Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Egalitarianism and resistance: A theoretical proposal for Iron Age Northwestern Iberian archaeology

We propose a theory of “egalitarianism” as an active historical factor in contexts which have been traditionally considered structurally hostile to it, such as complex agrarian societies. First, we review thoroughly the main anthropological and sociological contributions to resistance against hierarchization in agrarian social contexts (taking into account peasant studies and a segmentary lineage’s tradition). Specific emphasis is placed on the forms of organizing production. Then we go through the archaeological landscape of the Iberian Northwestern Iron Age in order to evidence the viability of “assertive egalitarianism” where control of resources was distributed among social segments (households and settlements). We will show a historical process that diverges from what occurs at that time in hierarchical regions. By combining two levels of archaeological analysis (regional and local) we will conclude that a large part of the Iberian Northwest was occupied, from the 8th up to 2nd centuries BC by egalitarian social formations – with social exploitation absent – whose anti-hierarchization structures only crumbled upon the presence of Rome from the 2nd century BC onwards.
Human action segmentation via controlled use of missing data in HMMs

Segmentation of individual actions from a stream of human motion is an open problem in computer vision. This paper approaches the problem of segmenting higher-level activities into their component sub-actions using hidden Markov models modified to handle missing data in the observation vector. By controlling the use of missing data, action labels can be inferred from the observation vector during inferencing, thus performing segmentation and classification simultaneously. The approach is able to segment both prominent and subtle actions, even when subtle actions are grouped together. The advantage of this method over sliding windows and Viterbi state sequence interrogation is that segmentation is performed as a trainable task, and the temporal relationship between actions is encoded in the model and used as evidence for action labelling.
Kinematic control of robot manipulators using filtered inverse

This paper presents a kinematic control scheme for robot manipulators based on an algorithm that dynamically estimates an inverse of the Jacobian matrix. An interesting property of this algorithm is its ability to deal with the problem of kinematic singularities. The output of the algorithm can be interpreted as the filtered inverse of the Jacobian matrix. A case study of a 3-DoF non-redundant manipulator is presented. Some simulation results illustrate the performance of the proposed methodology.
Splitting Ratios: Metric Details of Topological Line-Line Relations

Within the geographic domain, an important class of problems relies on geometric abstractions in the form of lines where, for instance, transportation networks and trajectories of movements are typically perceived or modeled at such a generalized geometric level. To support querying and computational comparisons, oftentimes multi-resolution models are needed to guide users from coarser to finer details. Within such a setting topological properties are coarse spatial information, whereas metric refinements offer finer details. The 9-intersection distinguishes 33 topological relations between two lines. This paper develops a model that captures metric details for line-line relations through splitting ratios, which are normalized values of lengths and areas of intersections. These ratios apply to the 9-intersection’s nonempty values, thereby providing refinements of topological properties. Three such splitting ratios comprehensively refine 30 of the 33 topological relations: one for the lengths of common paths, one for the partitioning of lines through intersections, and another one for the areas enclosed by two lines with two or more common components. For the remaining three relations—disjoint, meet, and equal—no further metric refinements based on common parts are possible. The splitting ratios are integrated into a compact representation of detailed topological relations, thereby addressing topological and metric properties of arbitrarily complex line-line relations.
Consistent Network Management for Software-Defined Networking Based Multicast

Updating a network is an essential and continual task in the management of today's softwarized networks. When applying updates on distributed network elements, desired network properties, such as drop- and loop-freeness, might be transiently violated. Although being crucial, update consistency has yet been less considered in network management. In this paper, we argue for incorporating the particularities of update consistency into the reconfiguration process of continuous network management. We present a generic management architecture allowing for an appropriate selection of an update mechanism and its parameters based on expected inconsistency effects. We investigate update consistency for the case of multicast routing and show in an extensive analysis why simultaneous drop- and duplicate-freeness is not possible. We present an update procedure for multicast routing updates that identifies critical update steps, which are fed back into the reconfiguration process, along with a lightweight approach that allows for the selection of an update strategy, preventing either drops or duplicates. Furthermore, we present an optimization of an existing powerful, but resource-intensive update approach as well as an approach for in-network filtering of duplicates.
Extended simple colored Petri nets: a tool for plant simulation

Extended simple colored Petri nets (ESCP-nets) are a new class of high-level Petri nets conceived as a good trade-off between Petri nets (P-nets) and colored Petri nets (CP-nets), to be used in plant simulation. ESCP-nets, while being much more convenient and compact than P-nets, are simpler than CP-nets, thus being more easily implemented and more amenable to formal analysis. Furthermore, they possess some features particularly well-suited to plant simulation. The successful employment of ESCP-nets in an industrial application has confirmed their validity.
Transcriptomic Analysis Brings New Insight into the Biological Role of the Prion Protein during Mouse Embryogenesis

