Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Open-Loop Adaptive Space-Time Transmit Scheme for Correlated Fading Channels

Recently, the combination of beamforming (BF) and space-time block coding (STBC) has been widely studied in wireless communications, and is recognized as an efficient means to improve the system performance. In this paper, an open-loop adaptive space-time transmit scheme for correlated fading channels is presented. A hybrid system combining adaptive BF with STBC is first developed based on the model of the equivalent scaled additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel induced by STBC, in which the maximization of the output mean signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the minimization of the symbol error rate (SER) upper bound are used as the design criteria. Then, a method to efficiently calculate the downlink beamforming weight vectors from the uplink channel correlation matrix is presented, so that the feedback of channel statistics from the receiver to the transmitter can be avoided. The main benefit of the proposed scheme is that it can achieve a nearly optimal performance with low implementation complexity. Next, utilizing the Laplace transform, the SER performance of the system with the new transmit scheme is analyzed by considering the three most widely used modulations, namely, -PAM, -PSK and square -QAM. Finally, analytical and simulation results are given to demonstrate the validity and superiority of the proposed method.
On decay of Bulk Tachyons

We investigate a decay of a bulk tachyon with a Kaluza-Klein momentum in bosonic and Type 0 string theories compactified on S^1. Potential for the tachyon has a (local) minimum. A decay of the tachyon would lead the original theory to a strongly coupled theory. An endpoint of the decay would exist if the strong coupling limit exists and it is a stable theory.
Computational soundness of formal adversaries

The Dolev-Yao model is a useful and widespread framework in which to analyze security protocols. However, it models the messages of the protocol at a very high level and makes extremely strong assumptions about the power of the adversary. The computational model of cryptography and cryptographic protocols takes a much more low-level view of messages and uses much weaker assumptions. A major result of this work will be the demonstration that certain kinds of computational cryptography can result in an equivalence of sorts between the formal and computational adversary. Specifically, we give an interpretation to the messages of the Dolev-Yao model in terms of computational cryptography. We then define a computational security condition on the powers of the computational adversary, and show that this condition limits the computational adversary to the operations of the Dolev-Yao adversary. Lastly, we show that this security condition is achievable using standard computational cryptographic constructs.
ADAM17 Is Critical for Multipolar Exit and Radial Migration of Neuronal Intermediate Progenitor Cells in Mice Cerebral Cortex

The radial migration of neuronal progenitor cells is critical for the development of cerebral cortex layers. They go through a critical step transforming from multipolar to bipolar before outward migration. A Disintegrin and Metalloprotease 17 (ADAM17) is a transmembrane protease which can process many substrates involved in cell-cell interaction, including Notch, ligands of EGFR, and some cell adhesion molecules. In this study, we used in utero electroporation to knock down or overexpress ADAM17 at embryonic day 14.5 (E14.5) in neuronal progenitor cells to examine the role of ADAM17 in cortical embryonic neurogenesis. Our results showed that the radial migration of ADAM17-knocked down cells were normal till E16.5 and reached the intermediate zone (IZ). Then most transfected cells stopped migration and stayed at the IZ to inner cortical plate (CP) layer at E18.5, and there was higher percentage of multipolar cells at IZ layer in the ADAM17-knocked down group compared to the cells in control group. Marker staining revealed that those ADAM17-knocked down cells differentiated normally from neural stem cells (NSCs) to neuronal intermediate progenitor cells (nIPCs) but did not differentiate into mature neurons. The migration and multipolar exit defects caused by ADAM17 knockdown could be partially rescued by over-expressing an shRNA resistant ADAM17, while overexpressing ADAM17 alone did not affect the radial migration. Taken together, our results showed for the first time that, ADAM17 is critical in regulating the multipolar-stage exit and radial migration of the nIPCs during telencephalon cortex development in mice.
Performance comparison of two hardware implementations of the deblocking filter used in H.264 by changing the utilized data width

The deblocking filter is more complex than other modules in the H.264 because it is highly adaptive, applied to each boundary of all 4×4 blocks and updated three pixels in each direction. After careful study and analysis of this filter, we have concluded that its complexity lies in the data dependency and in the control module of elementary filters that compose it, but not in the type of these filters. In this paper, we propose two hardware implementations for the deblocking filter using the same strategy for memory management. The implementations differ on the utilized data width. The first one utilizes 32-bit while the second one utilizes 128-bit. The use of 128-bit data width is in order to ensure a high degree of parallelism and to avoid the use of transpose circuits and the intermediate buffers between the elementary modules in the filter. Simulation and synthesis results are then compared. The number of consumed LUTs remains almost the same compared with previous implementations and the number of clock cycles required to process a macroblock is reduced about 40% less than the best of the competing proposals.
ANALYSIS OF THERMAL PERFORMANCE OF ANNULAR FINS WITH VARIABLE THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY BY HOMOTOPY ANALYSIS METHOD

