Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cluster generation using tabu search based maximum descent algorithm

The maximum descent (MD) algorithms have been proposed for clustering objects. Compared with the traditional K-means (or GLA, or LBG) algorithm, the MD algorithms achieve better clustering performance with far less computation time. However, the searching of the optimal partitioning hyperplane of a multidimensional cluster is a difficult problem in the MD algorithms. In this paper, a new partition technique based on tabu search (TS) approach is presented for the MD algorithms. Experimental results show that the tabu search based MD algorithm can produce a better clustering performance than the K-means and MD algorithms.
Insurance Management System for Fresh Graduates Using Web Based Decision Support System (DSS)

Buying an insurance is not as easy as it seems because it involves measurements of personal lifestyles, preferences, needs, and financial condition. One of the problem is that even insurance information is everywhere, seldom there are people who can adequately make use of the information to purchase a suitable policy. Furthermore, high similarity of different insurance products and services compress the scope of buying a really differentiated and suitable insurance policy for an individual. In this study, integration of Web Based and decision support system are employed to develop an Insurance Management System for enabling all fresh graduates from all states of Malaysia to use it for facilitating insurance buying process. Its main target users are fresh graduates between the age of 23 and 30 who are found lacking of insurance literacy. Of all types of insurance in the market, the system will focus specifically in helping the fresh graduates to buy individual personal accident, private car and private motorcycle insurance policies offered by insurance companies in Malaysian insurance market. The Insurance Management System is a system that is able to capture user's information such as income, lifestyle, travel preferences, family members, age of car or motorcycle owned and others factor by prompting three different and separate set of questions for the respective insurance categories of personal accident, car and motorcycle. The user will need to fill in the questions for the category(ies) of insurance he/ she wishes to purchase in relevant web pages. Subsequently, after all the questions from personal accident, car or motorcycle are submitted to the system, the system will suggest and display the insurance product(s) which best meets the user's demands and requirements. Apart from that, comparative tables can also be found in the web system to allow the user to compare personal accident, car and motorcycle insurance benefits offered by different companies at one glance. The system will be developed according to prototype methodology where user participation in designing the system is maximum to continuously refine the system. In capturing users' satisfactions after using the system, user acceptance survey and usability testing survey were adopted. It is said that the proposed web system received positive feedbacks as demonstrated in both the surveys with a 92.5 System Usability Scale (SUS) score which signified that users are convinced by both the look and performance of the proposed system and they are keen to use the system frequently in the future.
Image Registration Techniques and Frameworks: A Review

Image registration allude to transforming one image with reference to another (geometrically alignment of reference and sensed images) i.e. the process of overlaying images of the same scene, seized by assorted sensors, from different viewpoints at variant time. Virtually all large image evaluating or mining systems require image registration, as an intermediate step. Over the years, a broad range of techniques has been flourished for various types of data and problems. These approaches are classified according to their nature mainly as area-based and feature-based and on four basic tread of image registration procedure namely feature detection, feature matching, mapping function design, and image transformation and resampling. The current chapter highlights the cogitation effect of four different registration techniques, namely Affine transformation based registration, Rigid transformation based registration, B-splines registration, and Demons registration. It provides a comparative study among all of these registration techniques as well as different frameworks involved in registration process. Image Registration Techniques and Frameworks: A Review
Joint Euler-Lagrange Method for Moving Surfaces in Large-Eddy Simulation

Continuous growth of computing power strongly encourages engineers to rely more on computational fluid dynamics for the design and testing of new technological solutions. The fast development of these new tools goes along with the increasing availability of high-performance computers, which are necessary to simulate realistic industrial applications. The presented immersed boundary (IB) method is applicable to simple and complex geometries with static and moving boundaries, where fluids interact with the solid structures. The formulation of the method is based on the Eulerian and Lagrangian principles and its key characteristics are its simple formulation and computational efficiency. Furthermore the nature of the method allows the simulations of flows in complex geometries without having to generate complex meshes. The spatial discretization is based on a fixed Cartesian mesh for the Eulerian variables and boundary movements are tracked with Lagrangian particles. LargeEddy simulations of flows in simple and complex geometries demonstrate the performance of the applied immersed boundary method. Simple cases include the simulation of an isothermal pipe flow and the flow around a sphere. In the first instance, the fluid flows around a static sphere. In the second case the sphere moves relative to the grid for identical flow conditions. Simulations of complex geometries include the investigation of an isothermal and reactive opposed jet flow with perforated and fractal grids. The simulations require cell sizes near the resolution of direct numerical simulations. The injection phase of a piston-cylinder arrangement, assuming constant pressure, is also investigated with the proposed IB method. Good statistical results for first and second moments are achieved for all investigated cases, although the applied grids have to be fine enough to accurately resolve the wall shear stresses. In addition, the concept of using Lagrangian particles has been applied to immiscible flows. Particles are used to improve the accuracy of scalar transport and initial results of simple, two-dimensional test cases are presented.
Speech reception threshold measurement using automatic speech recognition

