Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Managing large-scale probabilistic databases

Modern applications are driven by data, and increasingly the data driving these applications are imprecise. The set of applications that generate imprecise data is diverse: In sensor database applications, the goal is to measure some aspect of the physical world (such as temperature in a region or a person's location). Such an application has no choice but to deal with imprecision, as measuring the physical world is inherently imprecise. In data integration, consider two databases that refer to the same set of real-world entities, but the way in which they refer to those entities is slightly different. For example, one database may contain an entity ‘J. Smith’ while the second database refers to ‘John Smith’. In such a scenario, the large size of the data makes it too costly to manually reconcile all references in the two databases. To lower the cost of integration, state-of-the-art approaches allow the data to be imprecise. In addition to applications which are forced to cope with imprecision, emerging data-driven applications, such as large-scale information extraction, natively produce and manipulate similarity scores. In all these domains, the current state-of-the-art approach is to allow the data to be imprecise and to shift the burden of coping with imprecision to applications. The thesis of this work is that it is possible to effectively manage large, imprecise databases using a generic approach based on probability theory. The key technical challenge in building such a general-purpose approach is performance, and the technical contributions of this dissertation are techniques for efficient evaluation over probabilistic databases. In particular, we demonstrate that it is possible to run complex SQL queries on tens of gigabytes of probabilistic data with performance that is comparable to a standard relational database engine.
Displacement Parameter Inversion for a Novel Electromagnetic Underground Displacement Sensor

Underground displacement monitoring is an effective method to explore deep into rock and soil masses for execution of subsurface displacement measurements. It is not only an important means of geological hazards prediction and forecasting, but also a forefront, hot and sophisticated subject in current geological disaster monitoring. In previous research, the authors had designed a novel electromagnetic underground horizontal displacement sensor (called the H-type sensor) by combining basic electromagnetic induction principles with modern sensing techniques and established a mutual voltage measurement theoretical model called the Equation-based Equivalent Loop Approach (EELA). Based on that work, this paper presents an underground displacement inversion approach named “EELA forward modeling-approximate inversion method”. Combining the EELA forward simulation approach with the approximate optimization inversion theory, it can deduce the underground horizontal displacement through parameter inversion of the H-type sensor. Comprehensive and comparative studies have been conducted between the experimentally measured and theoretically inversed values of horizontal displacement under counterpart conditions. The results show when the measured horizontal displacements are in the 0–100 mm range, the horizontal displacement inversion discrepancy is generally tested to be less than 3 mm under varied tilt angles and initial axial distances conditions, which indicates that our proposed parameter inversion method can predict underground horizontal displacement measurements effectively and robustly for the H-type sensor and the technique is applicable for practical geo-engineering applications.
Designing New Experiences of Music Making

Music making is among the activities that best fulfil a person’s full potential, but it is also one of the most complex and exclusive: successful music making requires study and dedication, combined with a natural aptitude that only gifted individuals possess. This thesis proposes new design solutions to reproduce the human ability to make music. It offers insights to provide the general public with novel experiences of music making by exploring a different interactive metaphor. Emotions are proposed as a mediator of musical meanings: an algorithmic composer is developed to generate new music, and the player can interact with the composition, controlling the desired levels of the composition’s emotional character. The adequacy of this metaphor is tested with the case study of The Music Room, an interactive installation that allows visitors to influence the emotional aspect of an original classical style musical composition by means of body movements. This thesis addresses research questions and performs exploratory studies that are grounded in and contribute to different fields of research, including musical interface design, algorithmic composition, and psychology of music. The thesis presents MINUET, a conceptual framework for the design of musical interfaces, and the Music Room, an example of interactive installation based on the emotional metaphor. The Music Room was the result of a two-year iteration of design and evaluation cycles that informed an operational definition of the concept of engagement with interactive art. New methods for evaluating visitors’ experience based on the integration of evidences from different user-research techniques are also presented. As regards the field of algorithmic composition, the thesis presents Robin, a rule-based algorithmic affective composer, and a study to test its validity in eliciting different emotions in listeners (N=33). Valence (positive vs. negative) and arousal (high vs. low) were manipulated in a 2*2 within-subjects design. Results showed that Robin correctly elicited valence and arousal in converging conditions (high valence, high arousal and low valence, low arousal). However, in cases of diverging conditions (high valence, low arousal and low valence, high arousal), valence received neutral values. As regards the psychology of music, this thesis contributes new evidence to the on-going debate about the innate or learned nature of musical competence, defined as the ability to recognise emotion in music. Results of an experimental study framed within Russell’s two-dimensional theory of emotion suggest that musical competence is not affected by training when listeners are required to evaluate arousal (dictated by variations of tempo). The evaluation of valence (dictated by the combination of tempo and mode), however, was found to be more complicated, highlighting a difference in the evaluation of musical excerpts when tempo and mode conveyed diverging emotional information. In this debate, Robin is proposed as a suitable tool for future experimental research as it allows the manipulation of individual musical factors.
Adults with type 1 diabetes: Partner relationships and outcomes

