Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Public Space, Urban Space and Electronic Space: Would the Real City Please Stand Up?

Commentary around the electronic media has raised issues of political action, community formation and changing identities. This paper explores how the notions of 'public space' can inform this debate over electronic media. It examines the metaphorical adoption of urban models to look at electronic sociality and suggests four principle approaches: cities set in or against world flows, suburbanised telecities, communitarian visions and accounts that appeal to a renewed public sphere. The paper examines how these share many assumptions. However, instead of trying to sift these metaphors by contrasting them to a purported real world, the paper examines how they shape an electronic architecture. Spatial metaphors and electronic practices are seen as entangled and shaping each other. The paper suggests that the different metaphors for the city reflect a range of anxieties about and desires for urban life. In this sense, the 'real' city is the indefinable complexity and folding of spaces—lying outside the visualisations offered of cyberspace.
Design of an artificial immune system as a novel anomaly detector for combating financial fraud in the retail sector

The retail sector often does not possess sufficient knowledge about potential or actual frauds. This requires the retail sector to employ an anomaly detection approach to fraud detection. To detect anomalies in retail transactions, the fraud detection system introduced in this work implements various salient features of the human immune system. This novel artificial immune system, called CIFD (computer immune system for fraud detection), adopts both negative selection and positive selection to generate artificial immune cells. CIFD also employs an analogy of the self-major histocompatability complex (MHC) molecules when antigen data is presented to the system. These novel mechanisms are expected to improve the scalability of CIFD, which is designed to process gigabytes or more of transaction data per day. In addition, CIFD incorporates other prominent features of the HIS such as clonal selection and memory cells, which allow CIFD to behave adaptively as transaction patterns change.
Designing mixed methods studies in health-related research with people with disabilities

Abstract People with disabilities have traditionally faced exclusion from health-related research in multiple ways. They have been excluded as participants in the research agenda setting process as well as contributors to the evidence-base of treatment and intervention research. The judicious use of mixed method designs afford opportunities for more inclusive research. However, the use of both qualitative and quantitative research methods with people with disabilities necessitates careful planning. This article aims to provide insights into the exclusionary practices faced by people with disabilities, the potential of mixed methods studies to address some of these sources of exclusion, and the specific planning considerations when conducting research with various disability populations.
Goal setting, conditions of practice, and task performance: A resource allocation perspective.

Hypotheses regarding the influence of goal assignments on performance of a novel, complex task under varying conditions of practice were derived from a cognitive resource allocation model. Goals and type of practice interacted in their effects on two key performance measures. In the massed-practice conditions, trainees assigned specific, difficult goals tended to perform poorer than trainees in the contorl (do your best goal) conditions. In the spaced-practice conditions, goal trainees performed marginally better than control trainees. Self-report measures of goal commitment, and ontak, off-task, and affective thoughts during breaks and task performance provide additional evidence for the independent and interactive effects of goals and practice conditions on motivation and performance
Destination Address Entropy based Detection and Traceback Approach against Distributed Denial of Service Attacks

With all the brisk growth of web, distributed denial of service attacks are becoming the most serious issues in a data center scenarios where lot many servers are deployed. A Distributed Denial of Service attack gen- erates substantial packets by a large number of agents and can easily tire out the processing and communication resources of a victim within very less period of time. De- fending DDoS problem involved several steps from de- tection, characterization and trace back in order todomiti- gation. The contribution of this research paper is a lot more. Firstly, flooding based DDoS problems is detected using obtained packets based entropy approach in a data center scenario. Secondly entropy based trace back meth- od is applied to find the edge routers from where the whole attack traffic is entering into the ISP domain of the data center. Various simulation scenarios using NS2 are depicted in order to validate the proposed method using GT-ITM primarily based topology generators. Infor- mation theory based metrics like entropy; average entro- py and differential entropy are used for this purpose.
CPSP-web-tools: a server for 3D lattice protein studies

Summary: Studies on proteins are often restricted to highly simplified models to face the immense computational complexity of the associated problems. Constraint-based protein structure prediction (CPSP) tools is a package of very fast algorithms for ab initio optimal structure prediction and related problems in 3D HP-models [cubic and face centered cubic (FCC)]. Here, we present CPSP-web-tools, an interactive online interface of these programs for their immediate use. They include the first method for the direct prediction of optimal energies and structures in 3D HP side-chain models. This newest extension of the CPSP approach is described here for the first time. Availability and Implementation: Free access at http://cpsp.informatik.uni-freiburg.de Contact: cpsp@informatik.uni-freiburg.de; cpsp@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Hybrid Estimators for Discrete-Time Stochastic Systems

