Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A classification-based approach to question routing in community question answering

Community-based Question and Answering (CQA) services have brought users to a new era of knowledge dissemination by allowing users to ask questions and to answer other users' questions. However, due to the fast increasing of posted questions and the lack of an effective way to find interesting questions, there is a serious gap between posted questions and potential answerers. This gap may degrade a CQA service's performance as well as reduce users' loyalty to the system. To bridge the gap, we present a new approach to Question Routing, which aims at routing questions to participants who are likely to provide answers. We consider the problem of question routing as a classification task, and develop a variety of local and global features which capture different aspects of questions, users, and their relations. Our experimental results obtained from an evaluation over the Yahoo! ~Answers dataset demonstrate high feasibility of question routing. We also perform a systematical comparison on how different types of features contribute to the final results and show that question-user relationship features play a key role in improving the overall performance.
BidTerm Suggestion for Advertising Webpages

Text Advertising is an important field that can affect online advertising. Bid term Suggestion gains a great interest by advertisers. Advertisers should choose carefully the bid terms and the relevant phrases that represent their products or services, otherwise online users would not click on the ad that transfer them to the purchase page of the product or the service being promoted. The paper proposes a method that suggests the keywords of a web page based on the frequent terms in a web page while including the lexical relationship (synonyms) of these words. An experiment is executed to validate the method while the method's result is comparable with Google ad word tool. The proposed method had shown better results than working only with the frequency of the terms.
Expectations-Driven Cycles in the Housing Market Bank of Finland

Survey data suggests that news of changes in business conditions are significantly related to house prices and consumers’ beliefs of favorable buying conditions in the housing market. This paper explores the transmission of “news shocks” as a source of boom-bust cycles in the housing market. News on shocks originated in different sectors of the economy can generate booms in the housing market in accordance with the average behavior in the data; expectations on monetary policy and inflationary shocks that are not fulfilled can also lead to the observed subsequent macroeconomic recession. Investigating the role of the credit market for house market fluctuations we find that favorable credit conditions that are expected to be reversed in the near future generate boom-bust cycle dynamics in line with the most recent episode. Further, credit conditions also affect boom-bust cycles generated by news shocks originated in other sectors of the economy. In particular, lower loan-to-value ratios reduce the severity of expectations-driven cycles and the volatility of household debt, aggregate consumption and GDP. JEL classification: E32, E44, E52
Automatic orientation and merging of laser scanner acquisitions through volumetric targets: procedure description and test results

The use of volumetric targets for the automatic merging and orientation of laser scanner acquisitions has been experimented. The used procedure is fully automatic. The targets can also be used for the orientation of photogrammetric acquisitions, and allow to have a synergic coupling of different kinds of surveying. If a calibration grid is used, the absolute coordinates of the cone vertices are known; for larger objects (architecture), the vertices coordinates can be obtained by a topographic survey. The procedure described in the article, performs the automatic recognition of the targets, and allows to obtain the coordinates of the target vertices in the reference system of the laser scanner. The merging and the orientation of the laser scanner acquisitions can be easily obtained. The scans of a building facade have been used to perform a test. The coordinates of the target vertices, obtained through the described procedure, have been comparated with the coordinates obtained by a topographic survey. The distances among the vertices, obtained using the acquisitions and the topographic survey data, have been compared. The differences are about one millimeter.
On Line Collaboration for Building a Teacher Professional Identity

In this paper it is our intention to discuss a Teacher Education proposal that uses an on line asynchronous learning environment to develop collaborative practices and to enhance a professional identity. Using an integrated multi-method approach for analysing the on line discussions of 47 student-teachers, a research group of the University of Padua  has explored: a) how different groups of student-teachers build and modify their professional profile pre-post a case-work on line activity; b) the nature of the interactive processes activated during case-work on line activity; c) the styles of case solutions. The findings show that the collaborative learning context supported pre-service and in-service groups of students differently in their professional development and in professional identity changes. Some implications for future research on teacher education are discussed.
Using a gestural interface toolkit for tactile input to a dynamic virtual space

In this paper, we describe the development of a gesture interface toolkit that has been applied to an application of tactile gesture recognition within an artificial life environment. The goal is to design a gestural semantics of caress, in which qualitative attributes of gesture are expressed as a function of tactility. A touch-sensitive tablet capable of detecting multiple simultaneous contacts was used to provide a source of tactile gestures (stroking, pressing, tapping, wrapping, spreading, pinching, nudging) which were then interpreted by the software as events to be sent to the active creature in the environment. Participants could observe the creature reactions within a three-dimensional immersive display system.
Huacayñán (1952–1953) and the biopolitics of in(ex)clusion