Health outcomes of adults with type 1 diabetes may be affected by relationship status and quality. Our objective was to examine associations between relationship status, relationship factors, and outcomes in adults with type 1 diabetes. N = 1660 participants completed surveys measuring relationship satisfaction and perceived partner support style (active engagement, protective buffering, over-protection). Differences in glycemic control and adherence for those married/partnered versus not were insignificant. Higher relationship satisfaction, and having an engaged, not over-protective, partner was associated with better glycemic control and self-care. Helping partners support patients, avoiding over-protection, may enhance relationship and diabetes-related patient outcomes for adults with type 1 diabetes.
High Boron-induced Ubiquitination Regulates Vacuolar Sorting of the BOR1 Borate Transporter in Arabidopsis thaliana*

Boron homeostasis is important for plants, as boron is essential but is toxic in excess. Under high boron conditions, the Arabidopsis thaliana borate transporter BOR1 is trafficked from the plasma membrane (PM) to the vacuole via the endocytic pathway for degradation to avoid excess boron transport. Here, we show that boron-induced ubiquitination is required for vacuolar sorting of BOR1. We found that a substitution of lysine 590 with alanine (K590A) in BOR1 blocked degradation. BOR1 was mono- or diubiquitinated within several minutes after applying a high concentration of boron, whereas the K590A mutant was not. The K590A mutation abolished vacuolar transport of BOR1 but did not apparently affect polar localization to the inner PM domains. Furthermore, brefeldin A and wortmannin treatment suggested that Lys-590 is required for BOR1 translocation from an early endosomal compartment to multivesicular bodies. Our results show that boron-induced ubiquitination of BOR1 is not required for endocytosis from the PM but is crucial for the sorting of internalized BOR1 to multivesicular bodies for subsequent degradation in vacuoles.
Genetic Tools for Select-Agent-Compliant Manipulation of Burkholderia pseudomallei

ABSTRACT Because of Burkholderia pseudomallei's classification as a select agent in the United States, genetic manipulation of this bacterium is strictly regulated. Only a few antibiotic selection markers, including gentamicin, kanamycin, and zeocin, are currently approved for use with this bacterium, but wild-type strains are highly resistant to these antibiotics. To facilitate routine genetic manipulations of wild-type strains, several new tools were developed. A temperature-sensitive pRO1600 broad-host-range replicon was isolated and used to construct curable plasmids where the Flp and Cre recombinase genes are expressed from the rhamnose-regulated Escherichia coli PBAD promoter and kanamycin (nptI) and zeocin (ble) selection markers from the constitutive Burkholderia thailandensis ribosomal PS12 or synthetic bacterial PEM7 promoter. Flp and Cre site-specific recombination systems allow in vivo excision and recycling of nptII and ble selection markers contained on FRT or loxP cassettes. Finally, expression of Tn7 site-specific transposase from the constitutive P1 integron promoter allowed development of an efficient site-specific chromosomal integration system for B. pseudomallei. In conjunction with a natural transformation method, the utility of these new tools was demonstrated by isolating an unmarked Δ(amrRAB-oprA) efflux pump mutant. Exploiting natural transformation, chromosomal DNA fragments carrying this mutation marked with zeocin resistance were transferred between the genomes of two different B. pseudomallei strains. Lastly, the deletion mutation was complemented by a chromosomally integrated mini-Tn7 element carrying the amrAB-oprA operon. The new tools allow routine select-agent-compliant genetic manipulations of B. pseudomallei and other Burkholderia species.
An Incentivized Approach for Fair Participation in Wireless Ad hoc Networks

In Wireless Ad hoc networks (WANETs), nodes separated by considerable distance communicate with each other by relaying their messages through other nodes. However, it might not be in the best interests of a node to forward the message of another node due to power constraints. In addition, all nodes being rational, some nodes may be selfish, i.e. they might not relay data from other nodes so as to increase their lifetime. In this paper, we present a fair and incentivized approach for participation in Ad hoc networks. Given the power required for each transmission, we are able to determine the power saving contributed by each intermediate hop. We propose the FAir Share incenTivizEd Ad hoc paRticipation protocol (FASTER), which takes a selected route from a routing protocol as input, to calculate the worth of each node using the cooperative game theory concept of 'Shapley Value' applied on the power saved by each node. This value can be used for allocation of Virtual Currency to the nodes, which can be spent on subsequent message transmissions.
Dropout Training of Matrix Factorization and Autoencoder for Link Prediction in Sparse Graphs