The problem of estimating the state of a linear discrete-time system from input-output data in the presence of input disturbance noise when some of the outputs are not obscured by output measurement noise is considered. The proposed hybrid estimator gives the linear least squares state estimate and has order less than the order of the system whose state is being estimated by the number of outputs which are not obscured by noise.
The Effect of Commitment on Adoption and Diffusion of Grass Cycling

Using a design that also permitted an assessment of the extent to which any increase in grass-cycling behavior diffused to the neighbors of treated participants, two types of commitment strategies for promoting residential grass cycling (i.e., not bagging grass clippings) were investigated. Baseline data were collected over a period of 4 weeks to determine which residents in each of three homogeneous neighborhoods bagged grass clippings for curbside pickup. A total of 558 houses observed to bag grass clippings during this period were included as participants in the experiment. Following baseline, the neighborhoods were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. Results indicated that participants who made a commitment to grass cycle and to talk to their neighbors had grass bags present significantly less often than either the commitment-only or control participants. This effect was present during the 4-week intervention period and also was sustained during an immediate 4-week follow-up period and a delayed 4-week follow-up period 12 months later. There also was a diffusion effect in which the neighbors of targeted participants showed significantly more grass cycling than controls, and this effect continued to increase through the 1-year follow-up measure. On the other hand, neither commitment-only participants nor their neighbors differed from controls during any period of the experiment.
Optical Coherence Tomography imaging with a planar broadband light beam

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is a modern medical imaging technique, which plays a particularly important role in ophthalmic diagnostics. The key features of OCT are its non-invasiveness, high probing depth in biological tissue, high, micron-level resolution and its ability to provide real-time imaging. 2D or 3D imaging via conventional OCT methods requires the use of mechanical scanning that, in turn, represents an important limiting factor for the speed of image acquisition. In this article, an improved method for OCT imaging using a planar broadband light beam is presented. The proposed method allows a significant increase of the image acquisition speed compared to the state of the art. Ambiguity function of the measurement system is derived and statistical analysis of image speckle structure is performed.
Making It Through the First Year of College: The Role of Students' Economic Resources, Employment, and Living Arrangements

Using data from the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study of 1996, this article explores the effect of economic resources on the paid work experiences and living arrangements of first-year college students. Students from low-income families are more likely to work for school-related expenses and to live at home during the first year of college—cost-saving strategies that, in some cases, impede their chances of continuing into the second year. Students who work more than 20 hours a week and who live at home are more likely to leave school during the first year than are those who work 20 hours a week or less and who reside on campus. Employment and living arrangements both play a strong role in shaping the transition to college, beyond background characteristics and academic preparation.
A new recursive controller for nonlinear active noise control

In this paper, a new recursive linear-in-the-parameters nonlinear filter is presented. This filter is an extension of the even mirror Fourier nonlinear filter, so called because of the even symmetry of its trigonometric basis functions. The new recursive filter is used as a controller in a feedforward scheme exploited for active noise control to take into account simultaneously the nonlinearities, affecting in particular the secondary path, and the acoustic feedback between the loudspeaker and the reference microphone. Computer simulations confirm that the performance of the new controller is better than those of other standard recursive nonlinear controllers.
Modeling and optimization of Blumlein nanosecond pulse generator for experiments on planar lipid bilayers

Although electroporation protocols are common in biomedicine and biotechnology, the fundamental molecular-scale mechanisms involved in electroporation are still not completely understood. Therefore, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of small patches of planar lipid bilayers (PLB) and experimentally formed PLB are used to model the cell membrane and to explain the electroporation process. However, in addition to the size difference, there is also a significant time gap between this two modeling methods. MD simulates processes up to nanoseconds while experimentally formed PLB are used to detect microsecond processes. In the presented work we model and optimize Blumlein nanosecond generator with pulse forming networks (PFN) for application of nanosecond pulses on PLB, where PLB chamber electrically represents low conductance and high capacitance. Blumlein nanosecond generator with PFN is suitable for adjusting the impedance of the generator to the impedance of the load. The challenge of generating nanosecond pulses on PLB can be addressed with careful designing of the pulse generator architecture and selecting appropriate electrical components. Numerical approaches, such as SPICE, can be a great help during development of pulse generators by either verification of its configuration or defining values of electrical components in order to obtain desired pulse characteristics.
Feature Generation and Selection on the Heterogeneous Graph for Music Recommendation

