and code design of distributed space-time trellis codes for the detection-and-forward systems

In this paper, we analyze the performance of a detection-and-forward (DF) relay system in slow and quasi-slow Rayleigh fading channels. In the first part of the paper, we assume perfect decoding at the relay. While in the second part, the relay node no longer decodes the signal from the source but demodulates it. We analyze the performance of this relay system by taking into consideration the imperfect demodulations made by the relay. We propose a detection metric to address the effect of demodulation errors. The upper bounds of the pairwise error probability (PEP) are derived for both cases in slow and quasi-slow Rayleigh fading channels, and the design criteria for the distributed space-time trellis codes (DSTTCs) are formulated accordingly. Based on the proposed design criteria, the new QPSK DSTTCs are constructed. Simulation has shown that the codes we designed based on the performance analysis can improve the system performance.
Arriving from Delphi at O'Hare: Predictive Cognitive Engineering in the O'Hare Modernization Project and Beyond

This paper describes a cognitive modeling effort for the O'Hare Modernization Project (OMP). Beginning with a statement of the problem, it describes how cognitive modeling was used to measure the mental workload and work time of controllers running various positions at O'Hare International Airport, both under the current airport configurations and a future set of configurations (proposed in the OMP). The O'Hare case is used as an exemplar of the type of data that can be acquired with relatively simple cognitive models
3D IBFV: hardware-accelerated 3D flow visualization

We present a hardware-accelerated method for visualizing 3D flow fields. The method is based on insertion, advection, and decay of dye. To this aim, we extend the texture-based IBFV technique presented by van Wijk (2001) for 2D flow visualization in two main directions. First, we decompose the 3D flow visualization problem in a series of 2D instances of the mentioned IBFV technique. This makes our method benefit from the hardware acceleration the original IBFV technique introduced. Secondly, we extend the concept of advected gray value (or color) noise by introducing opacity (or matter) noise. This allows us to produce sparse 3D noise pattern advections, thus address the occlusion problem inherent to 3D flow visualization. Overall, the presented method delivers interactively animated 3D flow, uses only standard OpenGL 1.1 calls and 2D textures, and is simple to understand and implement.
Probabilistic Analysis for Mixed Criticality Scheduling with SMC and AMC

This paper introduces probabilistic analysis for fixed priority preemptive scheduling of mixed criticality systems on a uniprocessor using the Adaptive Mixed Criticality (AMC) and Static Mixed Criticality (SMC) schemes. We compare this analysis to the equivalent deterministic methods, highlighting the performance gains that can be obtained by utilising more detailed information about worst-case execution time estimates described in terms of probability distributions.
A Combined Optimization Algorithm for Multi-objective Flexible Job Shop Scheduling Problem

In order to exert the advantage of ant colony algorithm and particle swarm optimization algorithm respectively, a method combined the two algorithms was designed for solving multi-objective flexible job shop scheduling problem in this paper. The proposed algorithm was composed by two phases. The first phase made use of the fast convergence of PSO to search the particles optimum position and made the position as the start point of ants. In the second phase, the traditional ant colony algorithm was improved and was used to search the global optimum scheduling according to its characters of positive feedback and structure of solution set. The combined algorithm was validated by practical instances. The results obtained have shown the proposed approach is feasible and effective for the multi-objective flexible job shop scheduling problem.
Choroid Plexus Papilloma of Foramen of Luschka

We reported a rare case of choroid plexus papilloma arising at the foramen of Luschka of the fourth ventricle. The features of the tumor, as observed by computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging and digital subtraction angiography are described, along with a review of the literature. Correspondence Author to: Kou-Mou Huang Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan No. 95, Wen-Chang Road, Taipei 111, Taiwan J Radiol Sci 2011; 36: 183-186 Choroid plexus papilloma of Foramen of luschka 184 J Radiol Sci September 2011 Vol.36 No.3 1a
Statistical resolution of scope ambiguity in natural language

A crucial obstacle is that there is no labeled corpus available that is suitable for learning to resolve scope ambiguities. As a consequence, we’ve had to generate our own data set by (a) selecting sentences appropriate to our purposes, and (b) hand-labeling the sentences selected. We recognize that this represents a methodological compromise: our results would carry more weight if the training data, and especially the test data, had not been generated by the researchers themselves. However, we’ve attempted to mitigate this shortcoming by establishing in advance clear guidelines for selecting and labeling sentences. We obtained our data from sentences drawn from GRE and LSAT logic games. We chose this limited domain because these sentences are specifically designed to have an interpretation that is unambiguous to a human reader. Thus there is less subjectivity about the correct labelings, and determining the correct scoping is less likely to depend on context and pragmatics.
Analytical Approximate Solutions for the Prices of American Exotic Options