The homotopy analysis method (HAM) is used to analyze the thermal performance of annular fins with temperature-dependent thermal conductivity. Since the HAM algorithm contains a parameter that controls the convergence and accuracy of the solution, its results can be verified internally by calculating the residual error. The HAM solution appears in terms of algebraic expressions which are not only easy to compute but also give highly accurate results covering a wide range of values of the parameters rather than the small values dictated by the perturbation solution. In this work, the fin efficiency of nonlinear annular fins is obtained as a function of thermo- geometric fin parameter, thermal conductivity parameter and radii ratio. The data from the present solutions is correlated for suitable ranges of problem parameters. The resulting correlation equations can assist thermal design engineers for designing of annular fins with temperature-dependent thermal conductivity.
Eigenvalue detection based method to mitigate PUEA in cognitive radio networks

Cognitive radio (CR) is a promising technology in order to solve the spectrum scarcity problem by allocating the spectrum dynamically to the unlicensed users. However, it is also vulnerable to various attacks, and can not offer sufficient defense towards its security. Primary user emulation attack (PUEA) is one of the major threats to CR which significantly reduces the spectrum resources for the secondary users. In this paper, we propose the energy with minimum eigenvalue (EME) detection based method to mitigate PUEA through less spatial correlated secondary users (SUs). The SUs are selected based on their spatial correlation characteristics in log-normal shadow fading environment. Hence, the detection performance is improved. Simulation results show that our proposed method mitigates the PUEA effectively with lesser number of SUs.
Headteacher values in five Dutch Reformed secondary schools: Comparing perspectives of heads, staff and pupils

Dutch Reformed secondary school leaders’ personal and professional values have rarely been studied. This study investigates their values in leading their schools, both espoused and lived out, comparing their own perspective and the perspectives of staff and pupils, in relation to their Christian faith. A three-stage backward design was adopted. Document analysis and exploratory interviews facilitated developing two corresponding questionnaire surveys, for headteachers and staff respectively, available in Dutch and English. Subsequently, two case studies were conducted with headteachers representing substantial variation within this relatively homogeneous group. Three in-depth interviews were conducted with the head, interspersed with focus groups interviews with team leaders, teachers and pupils. The respondents entertain mainstream ideas on school leadership. The questionnaire data suggest that heads as a group and teachers as a group agree to a large extent. However, this conceals underlying individual differences between the heads, as emerged from the case studies. The degree to which staff agree with their heads on his values varies. Furthermore, heads differ significantly in the extent to which they formulate a direct link between their values and their faith. In the questionnaires approximately 25% of the answers given by both groups on open questions on values contain explicitly Christian elements. Analysis of the interview data suggested four mediating variables on the perceptions followers have of their leaders’ values. These include whether the headteacher has a focussed set of values; the extent of integration of his worldview, values and actions; the nature of the content of his values; and the extent to which a head’s vision is clear, coherent and convincing. Some characteristics of a head’s ongoing professional development appear to moderate these four variables. An integrated conceptual framework of perceptions of a head’s values and actions, sources and contexts was developed beforehand and refined afterwards to include these newly-found variables.
In vivo validation of a propulsion method for untethered medical microrobots using a clinical magnetic resonance imaging system

Models for MRI-based magnetic propulsion of untethered medical microrobots were validated both in vitro and in vivo using magnetic beads. In accordance with the theoretical models, a clinical MRI system has the capability to propel magnetic spheres with maximum velocity in blood vessels approximately twice the diameter of the device being navigated. The preliminary models were in accordance with data obtained in experiments performed in the carotid artery of a living swine where a 1.5 mm sphere was propelled with a velocity of 13 cm/s. These models were used in this paper to extrapolate the magnetic field gradients that will be required for propulsion and steering of magnetic particles and applicable for microrobots in blood vessels of various sizes, from the aorta to the capillaries.
Dynamic interplay of language policies, beliefs and pedagogy in a preschool in Luxembourg

Abstract There is a recognised need for multilingual pedagogies as these capitalise on children’s resources. Language policies calling for monolingual or multilingual policies are, however, not easily translated into pedagogical practices. Teachers play a crucial role in the process of policy implementation because they negotiate policies and adapt them in the light of their beliefs, experiences, existing pedagogical practices and the context in which these are embedded. This case study is located in a preschool in multilingual Luxembourg and examines the ways in which a teacher engages with policy and implements a multilingual-oriented programme to draw on children’s diverse language needs. The data stem from a qualitative, longitudinal study using a multi-method approach. The findings highlight the interplay between the educational policy focussing on Luxembourgish, the teacher’s beliefs and ideologies rooted in her multilingual identity and the country’s societal multilingualism, and a boy’s experiences of separating languages at home. The findings are of particular interest to teachers as they show that the dialogue between the teacher, the child and his mother influences their beliefs and contributes to opening up multilingual spaces.
Text independent automatic speaker recognition using selforganizing maps