In the past decade, online music streaming services (MSS), e.g. Pandora and Spotify, experienced exponential growth. The sheer volume of music collection makes music recommendation increasingly important and the related algorithms are well-documented. In prior studies, most algorithms employed content-based model (CBM) and/or collaborative ﬁl-tering (CF) [3]. The former one focuses on acoustic/signal features extracted from audio content, and the latter one investigates music rating and user listening history. Actually, MSS generated user data present signiﬁcant heterogeneity. Taking user-music relationship as an example, comment, bookmark , and listening history may potentially contribute to music recommendation in very diﬀerent ways. Furthermore, user and music can be implicitly related via more complex relationships, e.g., user-play-artist-perform-music . From this viewpoint, user-user, music-music or user-music relationship can be much more complex than the classical CF approach assumes.
L2 stress perception: the reliance on different acoustic cues

Second language learners of English often experience difficulties in English lexical stress perception because of prosodic transfer of their first language (L1). It has thus been hypothesized that the problem of Chinese learners with English stress arises from tonal transfer. However, little research has been devoted to the investigation of the phonetic details of second language (L2) stress perception. The present research focused on Chinese L2 learners of English. Their reliance on the three acoustic cues, F0, intensity and duration, is compared against a baseline of native English speakers, in terms of English stress perception of manipulated nonsense tokens. The results show that while all three cues have significant effects on stress perception for native English speakers, only F0 has a decisive effect on Chinese learners’ stress judgments. This study suggests that there is transfer of reliance on F0 in the acquisition of L2 English stress, rather than transfer of tone at the phonological level.
Multiple human papillomavirus type 16 glucocorticoid response elements functional for transformation, transient expression, and DNA-protein interactions

We have previously shown that human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV-16) can efficiently transform primary baby rat kidney cells in the presence of the steroid hormones progesterone and the glucocorticoid dexamethasone. To study this effect of hormone, different combinations of the previously identified glucocorticoid response element (GRE) at nucleotide 7640 of HPV-16 and the other two GREs that we have recently identified, at nucleotides 7385 and 7474, were mutated. The previously described GRE and the other two GREs were shown to be functional for the induction of transformation by dexamethasone. In addition, transient assays in cervical HeLa cells demonstrated the functional importance of the three individual GREs. Assays for in vitro interaction demonstrated the specific binding of a 97-kDa protein, the glucocorticoid receptor, to both recently identified HPV-16 GREs.
An Exploration of Cyberspace Security R&D Investment Strategies for DARPA: The Day After...in Cyberspace II

Abstract : During the past several years, a RAND-developed "The Day After. " exercise methodology has been developed and used to explore strategic planning options, both for nuclear proliferation and counterproliferation, and, more recently, for questions involving "security in cyberspace" and "information warfare (IW). " On March 23, 1996, a "The Day After. in Cyberspace" exercise with approximately 60 participants was conducted at RAND's Washington D.C. offices, under the sponsorship of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The purpose was to generate suggestions and options regarding research and development initiatives to enhance the security of the U.S. information infrastructure. The scenario used in this exercise involved a Mideast crisis situation, with Iran as an aggressor. We used a variation of the scenario that had been used earlier to explore other aspects of planning for cyberspace security, as documented in Molander, Riddile, and Wilson (1996). Participants in the exercise spent approximately three hours in individual groups, and another two hours in plenary sessions, discussing both short-term technical fixes to counter 1W allacks that were hypothesized to occur in the year 2000 and longer-term research strategies that could be initiated now to avoid significant vulnerabilities in the future. These discussions ranged over known problems with the current information infrastructure, and both common wisdom and some novel approaches to tightening the security of those systems on which our nation depends. We highlight below some of the observations and suggestions resulting from these discussions that appear to be relevant to DARPA's planning for R&D investments in the field of cyberspace security.
Valid Updates for Persistent XML Objects

XML has emerged as the industry standard for representing and exchanging data and is already predominant in several applications today. Business, analytic and structered data will be exchanged as XML between applications and web services. XQuery is a language designed and developed for querying, filtering and generating XML structured data and is currently being standardized by the World Wide Web Consortium(W3C). XQuery seems to become the query language in context of (native) XML databases. Moreover in the context of document management XQuery seems suitable for querying large collections of documents with more irregular and deeply nested data structures. Despite these promising features XQuery or more precisely its FLWOR expression lacks of any update capability. In this paper we present important results concerning the development ofXOBEDBPL (XML OBjEcts DataBase Programming Language). XOBEDBPL is the successor of the XOBE project. XOBE integrates XML and XPath into the Java programming language. In XOBEDBPL XML objects can become persistent. Moreover, a new feature in XOBEDBPL is the integration of xFLWOR(extended FLWOR) expressions for updating and querying XML objects. XML updates and queries in XOBEDBPL are statically typechecked. Finally we perform experiments with the XOBEDBPL prototype showing that the performance of low level API-based interfaces can be improved, as well as the performance of related approaches.
Relationship between male sexual arousal and vividness of imagery in different sensory modalities