of the Dissertation Analytical Approximate Solution for the Prices of American Exotic Options. by Tatiana S. Taksar in Applied Mathematics and Statistics State University of New York at Stony Brook 1997 Dissertation Advisor: Professor Qiang Zhang In this thesis we will present analytical approximate solutions to the values of American barrier, lookback and Asian options. Both \out" barrier and \in" barrier options have been considered. At an \out" (\in") barrier, an option becomes worthless (starts to exist). A path-dependent option is an option iii whose payo at exercise or maturity depends on the past history of the price of the underlying asset. Lookback options are one of the most common types of path-dependent options. They are path-dependent options whose payo depends on the maximum or the minimum realized price of the underlying asset over the life of the option. Asian options are path-dependent options whose payo depends on the average stock price observed during the life of option. So far, the analytical solutions to the American options have not been found for vanilla options, the simplest form of American options. American options with barriers and path-dependent options contain additional complications. The analytical approximate solution derived in this thesis can be used to price the values of barrier, lookback and Asian call and put options on stocks, commodities and commodity futures and currency exchanges. We develop our analytical approximate solutions by extending the approach described in [1] and [59]. The theory presented in this thesis provides simple analytical formulas for evaluation of some types of American exotic options. To validate results, we compared the predictions of analytical approximate solutions with those of numerical nite-di erence methods. We considered not only the values of options, but also predictions for critical stock price, or free boundary, since this quantity is crucial for the estimation of option iv prices. The predictions of our analytical approximate solutions are in excellent agreement with the numerical solutions for cases with constant parameters, such as interest rate, dividends rate and volatility. For the case with timedependent parameters, namely Asian options case, the approximate solutions were less accurate for some sets of parameters. As a part of validation tests, we include a systematic validation study of quadratic approximation over the range of parameters. v
Darmstadt Discussion Papers in Economics East German Unemployment from a Macroeconomic Perspective

When reviewing the literature concerning the development of the Eastern German economy, a too rigid labor market and its respective institutions are considered as the main source of the persistent high unemployment rates and the slow economic performance. However, when important macroeconomic variables are considered a significant decline in investment in new technologies is observed. In addition, we find evidences that the decline in investment might be affected by the steady migration of young and skilled workers to West Germany. The decline in the proportion of skilled workers induces firms not to invest in Eastern Germany which leads to a general decline in job creating activities irrespective rigid labor markets and generous social benefits. In the recent paper we employ a rather standard Dynamic General Equilibrium model in order to study the effects of a decline in the proportion of skilled workers as well as the impacts of increasing benefit payments. Furthermore, we assume equilibrium unemployment due to search and matching frictions on the labor market. This approach enables us further to consider job creating activities of the firms. We show that an emigration shock of skilledworkers is capable to reproduce the findings for the decline in economic activity. This effect is strengthened by assuming generous social benefit payments. JEL Classification: E20, J21, J24, J64
The Turbo Equalization in Bit Interleaved Coded Modulation with Iterative Decoding

Conventional receivers execute equalization and channel decoding independently. Turbo equalization is a technique which links equalization with decoding. It gets better performance by exchanging the extrinsic information iteratively between the equalizer and decoder. We apply Turbo principle to the equalization in BICM-ID system and perform the Turbo equalization based on DFE (decision-feedback equalizer). Simulation results show that this algorithm leads to convergence in ISI channels with different fading degree and it approaches the performance in AWGN gradually along with the increasing SNR. Compared with the classical DFE algorithm, it has better performance.
A Robust Method for Shape from Shading Using Genetic Algorithm Based on Matrix Code

In this paper, a method for reconstructing a 3-D shape of an object from a 2-D shading image using a Genetic Algorithm (GA), which is an optimizing technique based on mechanisms of natural selection. The 3D-shape is recovered through the analysis of the gray levels in a single image of the scene. This problem is ill-posed except if some additional assumptions are made. In the proposed method, shape from shading is addressed as an energy minimization problem. The traditional deterministic approach provides efficient algorithms to solve this problem in terms of time but reaches its limits since the energy associated with shape from shading can contain multiple deep local minima. Genetic Algorithm is used as an alternative approach which is efficient at exploring the entire search space. The Algorithm is tested in both synthetic and real image and is found to perform accurate and efficient results.
Patterns of Insertion and Deletion in Mammalian Genomes

Nucleotide insertions and deletions (indels) are responsible for gaps in the sequence alignments. Indel is one of the major sources of evolutionary change at the molecular level. We have examined the patterns of insertions and deletions in the 19 mammalian genomes, and found that deletion events are more common than insertions in the mammalian genomes. Both the number of insertions and deletions decrease rapidly when the gap length increases and single nucleotide indel is the most frequent in all indel events. The frequencies of both insertions and deletions can be described well by power law.