This work presents one implementation of an automatic speaker recognition system, based on selforganizing map (SOM) neural networks. The voice of each speaker is modeled by a SOM, trained to specialize in the quantization of feature vectors (MFCCs) extracted from his voice. When a test sample is presented, it is quantized by all SpMs, that compete for the speaker: the SOM with smallest quantization error defines the speaker. The system was tested on a speaker identification task over a 14 speaker set, with phrases from three phonetically balanced sets and one variable answer set. The results comprovate the method's efficiency.
ENCHANCING THE USE OF BIDSS/CI SYSTEMS: A PROPOSED FRAMEWORK

Nowadays applications for Business Intelligence (BI) and Decision Support Systems (DSS) have been adopted by multiple organizations. BIDSS have become one of the most significant tools for managers. Big corporations as well as small enterprises annually spend billions of dollars for BIDSS software in order to improve design, manufacturing, service, marketing, management, and financial decision-making. However, purchasing and installing BI/DSS software is not a guarantee of the effectiveness and efficiency of their implementation. This research effort examines several problems that companies face with the implementation of BIDSS. The purpose is to determine the characteristics of those problems and provide an innovative solution for them. A case study that illustrates an application of BI/DSS in a chemical corporation is included.
Market : Etudes et recherches en marketing Ed. 3

De la conception des etudes a la maitrise des donnees, cet ouvrage aborde les methodes tant quantitatives que qualitatives. Oriente vers la prise de decision, il presente les problematiques de recherche et les outils pertinents pour y repondre. Cette troisieme edition integre les evolutions de la recherche en marketing ; la derniere partie de l’ouvrage sur l’ingenierie marketing et les modeles d’aide a la decision est entierement nouvelle. La reference !
The Srní lectures on non-integrable geometries with torsion

This review article intends to introduce the reader to non-integrable geometric structures on Riemannian manifolds and invariant metric connec- tions with torsion, and to discuss recent aspects of mathematical physics—in particular superstring theory—where these naturally appear. Connections with skew-symmetric torsion are exhibited as one of the main tools to understand non-integrable geometries. To this aim a a series of key examples is presented and successively dealt with using the notions of intrinsic torsion and characteristic connection of a G-structure as unifying principles. The General Holonomy Principle bridges over to parallel objects, thus moti- vating the discussion of geometric stabilizers, with emphasis on spinors and differential forms. Several Weitzenbock formulas for Dirac operators associ- ated with torsion connections enable us to discuss spinorial field equations, such as those governing the common sector of type II superstring theory. They also provide the link to Kostant's cubic Dirac operator.
Lymphoid Infiltrates in B Cell Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma: Comparing Nuclear Characteristics between Lymph Node and Bone Marrow; and Evaluating Diagnostic Features of Bone Marrow Infiltrates in Paraffin Embedded Tissues

Distinguishing non Hodgkin’s lymphoma from benign lymphoid aggregates in bone marrow is well recognised to be difficult. Our objective was to evaluate nuclear morphology, and to perform morphometry on benign and neoplastic lymphoid infiltrates, to establish if objective criteria were of value in the diagnosis of neoplasia. By comparing neoplastic infiltrates in bone marrow with infiltrates in lymph nodes, the validity of grading non Hodgkin’s lymphoma on the basis of bone marrow histology alone was assessed. 82 cases of B cell non Hodgkin’s lymphoma (44 low grade and 38 high grade), known to have both lymph node and bone marrow involvement at the time of presentation, were compared with bone marrow trephines containing reactive lymphoid infiltrates. The results suggest that in paraffin embedded tissue from bone marrow trephines, nuclear morphology, nuclear area and the nuclear contour index cannot, in most cases, be used to distinguish reactive from neoplastic lymphoid infiltrates although mean nuclear area supports a diagnosis of a neoplastic infiltrate if it can be shown that the nuclei are larger than would be expected in reactive infiltrates. Such differences are subtle and often not appreciable without the use of quantitative techniques. The frequent occurrence of discordant infiltrates in high grade lymphomas means grading of lymphoma on the basis of bone marrow appearances is often unrealistic.
Unknown Environment Representation for Mobile Robot Using Spiking Neural Networks