The foundation of the modern Ecuadorian State in the 1940s and early 1950s coincides with a series of attempts to synchronize and incorporate certain “problematic” sectors of the population that were supposedly resistant to progress and whose forms of life were incompatible with modernity, a capitalist economy, and a cohesive nation. This biopolitical project for the modernization and governance of the population also had repercussions on—and analogous manifestations within—the discourse of national identity, the design of cultural policies, and the production of State-sponsored national art. This article analyzes Huacayñán / El camino del llanto / The Way of Tears (1952–1953), a collection of FIGURE 3 aintings by Oswaldo Guayasamín that was commissioned by the government of Ecuador in 1951. Huacayñán was conceived within the ideology of mestizaje as an instrument of aesthetic cultural modernization and as a visual artistic showcase of the harmonious integration of ‘Ecuadorians. ’ Despite, or even because of its governmental overdetermination, however, this article shows how Huacayñán instead materialized the exclusionary logic of the syncretic and biopolitical policies of the State, displaying dystopic visions of violence and exclusion, and of a fractured nation inhabited by monsters and resistant to mestizo-ization.
Differences between Kinect and structured lighting sensor in robot navigation

Nowadays, autonomous navigation is getting more and more attention. The mobile robots need to have map of the close environment. The paper presents how can collect information about the environment for robot navigation. The sensors and the navigation system are installed on a mobile equipment platform. After this the article shows the different measurement systems, the generating virtual depth map and the navigation algorithm. At the end the Kinect sensor is compared with a sensor based on structured light.
Real-Time Gaze Tracking with a Consumer-Grade Video Camera

Eye gaze can be a rich source of information to identify particular interests of human users. Eye gaze tracking has been largely used in different research areas in the last years, as for exa mple in psychology, visual system design and to leverage the user interaction with computer systems. In this paper, we present an IR-based gaze tracking framework that can be easily coupled to common user applications and allows for real-time gaze estimation. Compared to other gaze tracking systems, our system uses only affordable consumer-grade hardware and still achieves fair accuracy. To evaluate the usability of our gaze tr acking system, we performed a user study with persons of different genders and ethnicities.
Epac2 Mediates cAMP-Dependent Potentiation of Neurotransmission in the Hippocampus

Presynaptic terminal cAMP elevation plays a central role in plasticity at the mossy fiber-CA3 synapse of the hippocampus. Prior studies have identified protein kinase A as a downstream effector of cAMP that contributes to mossy fiber LTP (MF-LTP), but the potential contribution of Epac2, another cAMP effector expressed in the MF synapse, has not been considered. We investigated the role of Epac2 in MF-CA3 neurotransmission using Epac2−/− mice. The deletion of Epac2 did not cause gross alterations in hippocampal neuroanatomy or basal synaptic transmission. Synaptic facilitation during short trains was not affected by loss of Epac2 activity; however, both long-term plasticity and forskolin-mediated potentiation of MFs were impaired, demonstrating that Epac2 contributes to cAMP-dependent potentiation of transmitter release. Examination of synaptic transmission during long sustained trains of activity suggested that the readily releasable pool of vesicles is reduced in Epac2−/− mice. These data suggest that cAMP elevation uses an Epac2-dependent pathway to promote transmitter release, and that Epac2 is required to maintain the readily releasable pool at MF synapses in the hippocampus.
Artemether Combined with shRNA Interference of Vascular Cell Adhesion Molecule-1 Significantly Inhibited the Malignant Biological Behavior of Human Glioma Cells

Artemether is the derivative extracted from Chinese traditional herb and originally used for malaria. Artemether also has potential therapeutic effects against tumors. Vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) is an important cell surface adhesion molecule associated with malignancy of gliomas. In this work, we investigated the role and mechanism of artemether combined with shRNA interference of VCAM-1 (shRNA-VCAM-1) on the migration, invasion and apoptosis of glioma cells. U87 human glioma cells were treated with artemether at various concentrations and shRNA interfering technology was employed to silence the expression of VCAM-1. Cell viability, migration, invasiveness and apoptosis were assessed with MTT, wound healing, Transwell and Annexin V-FITC/PI staining. The expression of matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2), matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) and phosphorylated Akt (p-Akt) was checked by Western blot assay. Results showed that artemether and shRNA-VCAM-1 not only significantly inhibited the migration, invasiveness and expression of MMP-2/9 and p-Akt, but also promoted the apoptosis of U87 cells. Combined treatment of both displayed the maximum inhibitory effects on the malignant biological behavior of glioma cells. Our work revealed the potential therapeutic effects of artemether and antiVCAM-1 in the treatments of gliomas.
Fracture simulations of particulate piezoelectric composites using the XFEM