Penile circumference and subjective sexual arousal were recorded while 66 men attempted to achieve erection by engaging in fantasy, as well as while the same men viewed an erotic film. Physiological and subjective arousal levels induced by fantasy, but not by the film, correlated significantly with the total scores of subjects on the Betts Questionnaire Upon Mental Imagery Scale. The rated erotic value of specific sexual fantasy themes, as well as the frequency of use of different themes when men attempted to achieve voluntary enhancement of erection, also correlated significantly with the degree to which subjects reported being able to form vivid images. However, there was limited evidence that either the erotic potency of particular categories of sexual fantasy (e.g., sensual, genital, dominance-submissive) or the frequency with which themes in different categories were used in an attempt to become sexually aroused is highly related to the capacity of men to form images more vividly in some rather than other sensory modalities.
Properties of Replication-Competent Vesicular Stomatitis Virus Vectors Expressing Glycoproteins of Filoviruses and Arenaviruses

ABSTRACT Replication-competent recombinant vesicular stomatitis viruses (rVSVs) expressing the type I transmembrane glycoproteins and selected soluble glycoproteins of several viral hemorrhagic fever agents (Marburg virus, Ebola virus, and Lassa virus) were generated and characterized. All recombinant viruses exhibited rhabdovirus morphology and replicated cytolytically in tissue culture. Unlike the rVSVs with an additional transcription unit expressing the soluble glycoproteins, the viruses carrying the foreign transmembrane glycoproteins in replacement of the VSV glycoprotein were slightly attenuated in growth. Biosynthesis and processing of the foreign glycoproteins were authentic, and the cell tropism was defined by the transmembrane glycoprotein. None of the rVSVs displayed pathogenic potential in animals. The rVSV expressing the Zaire Ebola virus transmembrane glycoprotein mediated protection in mice against a lethal Zaire Ebola virus challenge. Our data suggest that the recombinant VSV can be used to study the role of the viral glycoproteins in virus replication, immune response, and pathogenesis.
BUILDING VISUAL CORRESPONDENCE MAPS | FROM NEURONAL DYNAMICS TO A FACE RECOGNITION SYSTEM

On the basis of a pyramidal Gabor function representation of images two systems are presented that build correspondence maps between presegmented memorized models and retinal images. The rst one is formulated close to the biology of neuronal layers and dynamic links. It extends earlier ones by a hierarchical approach and background independence. The second system is formulated in a way that is e ciently implementable on digital computers but captures the crucial properties of the rst one. It has the capability for object recognition under realistic circumstances which is demonstrated by recognizing human faces independently of their hairstyle.
The mechanism of inducer exclusion. Direct interaction between purified IIIGlc of the phosphoenolpyruvate:sugar phosphotransferase system and the lactose carrier of Escherichia coli

A hypothesis for the regulation of some sugar transport systems by the bacterial phosphoenolpyruvate:sugar transport system postulates an interaction between IIIGlc of this system and the carrier whose activity is regulated. We have studied this interaction in more detail, employing one of these transport systems, the lactose carrier of Escherichia coli. Purified IIIGlc of the phosphotransferase system interacted directly with the lactose carrier. The binding of IIIGlc to lactose carrier required the presence of the non‐phosphorylated form of IIIGlc and substrates of the carrier and exhibited a stoichiometry of 1.2± 0.2 mol IIIGlc/mol lactose carrier. The Kd of lactose carrier for IIIGlc was 10 ± 5 µM. IIIGlc is apparently unable to interact with a mutant lactose carrier which still binds but does not transport galactosides. The binding of IIIGlc to the lactose carrier results in a 3.5‐fold increase in the apparent affinity of galactosides for the carrier. Significantly, the binding of IIIGlc to the lactose carrier results in an inhibition of galactoside translocation both in membrane vesicles and liposomes reconstituted with the purified lactose carrier. This inhibition may thus be the basis for the well‐documented phenomenon of inducer exclusion.