Matrix factorization (MF) and Autoencoder (AE) are among the most successful approaches of unsupervised learning. While MF based models have been extensively exploited in the graph modeling and link prediction literature, the AE family has not gained much attention. In this paper we investigate both MF and AE's application to the link prediction problem in sparse graphs. We show the connection between AE and MF from the perspective of multiview learning, and further propose MF+AE: a model training MF and AE jointly with shared parameters. We apply dropout to training both the MF and AE parts, and show that it can significantly prevent overfitting by acting as an adaptive regularization. We conduct experiments on six real world sparse graph datasets, and show that MF+AE consistently outperforms the competing methods, especially on datasets that demonstrate strong non-cohesive structures.
On Extract-then-Expand Key Derivation Functions and an HMAC-based KDF ∗

This paper describes and provides detailed rationale for a simple (and fully specified) HMACbased key derivation function (KDF) that can serve multiple applications under a wide variety of requirements and assumptions, and whose design is backed by careful cryptographic analysis. The proposed scheme follows the extract-then-expand paradigm for KDF design (which we present and discuss in great detail) and results in a hash-based KDF whose security relies on as weak as possible assumptions from the underlying hash function. Moreover, the same approach allows for alternative implementations fully or partially based on block ciphers (e.g., AES). The proposal is intended to address two important and timely needs of crypto applications: (i) providing a single hash-based KDF design that can be standardized for use in multiple and diverse applications, and (ii) providing a conservative, yet efficient, design that exercises much care in the way it utilizes a cryptographic hash function. The bulk of the paper is dedicated to present detailed cryptographic analysis for the proposed design based on recent research in this area and with particular attention to minimizing assumptions on the underlying hash function. ∗See http://www.ee.technion.ac.il/~hugo/kdf/ for updates. †IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Hawthorne, New York. Email: hugo@ee.technion.ac.il
The Nurse in the University: A History of University Education for South African Nurses: A Case Study of the University of the Witwatersrand

This paper charts the history and debates surrounding the introduction of academic, university-based training of nurses in South Africa. This was a process that was drawn out over five decades, beginning in the late 1930s. For nurses, university training was an important part of a process of professionalization; however, for other members of the medical community, nursing was seen as being linked to women's service work. Using the case-study of the University of the Witwatersrand, one of South Africa's premier universities and the place in the country to offer a university-based nursing program, we argue that an historical understanding of the ways in which nursing education was integrated into the university system tells us a great deal about the professionalization of nursing. This paper also recognises, for the first time, the pioneers of this important process.
Number Sense Mediated by Mathematics Self-Concept in Impacting Middle School Mathematics Achievement.

NUMBER SENSE MEDIATED BY MATHEMATICS SELF-CONCEPT IN IMPACTING MIDDLE SCHOOL MATHEMATICS ACHIEVEMENT Lara K. Geronime, B.A., M.A. Marquette University, 2012 The purpose of the current study was to extend the research on number sense to the middle school level and to simultaneously consider socioemotional elements related to the construct at this developmental stage. Its genesis was initially rooted in an ongoing and dramatic emphasis by U.S. policymakers, researchers, and educators on improving mathematics achievement in order to compete globally in technology and innovation. Despite debates about optimal curriculum and instruction, tremendous support exists for the construct of number sense. However, middle school research examining the phenomena has been limited to intervention protocols targeting specific skillsets and better measurement of its domains. Concomitantly, educational research has produced ample evidence of the decline in student mathematics motivation over time, and the corresponding literature establishes a link between mathematics self-concept and mathematics achievement, particularly during adolescence. The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 provides a sample of 4,425 U.S. eighth graders for the present study, assessed directly and indirectly in cognitive, demographic, and affective domains. Multiple regression analyses confirmed the hypotheses that number sense predicts both mathematics selfconcept and mathematics achievement at the middle school level, when controlling for gender, race, socioeconomic status, and special education services. Additionally, a path analysis with Statistical Analysis Software (SAS) and the Sobel test revealed that mathematics self-concept mediates the relationship between number sense and mathematics achievement. This indirect effect, when combined with the direct effect of number sense, results in a significant, medium total effect value of . 35 for the model. By incorporating this knowledge regarding the interconnection of these three constructs into mathematics curriculum and instruction, as well as teacher education, the United States can move closer to bringing about equity of opportunity and motivating students to pursue more complex mathematics coursework and subsequently professions.
A Family Study of Pernicious Anaemia: II. INTRINSIC FACTOR SECRETION, VITAMIN B12 ABSORPTION AND GENETIC ASPECTS OF GASTRIC AUTOIMMUNITY

Summary A good but not absolute correlation between the presence of the gastric parietal cell antibody and impairment of gastric secretion was observed in the relatives of patients with pernicious anaemia. By analogy, although the majority of relatives without the antibody secreted normal amounts of acid and of intrinsic factor nearly one‐fifth secreted unexpectedly small amounts of intrinsic factor.
Theories of deviance and the self-concept.