This paper investigates the influence of a piezoelectric (PE) particle pair on the crack-tip parameters. The I-integral is employed to solve the crack-tip stress intensity factors (SIFs) and electric displacement intensity factors (EDIFs) of a PE/dielectric material. The I-integral can decouple mixed-mode SIFs and EDIFs, and moreover, it is domain-independent for material interfaces, which greatly facilitate the extraction of the crack-tip field intensity factors for PE particulate composites by adopting an integral domain with arbitrary interfaces. Finally, a cracked dielectric plate reinforced by a pair of PE particles is studied to investigate the influences of the particle pair on the SIFs and EDIFs.
Adjustment or Ignorance ? Globalization , Immigration and Investment in Human Capital

This paper connects the literatures on globalization, immigration, diversity and public spending in order to explore the development of education spending in 17 OECD countries from 1981 to 2000. While displaying raising levels of economic openness on the average level, some of these countries have not significantly increased the efforts to improve their human capital. This opposes a common observation for trade-dependent developed countries, for which investment in human capital is the one of the most efficient ways to manage global competition. Because these countries typically are also facing significant immigration rates, recent arguments about public goods provision in heterogeneous societies provide a potential explanation for this observation. Are societies less likely to spend on one of the most inclusive public goods – public education – as they become more diverse? A quantitative analysis shows that while economic competition on the international level has a positive impact on education spending, diversity induced by immigration might be one of the factors responsible for its stagnation or reduction. The negative impact of immigration is observable when the respective society is ethnically and linguistically diverse. It is matched with higher expenditures only in highly uniform societies. These findings suggest additional lines of inquiry for the argument that diversity can undermine public goods provision even in developed democracies. In the context of increasing global competition, human capital has become a key factor for states to attract and keep investment, and thus to ensure economic growth (Katzenstein 1985). One way of improving human capital is to raise the average skills of the workforce by investing in public education. Consequently, it is not surprising that the global average of public expenditures on education has almost doubled between 1960 and 1995 (Ansell 2008: 289). This expectation should hold for the high-income OECD countries, which are particularly reliant on highly skilled human capital to compete on a globalized market that makes it easier than ever for companies to relocate production sites to low-wage environments. OECD countries in general have also displayed increasing rates of overall public spending during the 1970s and 1980s (Garrett and Mitchell 2001: 159). Yet, a brief look at the development of education spending in some of these states on Figure 1 reveals that this expectation does not fully hold true. Some countries have indeed increased their public investment in education and others show continuous levels of spending, but some of the cases we would …
The War of the Words: How Linguistic Differences in Reporting Shape Perceptions of Terrorism

Summary of Results. The present research demonstrates that even subtle dif-ferences in the language used to describe acts of violence may influence whetherpeople perceive the acts as terrorism or patriotism. Drawing on a nationwide sam-ple of American newspaper articles covering violence in Iraq, Study 1 showed thatbenignwordsweremorelikelytobeusedinreferencetoviolentactionsassociatedwith the United States and its allies, whereas words implying destruction and de-vious intent were more likely to be used in reference to violent actions associatedwith Iraq and non-U.S. allies. When participants in Study 2 read an article describ-ing a bombing that included the words typically used in reference to the UnitedStates and its allies (“us” version), they were not only more likely to infer that theUnited States/allies were responsible for the bombing, but were also more likelyto view the action as legitimate and necessary. In comparison, when reading a par-allel article that included words typically associated with Iraq/non-allies (“them”version), participants were more likely to view terrorists as responsible for the actof violence. Small differences in wording also have consequences for memoriesregarding acts of violence, as shown by Studies 3 and 4; participants were morelikely to falsely recall words associated with terrorism than patriotism when theyread the version of the article containing language typically used in reference toIraq and non-U.S. allies, whereas the opposite pattern emerged when participantsread the version with language typically used in reference to the United States andits allies. Taken together, these findings suggest that minor linguistic differences
Chronic Electromagnetic Exposure at Occupational Safety Level Does Not Affect the Metabolic Profile nor Cornea Healing after LASIK Surgery