In this paper, a model of self-organizing spiking neural networks is introduced and applied to mobile robot environment representation and path planning problem. A network of spike-response-model neurons with a recurrent architecture is used to create robot’s internal representation from surrounding environment. The overall activity of network simulates a self-organizing system with unsupervised learning. A modified A* algorithm is used to find the best path using this internal representation between starting and goal points. This method can be used with good performance for both known and unknown environments. Keywords—Mobile Robot, Path Planning, Self-organization, Spiking Neural Networks.
The Reference to the Sharia in Arab Politics and Constitutions

Contemporary experiences of integrating Sharia in the legal body of nation-states took place in such a way that we can talk about disruption of the economy and the epistemology of Islamic normativity. Its overall balance, its fundamentals and its morphology – or what we might call its grammar – have been transformed completely. This is true at a substantial level, where applicable norms are largely formulated through codification. This is also true at an institutional level, with the establishment of constitutional architectures dedicated to the separation of powers, the hierarchy of jurisdictions, the legislative principle, the popular representation, and the fundamental rights and freedoms, within which Sharia is deemed to be a reference framework rather than specific and directly applicable rules. The use of certain terminology does not necessarily mean the use of the same language. It is thus seen that the vocabulary of Sharia is mobilized in different contexts, without any greater permeability between the argumentative logic of any register. This is not due to different levels of truth, but in fact it is due to the purposes towards which the people involved orient themselves in terms of these discursive activities. As a law, the Sharia is an invention of the nineteenth century. As a reference in the political register, it is a formulation of the second half of the twentieth century. However, as a constitutionalized source of legislation, it is an innovation of the last quarter of twentieth century. But as an ethical paradigm autonomous from legal normativity, it is a current resurgence.
Toward Goldilocks' pointing device: determining a "just right" gain setting for users with physical impairments

We designed and evaluated an agent that recommends a pointing device gain for a given user, with mixed success. 12 participants with physical impairments used the Input Device Agent (IDA), to determine a recommended gain based on their performance over a series of target acquisition trials. IDA recommended a gain other than the Windows default for 9 of 12 subjects. Subsequent performance using the IDA gain showed no meaningful differences as compared to the default setting or users' pre-study settings. Across all gains used by these subjects, however, gain did have a significant effect on throughput, percent of error-free trials, cursor entries, and overshoot. Linear models of gain's effect on performance showed that its effect on throughput is relatively small, with only a 13% difference from highest throughput (at gain = 10) to lowest throughput (at gain = 6). Cursor entries were more strongly affected, showing a steady increase with increasing gain.
Discriminative Hierarchical Rank Pooling for Activity Recognition

We present hierarchical rank pooling, a video sequence encoding method for activity recognition. It consists of a network of rank pooling functions which captures the dynamics of rich convolutional neural network features within a video sequence. By stacking non-linear feature functions and rank pooling over one another, we obtain a high capacity dynamic encoding mechanism, which is used for action recognition. We present a method for jointly learning the video representation and activity classifier parameters. Our method obtains state-of-the art results on three important activity recognition benchmarks: 76.7% on Hollywood2, 66.9% on HMDB51 and, 91.4% on UCF101.
Distributed parallel architecture for storing and processing large datasets

We live in the data age as data storage technologies, hardware and software, have evolved to a point at which it is very cheap to store large volumes of data, structured and unstructured. The increased popularity of social media has contributed to the accumulation of large data volumes, mostly unstructured, which analyzed could yield valuable insight. Extracting meaningful, useful and accurate information in a timely manner from very large data sets is a complex task that requires a careful selection of the right hardware software and data model. This paper analyzes the problem of storing, processing and retrieving meaningful insight from petabytes of data. It provides a survey on current distributed and parallel data processing technologies and, based on them, will propose an architecture that can be used to solve the analyzed problem.
Boosting the Performance of SLS and CDCL Solvers by Preprocessor Tuning

Preprocessing techniques are crucial for SAT solvers when it comes to reaching state-of-the-art performance as it was shown by the results of the last SAT Competitions. The usefulness of a preprocessing technique depends highly on its own parameters, on the instances on which it is applied and on the used solver. In this paper we first give an extended analysis of the performance gain reached by using different preprocessing techniques individually in combination with CDCL solvers on application instances and SLS solvers on crafted instances. Further, we provide an analysis of combinations of preprocessing techniques by means of automated algorithm configuration, where we search for optimal preprocessor configurations for different scenarios. Our results show that the performance of CDCL and especially of SLS solvers can be further improved when using appropriate preprocessor configurations. The solvers augmented with the best found preprocessing configurations outperform the original solvers on the instances from the SAT Challenge 2012, achieving new state-of-the-art results.