Given the sociological use of the selfconcept in accounting for social control, the paper considers the analytical use of the self in explanations of deviance. In reviewing theoretical patterns in the use of self-concept in studying deviance, three principal categories of theories of deviance are suggested: (1) structural interactionist analyses; (2) socialization-control analyses; and (3) labeling analyses. Additionally, discussion deals with clarifying the explanatory role of the selfconcept in deviance accounts. A first concern involves the basic concepts involved? specifying what is to be included in the self and what aspects of deviance are to be explained by it. The second task involves specifying possible causal relationships between self-conception and deviance.
Technical variability of the Vivago® wrist-worn accelerometer

Abstract The aim was to assess the technical variability of a new wrist-worn accelerometer under controlled conditions with a shaker device and during normal daily physical activities (PAs). In the first experiment, 10 wrist-worn accelerometers (Vivago® Wellness, Paris, France) were attached to the shaker device. Variability was tested at five shaking frequencies (1.1, 2.1, 3.1, 4.1, and 10 Hz) for 10 min at each frequency. In the second experiment, 21 participants wore wrist-worn accelerometers and performed six consecutive 10-min periods of activity at increasing levels of intensity from sedentary to vigorous. Results from the first experiment show a modest inter- and intra-instrument reliability at low frequencies and that reliability improved as frequency increased. The inter-instrument coefficient of variation (CV) was 2.6–18.3%. The intra-instrument CV was 4.1–23.2%. Variability was similar in the second experiment with a CV inversely related to PA intensity. The inter- and intra-instrument CV varied from 24.2% and 19.9% for sedentary activities to 3.7% and 4.3% for vigorous PA, respectively. Results suggest that reliability was higher at high intensities, corresponding to moderate and vigorous PA, intensities generally recommended for public health purposes.
A novel cross-layer framework for early-stage power delivery and architecture co-exploration

With the reduced noise margin brought by relentless technology scaling, power integrity assurance has become more challenging than ever. On the other hand, traditional design methodologies typically focus on a single design layer without much cross-layer interaction, potentially introducing unnecessary guard-band and wasting significant design resources. Both issues imperatively call for a cross-layer framework for the co-exploration of power delivery (PD) and system architecture, especially at early design stage with larger design freedom. Unfortunately, such a framework does not exist yet in the literature. As a step forward, this paper provides a run-time simulation framework of both PD and architecture and captures their interactions. Enabled by the proposed recursive run-time PD model, it handles an entire PD system on-the-fly simulation with <;1% deviation from SPICE. Moreover, with a seamless interaction among architecture, power and PD simulators, it has the capability to simulate benchmarks with millions of cycles within reasonable time. A support vector regression (SVR) model is employed to further speed up power estimation of functional units to millions cycle/second with good accuracy. The experimental results of running PARSEC suite have illustrated the framework's capability to explore hardware configurations to discover the co-effect of PD and architecture for early stage optimization. Moreover, it also illustrates multiple over-pessimisms in traditional methodologies.
Measuring and evaluating IS expectations and benefit success from B2B electronic trading: a new survey approach

This article demonstrates a survey approach for measuring and evaluating IS benefit success from business-to-business (B2B) electronic trading. This article is of significance in demonstrating practical benefit success mechanisms for evaluating complex IS projects. A new survey approach is used to help evaluate the IS benefit success for each participating organisation. Disconfirmation theory and the expectations paradigm are used to justify the overall approach taken. A central tenet of the overall evaluation approach has been the need for a combined evaluation of benefit success based on interpreting or diagnosing two outcomes: (a) the ‘realised benefit outcome’ (RBO), or the actual number of realised strategic and operational benefits a company has achieved, regardless of initial expectations, as well as (b) the ‘benefit state outcome’ (BSO), or the extent of benefit planning gap (BPG) experienced within each company relative to their original expectations. This article demonstrates in detail how to measure benefit success from survey data using a perceptual self-assessed rating instrument. The approach will be useful for other academics and practitioners in the development of usable IS benefits evaluation mechanisms.