Hearing tests: quantify the hearing abilities of people with both normal hearing and hearing impairments Speech reception threshold (SRT): SNR level at which the speech recognition rate of a person is 50% – Evaluating a listener’s hearing capabilities and diagnosing hearing loss – Adjusting the CI parameters and analyze the impact of new developments in CI devices – Provides useful data for psychoacoustic research Goal: Automating SRT measurement procedure using ASR technology – To reduce human effort which can be invested in more vital tasks – Objective and repeatable assessment without observer bias 2. SRT Measurement
Being visually impaired in an elementary art classroom: a case study

Kristina Benton Being Visually Impaired in an Elementary Art Classroom: A Case Study 2006/07 Dr. Rick Dammers Masters in Subject Matter Teaching: Art The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of a visually impaired student during art instruction. The data was collected using observations of the subject during art class and a series of one-on-one interviews. The subject of the study was a male, second grade, visually impaired student. His optical disorder is known as Micro-Opthalmia/Cataract Syndrome and is a rare condition. Data was interpreted using coding and transcription based on the themes that developed throughout the course of the study. The findings of the study were (a) that the subject has a high level of self-esteem and view of himself as an artist despite his disorder, (b) he has a unique way of adapting to lesson and techniques that have been introduced, (c) his aide and teachers make modifications that are unintentional or specific to his IEP, and (d) the high level of assistance given affects the authenticity of his artwork.
Skew Detection and Correction of Gurmukhi Words from Natural Scene Images

Natural scene images are more susceptible to skew deformation as compared to document text which makes skew correction an indispensable step in scene text extraction. This work evaluates Murthy’s Devanagari scene word slant correction method [Signal, Image and Video Processing, 7(6), 2012] on Gurmukhi scene images. The method makes use of headline feature of Devanagari which also exist in Gurmukhi script. The headline of Gurmukhi word is found by perceiving farthest located salient points as its end-points and skew angle of headline is calculated from its slope. Gurmukhi word image is deskewed using skew angle of identified headline. The method has been tested on 100 selfcaptured good quality Gurmukhi and 117 publically available Devanagari scene words with average accuracy of 62.8% and 72.2% respectively. The method has been found to be working well on few samples of defective scene words, provided actual end-points of headline are preserved. It has been observed that Murthy’s method is very simple to implement, does not require any pre-processing and give good results in wide variety of practical situations. However, this method does not work well for single character words with vowel above headline and words with identified headline parallel to horizontal axis.
The Ex Ante Effect of Creditor Rights on Corporate Financial and Investment Policy

We examine the ex ante effect of an exogenous reduction in secured creditor rights on corporate financial and investment policy. We find that firms increase corporate leverage using both the reduced distress costs of secured debt and the positive externalities the lower secured creditor rights transfer to the borrowing costs of unsecured credit. Further, firms discard investments that reduce the risk of uncovering distress costs but are, however, less profitable. Our results suggest that firms eliminate unproductive protection mechanisms previously set in place to contract around costly bankruptcy legislations. This interpretation is confirmed by higher levels of risk and profitability. After establishing the average effect, we also show that the financing and investment response is highly dependent on the firm types which attract heterogeneous intensities in the positive (reduced distress costs) and negative (increased secured borrowing costs) effects of the weakened secured creditor rights. This result suggests that a uniform bankruptcy infrastructure that balances positive and negative effects of secured creditor rights is unsuited to be the optimal solution. Our finding rather points to a menu of bankruptcy procedures in which a debtor- and creditor-friendly code co-exist and thus allows different types of firms to contract for preferred procedures.
Performance Comparison of Different Similarity Measures for Collaborative Filtering Technique