The biological function of the Prion protein remains largely unknown but recent data revealed its implication in early zebrafish and mammalian embryogenesis. To gain further insight into its biological function, comparative transcriptomic analysis between FVB/N and FVB/N Prnp knockout mice was performed at early embryonic stages. RNAseq analysis revealed the differential expression of 73 and 263 genes at E6.5 and E7.5, respectively. The related metabolic pathways identified in this analysis partially overlap with those described in PrP1 and PrP2 knockdown zebrafish embryos and prion-infected mammalian brains and emphasize a potentially important role for the PrP family genes in early developmental processes.
Enhanced Photochemical Hydrogen Production by a Molecular Diiron Catalyst Incorporated into a Metal–Organic Framework

A molecular proton reduction catalyst [FeFe](dcbdt)(CO)6 (1, dcbdt = 1,4-dicarboxylbenzene-2,3-dithiolate) with structural similarities to [FeFe]-hydrogenase active sites has been incorporated into a highly robust Zr(IV)-based metal–organic framework (MOF) by postsynthetic exchange (PSE). The PSE protocol is crucial as direct solvothermal synthesis fails to produce the functionalized MOF. The molecular integrity of the organometallic site within the MOF is demonstrated by a variety of techniques, including X-ray absorption spectroscopy. In conjunction with [Ru(bpy)3]2+ as a photosensitizer and ascorbate as an electron donor, MOF-[FeFe](dcbdt)(CO)6 catalyzes photochemical hydrogen evolution in water at pH 5. The immobilized catalyst shows substantially improved initial rates and overall hydrogen production when compared to a reference system of complex 1 in solution. Improved catalytic performance is ascribed to structural stabilization of the complex when incorporated in the MOF as well as the protection of reduced catalysts 1– and 12– from undesirable charge recombination with oxidized ascorbate.
Software Requirements Engineer: An Empirical Study about Non-Technical Skills

Over a period of time software industry has seen a steady growth and the main reason for this growth is increase in the supply and demand of software. In software industry people are hired from different parts of the world having technical and non-technical skills. However, non- technical skills which are equally given importance while hiring a new employee are relatively given little attention by researchers from software engineering community. The main objective of this work is twofold; firstly we provide comprehensive empirical evidence about up to what extent software industry is considering different non-technical skills while hiring a new employee as software requirements engineer. Secondly, we also target to find out whether employers' non-technical skills requirements, as advertised in job postings, in case of software requirements engineering profession are similar across different cultures. We used a dataset of 250 jobs descriptions from four different regions of the world in this study. The broader conclusion of this study shows that there is an explicit requirement of having communication skills in a software requirements engineer. While some other non-technical skills such as analytical and problem solving, interpersonal skills, ability to work independently, and team player have also been given some moderate consideration. Whereas, organizational skills, open and adaptable to changes, innovative, and fast learner skills are given least priority. On the regional side although Australian, Asian and European cultures exhibits more similarity than North American culture on the choice of non-technical skills requirements in hiring new employee in case of software requirements engineering profession but generally we concluded that cultural difference does not have a major impact on this decision.
Supplementary Note 1: OLEDs and OPV cells with different graphene TCEs

Supplementary Table 1 and 2 summarize the device structure, performance, and active area of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells with different graphene transparent conductive electrodes (TCEs) reported in the literature so far. It can be seen that most of the OLED devices with graphene TCEs have a lighting area much less than 0.1 cm 2. Only a few devices can reach about 1 cm 2 in lighting area. For OPV cells with graphene TCEs, the active areas are only 0.0004 to 0.6 cm 2. In our work, a 4-inch flexible monolithic OLED device with a uniform lighting area of 56 cm 2 and high brightness of about 10,000 cd m-2 has been fabricated on an 8×9 cm 2 PET substrate for the first time by using a rosin-transferred 5-layer graphene film as anode. In addition, our OLEDs with a lighting area of 0.16 cm 2 (typical size for the reported graphene-based OLEDs) show a high maximum current efficiency (CE) and power efficiency (PE) of 89.7 cd A-1 and 102.6 lm W-1 , respectively, which are comparable to the best values of the graphene-based OLEDs reported in the literature without any light-coupling structures and cavity resonance enhancement design. Moreover, our graphene anode is very stable. In contrast, the reported OLEDs with a comparable performance usually use graphene films doped by HNO 3 or AuCl 3 as the anode, and these are very unstable and can greatly degrade device efficiency and lifetime. These results show the superiority of our ultraclean and damage-free graphene TCEs fabricated by the rosin-supported transfer method for large-area high-performance flexible OLEDs.
Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing the Infl Uence of Multi-season Imagery on Models of Canopy Cover: a Case Study