LASIK eye surgery has become a very common practice for myopic people, especially those in the military. Sometimes undertaken by people who need to keep a specific medical aptitude, this surgery could be performed in secret from the hierarchy and from the institute medical staff. However, even though the eyes have been previously described as one of the most sensitive organs to electromagnetic fields in the human body, no data exist on the potential deleterious effects of electromagnetic fields on the healing eye. The consequences of chronic long-lasting radar exposures at power density, in accordance with the occupational safety standards (9.71 GHz, 50 W/m2), were investigated on cornea healing. The metabolic and clinical statuses after experimental LASIK keratotomy were assessed on the different eye segments in a New Zealand rabbit model. The analysis methods were performed after 5 months of exposure (1 hour/day, 3 times/week). Neither clinical or histological examinations, nor experimental data, such as light scattering, 1H-NMR HRMAS metabolomics, 13C-NMR spectra of lipidic extracts, and antioxidant status, evidenced significant modifications. It was concluded that withdrawing the medical aptitude of people working in electromagnetic field environments (i.e., radar operators in the navy) after eye surgery was not justified.
The Extraction of Spatial Relationships from Text Based on Hybrid Method

Natural language is an easy and effective medium for spatial description. Thus, we foresee the emergence of methods to extract spatial relationships from text as constraints on layout of objects in a 3D scene. This would allow users to quickly display objects in 3D scenes without having to touch a desktop window-oriented interface, acquire artistic skills, or even understand nature language. The aim of this paper is to propose a method for automatic extraction of spatial relationships from text. The spatial relationship is firstly divided into two parts consisting of the spatial expression and the corresponding trajectory. Extracting spatial relationships is done in three stages: extracting spatial expressions, acquiring trajectories, and resolving ellipsis on landmarks. The first stage is done based on a linear classifier. The other stages are based on limited knowledge. Our hybrid method relies on HowNet which is a semantic knowledge base. Experimental results have demonstrated the effectiveness of our scheme
On the Accretion Origin of a Vast Extended Stellar Disk around the Andromeda Galaxy

We present the discovery of an inhomogenous, low surface brightness, extended disklike structure around the Andromeda galaxy (M31) based on a large kinematic survey of more than 2800 stars with the Keck DEIMOS multiobject spectrograph. The stellar structure spans radii from 15 kpc out to ~40 kpc, with detections out to R ~ 70 kpc. The constituent stars have velocities close to the expected velocity of circular orbits in the plane of the M31 disk and typically have a velocity dispersion of ~30 km s-1. The color range on the upper red giant branch shows a large spread indicative of a population with a significant range of metallicity. The mean metallicity of the population, measured from Ca II equivalent widths, is [Fe/H] = -0.9 ± 0.2. The morphology of the structure is irregular at large radii and shows a wealth of substructures that must be transitory in nature and are almost certainly tidal debris. The presence of these substructures indicates that the global entity was formed by accretion. This extended disk follows smoothly on from the central parts of M31 disk out to ~40 kpc with an exponential density law with a scale length of 5.1 ± 0.1 kpc, which is similar to that of the bright inner disk. However, the population possesses similar kinematic and abundance properties over the entire region where it is detected in the survey. We estimate that the structure accounts for approximately 10% of the total luminosity of the M31 disk, and given the huge scale, contains ~30% of the total disk angular momentum. This finding indicates that at least some galactic stellar disks are vastly larger than previously thought and are formed, at least in their outer regions, primarily by accretion.
University of California

The portal authenticates against UCR’s Enterprise (LDAP) Directory and provides single sign-on (SSO) access to an entire suite of UCR e-commerce applications via the open source CAS system (Central Authentication Services). The portal is integrated with UCR's Enterprise Access Control System (EACS) allowing 200+ campus System Access Administrators (SAAs) to directly (from their desktop, without paper) authorize access to portal-enabled systems.
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Cc by an Improved Hierarchical Technique for Document Clustering

Data mining is the process of non-trivial discovery from implied, previously unknown, and potentially useful information from data in large databases. Hence it is a core element in knowledge discovery, often used synonymously. Clustering, one of technique for data mining used for grouping similar terms together. Earlier statistical analysis used in text mining depends on term frequency. Then, new concept based text mining model was introduced which analyses terms. Clustering of document is useful for the purpose of document organization, summarization, and information retrieval in an efficient way. Initially, clustering is applied for enhancing the information retrieval techniques. Of late, clustering techniques have been applied in the areas which involve browsing the gathered data or in categorizing the outcome provided by the search engines for the reply to the query raised by the users. In this paper, we are providing a comprehensive survey over the document clustering.