Objectives: As the plenty of Web services on the Internet increases, developing efficient techniques for Web service recommendation has become more significant. The main objective of this paper is to compare and study the drawbacks of the performance of different existing similarity measures against the proposed similarity measure that use the concept of collaborative filtering technique. Methods/Analysis: Collaborative filtering has turned into one of the most used technique to give personalized services for users. The key of this technique is to find alike users or items using user-item rating matrix such that the system can show recommendations for users. Experiments on Web Service (WSDL) data sets are conducted and compared with many traditional similarity measures namely Pearson correlation coefficient, JacUOD, Bhattacharyya coefficient. The result shows the superiority of the proposed similarity model in recommendation performance. Findings: However, existing approaches related to these techniques are derived from similarity algorithms, such as Pearson correlation coefficient, mean squared distance, and cosine. These methods are not much efficient, particularly in the cold user conditions. Applications/Improvement: This paper presents a new user based similarity calculation model to enhance the recommendation performance and to estimate the similarities for each user. The proposed model incorporates two traditional similarity measures namely Pearson Correlation Coefficient and Jaccard Coefficient.
Research of Multi-axis NC Machining Method of Cylindrical Cam Based on UG NX

We have focused significant efforts on developing solutions for precision machining of cylindrical cams based on UG NX. A variety of processing method are put forward according to the digital model for a cylindrical cam which has been derived through parametric design, all of which are made a detailed comparison, analysis, research, elaborated. Simulation processing, post processing and NC program are carried out though optimized processing scheme. It will provide a reference for the numerical control programming of four-Coordinated axis.
"Upperview" algorithm design in teaching computer science in high schools

In this paper we are going to present a teaching/learning method and suggest a syllabus that help the high school students look at the algorithm design strategies from a so called “upperview”: greedy, backtracking, divide and conquer, dynamic programming. The goal of the suggested syllabus is, beyond the presentation of the techniques, to offer the students a view that reveals them the basic and even the slight principal differences and similarities between the strategies. In consensus with the Comenius principle this is essential, if we want to master this field of programming (“To teach means scarcely anything more than to show how things differ from one another in their different purposes, forms, and origins. . . . Therefore, he who differentiates well teaches well.”).
Shape Recognition Using Combined Moment Invariants and PCA

In this paper, we combine two moments of Hu and Zernike to try improve the recognition accuracy. And we apply PCA on the Zernike moments to speedup of recognition without degrading the recognition accuracy. We compare the recognition performance between Hu and Zernike moments. Also we show the recognition accuracy of new methods with two modified features. We evaluate the recognition accuracy with two datasets of hands and digits. For hand recognition, we localize hands from hand candidates with improved method against our preliminary study [2].
Analogue circuits for low power communication

Low power electronic circuits are required to extend the operational time of battery operated devices. They are also necessary to reduce the power consumption of equipment in general, especially as the world tries to cut energy usage. The first section of this thesis explores fundamental and implementation limits for low power circuits. The energy requirements of amplification are presented and a lower bound on the energy required to transmit information over a point to point link is proposed. It is evident from the low power limits survey that when a transistor is biased, significant thermodynamic energy is required to reduce the resistance of the channel. A transmitter is presented that turns on a transistor for 0.1 % of transmitted time. This transmitter approximates a Gaussian pulse by allowing the impulse response of two 2nd order transmitting elements to sum in free space. The transmitter is of low complexity and the receiver architecture ensures that no on-line tuning is required. Measured results indicate that by using coherent detection a 1 Mbps, 50 mm distance link with a bit error rate of 10−3 can be achieved. The bandwidth of the transmitted pulse is 30-37.5 MHz and 30 dB of out of band attenuation is provided. An analogue Gabor transform is described which splits a signal into parallel paths of a lower bandwidth. This enables post processing at lower clock rates, which can reduce energy dissipation. An implementation of the transform using sub-threshold CMOS continuous time filters is presented. A novel method for designing low power gmC filters using simple models of identical transconductors is used to specify transistor sizes. Measured results show that the transform consumes 7 μW for an input signal bandwidth of 4 kHz.
Initial Virtual Machine Placement Based on Improved Grouping Genetic Algorithm

Recently,virtualization technology has become an important technology to improve the energy efficiency of data centers. This paper designs a new genetic algorithm for initial virtual machine placement based on improved Chromosome encoding and mutation operators. The simulation results show that compared to heuristic method and genetic algorithm,the proposed algorithm has significantly improved energy efficiency in the data center.
CLUSTER ANALYSIS OF VOIVODSHIPS IN REGARD TO SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE IN ENTERPRISES AT THE BACKGROUND OF EU STATES