Quantifying tree canopy cover in a spatially explicit fashion is important for broad-scale monitoring of ecosystems and for management of natural resources. Researchers have developed empirical models of tree canopy cover to produce geospatial products. For subpixel models, percent tree canopy cover estimates (derived from fi ne-scale imagery) serve as the response variable. The explanatory variables are developed from refl ectance values and derivatives, elevation and derivatives, and other ancillary data. However, there is a lack of guidance in the literature regarding the use of leaf-on only imagery versus multi-season imagery for the explanatory variables. We compared models developed from leaf-on only Landsat imagery with models developed from multi-season imagery for a study area in Georgia. There was no statistical difference among models. We suggest that leaf-on imagery is adequate for the development of empirical models of percent tree canopy cover in the Piedmont of the Southeastern United States.
Matrix completion based direction-of-arrival estimation in nonuniform noise

It is known that eigenstructure-based direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation algorithms are vulnerable to nonuniform noise. In order to tackle this problem, recently we proposed an approach for joint estimasion of the signal subspace and noise covariance matrix. However, an iterative procedure is involved in this method. This motivates us to present an new approach which is free of iteration in this paper. More precisely, the problem of noise-free covariance matrix estimation is first formulated as matrix completion. The signal and noise subspaces are then achieved by eigendecomposing the noise-free covariance matrix estimate and, therefore, traditional subspace-based DOA estimation algorithms can be applied directly. Numerical simulation results are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Research on tunnel complete profile measurement based on digital photogrammetric technology

Regular measurement of tunnel complete profile is important to the train operation safety. An onboard tunnel clearance measurement device is designed by integrating photogrammetry with linear laser scanning in this paper. The main principle of design is based on the triangulation method using lasers and cameras. Multiple high speed industrial cameras are used to shoot the laser strip profile with a resolution of 1024×1280 pixels per frame. In order to improve the processing performance of the system, Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) has been employed as hardware design platform which has a strong ability on dealing with a large amount of image data. The algorithm proposed in this paper is embedded in FPGA hardware completely to process image sequences of 300 frames per second. The overall scheme, FPGA hardware implementation and the results of validation are presented. The results of experiments illustrate a good performance of the proposed system and adaptable ability to the various common tunnel conditions.
The Current Status of Social Media use among Nonprofit Human Service Organizations: An Exploratory Study

THE CURRENT STATUS OF SOCIAL MEDIA USE AMONG NONPROFIT HUMAN SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY By James A. Young, Ph.D., MSW, MPA A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2012 Major Director: Timothy L. Davey, Ph.D. Associate Dean for Research and Community Engagement School of Social Work Social media has proliferated throughout the nonprofit sector over the last five years and organizations use these new tools in a variety of ways. Little research is available on the use of social media within nonprofit human service organizations (HSO) specifically. This study is one of the first of its kind to explore how and why human service organizations are using social media. The aim of this study is to understand the current status of social media use among nonprofit human service organizations by exploring and describing the social media platforms in use, associated practices with social media, the frequency of use, general satisfaction, and plans for the future use of social media. A cross-sectional research design was selected and a survey instrument was created for the study. Data were collected from 125 nonprofit human service organizations in the Richmond, VA metropolitan area that were identified from a sampling frame of nonprofit organizations.
OPTIMAL TRUSS DESIGN USING ANT COLONY OPTIMIZATION

The paper presents a methodology to arrive at optimal truss designs using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithms. Ant Colony Optimization is a population-based, artificial multi-agent, general-search technique for the solution of difficult combinatorial problems with its theoretical roots based on the behavior of real ant colonies and the collective trail-laying and trail-following of its members in searching for optimal solutions in traversing multiple paths. In essence, ACO is inspired by the foraging behavior of natural ant colonies which optimize their path from an origin (ant nest) to a destination (food source) by taking advantage of knowledge acquired by ants that previously traversed the possible paths and the pheromone trail these ants leave behind as the traverse the paths to optimal solution. In computer implementations of the ACO algorithms, artificial ants are agents and solution-construction procedures that stochastically build solutions by considering (1) artificial pheromone trails which change dynamically at run time to reflect the agents’ acquired search experience, and (2) heuristic information on the problem/network being solved. The paper outlines the fundamental mathematical background of the ACO method and a suggested possible implementation strategy for solving for optimal truss designs (geometrical configuration and member characteristics).
A multiple feature vector framework for forest species recognition