The aim of this work is to assess the development of voivodships in terms of social media usage in enterprises with the use of the clustering method. In the theoretical part of the work the rationale of the research study (significance of social media in business activities of post-industrial enterprises) and research methodology were included. The empirical part of the work involves presentation of the research results. So, within the framework of social media usage by enterprises, the rankings of voivodships were created and the clusters of voivodships were detected. Data from the years 2014–2017, provided by the Central Statistical Office of Poland, was used. The results served to compare and assess voivodships in individual years of the period from 2014 to 2017. The comparisons were carried out at the background of data relating to the social media usage by enterprises in EU states in the period 2014-2017.
Examining factors influencing Indian customers’ intentions and adoption of internet banking: Extending TAM with electronic service quality

This study conceptualizes and tests an integrative research model based on extended technology acceptance model (TAM) by integrating electronic service quality to strengthen the customer behavioral intention mediated through brand attitude in the context of e-banking in India. This study applies the cognitive, affective, and conative sequence to measure the antecedents and results of electronic service quality. The study has gathered a total of 455 usable responses by self-administered questionnaire through convenience sampling from young employed graduates aged between 16 and 29 years. Structural equation modelling techniques have been applied to the data and the results have provided that dimensions of electronic service quality model (customer service, web design, assurance, preferential treatment, information provision) relate to the electronic service quality. Electronic service quality and perceived usefulness significantly build customer attitude and intention to use internet banking services. However, against the TAM postulation, perceived ease of use does not influence customer’s intention to adopt internet banking service.
Anti-Money Laundering Disclosures and Banks' Performance

This paper aims to develop an Anti-Money Laundering (AML) disclosure index, explore the extent of AML disclosures in the annual reports and websites by differentiating between UAE Islamic and conventional banks, and finally, examine the effect of AML disclosure on UAE bank’s performance using dynamic panel data two-steps robust system estimation. The results reveal that the AML disclosure is at a low level of all UAE banks, conventional and Islamic banks. The results also show that the degree of the AML disclosure on the websites of the banks is higher than in the annual reports. Furthermore, the conventional banks have higher levels of overall AML disclosure than the Islamic banks. The results of the dynamic panel data two- steps robust system estimation show insignificant effects of the degree of AML disclosures on banking performance of all UAE, conventional and Islamic banks.
Diagnosis Model for Enterprse Economic Performance Based on the Weighing Entropy Inclination-TOPSIS

In this paper, based on the practical enterprise problems, the influences resulting from subjective factors are reduced through impersonality evaluance. An synthetic estimation model for the enterprise microeconomic performance is built, using the weighing entropy method for determination of diagnosis index weighing as well as the inclination measurement-TOPSIS method. The model is applied to synthetic estimation and diagnosis analysis of the enterprise economic performance in Chang Long Cable Manufacturer, and provides methods for scientific decisions.
User Assessment of Debugging Using a Software Visualization Tool Compared with Traditional Debugging Methods

Author(s): Rall, Christina Lauren | Advisor(s): Jones, James A | Abstract: Debugging is time and energy intensive. Many tools have been developed to help solve the problems associated with debugging, but programmers still rely on editing their code using traditional, manual techniques. One reason behind this is that many techniques succumb to the Isolation Flaw, where they isolate suspicious code to the point that it loses necessary context. Additionally, traditional debugging relies on the ways in which humans rely on the creation, testing and modification of hypotheses. An ideal tool will both avoid the Isolation Flaw while assisting the developers in their hypothesis cycle. This thesis consists of an empirical study that evaluates how debugging changes between traditional debugging and debugging with visualization assistance. The visualization chosen is based on the Tarantula fault localization tool. Each participant is given one program with the visualization and one without it to debug. Results imply that debug times using the tool to debug the programs in this study sometimes resulted in faster debugging, but usually was not significantly different from traditional debugging. The visualization decreased the average time between locating the file that the bug was in and fixing the bug for all bugs, implying that participants who reached that file did so on a more accurate hypothesis about the cause of the bug. While the tool may not consistently improve the speed of debugging for programs of this size and bugs of this complexity, it offers promising results regarding the context-dependent learning that is missing from debugging tools that contain the Isolation Flaw.