In this work we focus on investigating the use of multiple feature vectors for forest species recognition. As consequence, we propose a framework to deal with the extraction of multiple feature vectors based on two approaches: image segmentation and multiple feature sets. Experiments conducted on a 112 species database containing microscopic images of wood demonstrate that with the proposed framework we can increase the recognition rates of the system from about 55.7% (with a single feature vector) to about 93.2%.
Breaking Up the Transport Logjam

Current Internet transports conflate transport semantics with endpoint addressing and flow regulation, creating roadblocks to Internet evolution that we propose to address with a new layering model. Factoring endpoint addressing (port numbers) into a separate Endpoint Layer permits incremental rollout of new or improved transports at OS or application level, enables transport-oblivious firewall/NAT traversal, improves transport negotiation efficiency, and simplifies endpoint address space administration. Factoring congestion control into a separate Flow Layer cleanly enables in-path performance optimizations such as on satellite or wireless links, permits incremental rollout of new congestion control schemes within administrative domains, frees congestion control evolution from the yoke of “TCP-friendliness,” and facilitates multihoming and multipath communication. Though this architecture is ambitious, existing protocols can act as starting points for the new layers— UDP or UDP-Lite for the Endpoint Layer, and Congestion Manager or DCCP for the Flow Layer—providing both immediate deployability and a sound basis for long-term evolution.
Comparison of six-month outcome of patients initially treated for acute deep vein thrombosis with a low molecular weight heparin Certoparin at a fixed, body-weight-independent dosage or unfractionated heparin.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Body weight-adjusted subcutaneous low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) has been proven to be more effective and safer than aPTT-adjusted intravenous unfractionated heparin (UFH) for the initial treatment of patients with acute symptomatic deep venous thrombosis (DVT) based on analyses pooling the results of studies with different LMWHs. We investigated whether these findings hold for a particular LMWH by pooling the results of two independent studies. DESIGN AND METHODS Patients with acute symptomatic proximal DVT (n=1758), proven by ascending phlebography or compression ultrasound, received either a fixed, body weight independent dose of 8,000 IU Certoparin b.i. d. (n=893) for 8.6 days or intravenous UFH (n=865) adjusted to an 1.5 to 3.0-fold prolongation of the aPTT for 12.0 days both followed by vitamin K-antagonists for 6 months. RESULTS Venous thromboembolism (VTE) re-occurred in 5.1% and 3.1% (RRR 0.62, CI 0.39-0.98, 2p=0.04), major bleeding in 3.5% and 1.9% (RRR 0.55, CI 0.31-0.99, 2p=0.05), mortality in 3.6% and 2.1% (RRR 0.59, CI 0.34-1.04, 2p=0.08), and the composite outcome of all three events in 10.3% and 6.3% (RRR 0.61, CI 0.44 to 0.84, 2p=0.002) of patients at 6 months initially randomised to UFH and LMWH, respectively. INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS The initial treatment of acute DVT with a fixed dose of the LMWH, certoparin, is more effective in reducing, over 6 months, the re-occurrence of VTE and the composite outcome of recurrent VTE, major bleeding, and mortality without any relation of the bodyweight of the patients to recurrent venous thromboembolism or major bleeding complications.
Improved heterogeneous network utilization by combining multipath transport with QoS-based flow management and routing

QoS/QoE becomes increasingly important due to the growing usage of multimedia applications. In this paper, a solution is presented where Multipath TCP which supports the mobility on the transport layer is combined with QoS-enabled OSPF for performance-aware route selection. For the latter protocol, a novel extension called QoSxOSPF-LSFM (Load Sensitive Flow Management) is introduced which increases the stability of OSPFxQoS routing by evaluating the link utilization and reducing the frequency of route changes. For comparison, results are shown for the combination of QoSxOSPF-LSFM both with MPTCP as a multipath-capable transport-layer based approach as well as with Mobile IP which is a network layer based mobility approach. Simulation results prove the increase of performance compared to the case without LSFM extensions both for MPTCP and Mobile IP; however, due to the multipath capabilities, MPTCP in all cases outperforms Mobile IP.
The Model Repository of the Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study

The model repository (MREP) is a relational database management system (RDBMS) developed under the auspices of models of infectious disease agent study (MIDAS). The purpose of the MREP is to organize and catalog the models, results, and suggestions for using the MIDAS and to store them in a way to allow users to run models from an access-controlled disease MREP. The MREP contains source and object code of disease models developed by infectious disease modelers and tested in a production environment. Different versions of models used to describe various aspects of the same disease are housed in the repository. Models are linked to their developers and different versions of the codes are tied to Subversion, a version control tool. An additional element of the MREP will be to house, manage, and control access to a disease model results warehouse, which consists of output generated by the models contained in the MREP. The result tables and files are linked to the version of the model and the input parameters that collectively generated the results. The result tables are warehoused in a relational database that permits them to be easily identified, categorized, and downloaded.