Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Essays on Optimization and Modeling Methods for Reliability and Reliability Growth

This research proposes novel solution techniques in the realm of reliability and reliability growth. We first consider a redundancy allocation problem to design a system that maximizes the reliability of a complex series-parallel system comprised of components with deterministic reliability. We propose a new meta-heuristic, inspired by the behavior of bats hunting prey, to find component allocation and redundancy levels that provide optimal or near-optimal system reliability levels. Each component alternative has an associated cost and weight and the system is constrained by cost and weight factors. We allow for component mixing within a subsystem, with a pre-defined maximum level of component redundancy per subsystem, which adds to problem complexity and prevents an optimal solution from being derived analytically. The second problem of interest involves how we model a system’s reliability growth as it undergoes testing and how we minimize deviation from planned growth. We propose a Grey Model, GM(1,1) for modeling reliability growth on complex systems when failure data is sparse. The GM(1,1) model’s performance is benchmarked with the Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity (AMSAA) model, the standard within the reliability growth modeling community. For continuous and discrete (one-shot) testing, the GM(1,1) model shows itself to be superior to the AMSAA model when modeling reliability growth with small failure data sets. Finally, to ensure the reliability growth planning curve is followed as closely as possible, we determine the best level of corrective action to employ on a discovered failure mode, with corrective action levels allowed to vary based upon the amount of resources allocated for failure mode improvement. We propose a Markov Decision Process (MDP) approach to handle the stochasticity of failure data and its corresponding system reliability estimate. By minimizing a weighted deviation from the planning curve, systems will ideally meet the reliability milestones specified by the planning curve, while simultaneously avoiding system over-development and unnecessary resource expenditure for over-correction of failure modes. c ©2016 by Thomas Talafuse All Rights Reserved
Detection of Copy Forgery Regions in the Image Based on Wavelet and Singular Value Decomposition

Aiming at a common copy-paste forgery in the research field of digital image forensics,this paper proposes a detection approach based on wavelet transform and singular value decomposition.Firstly,DWT is applied to the image,and SVD is used on fixed-size blocks of low-frequency component in wavelet sub-band to yield a reduced dimension representation.The representation is robust to minor variations in the image due to edge blurring.The SV vectors are then lexicographically sorted,and copy forgery regions are localized by detecting for all neighborhood vectors.The experiments demonstrate that the proposed approach can not only localize the copy forgery regions accurately,but also reduce the amount of computation and improve the detection efficiency.
Building tag clouds in perl and php

Tag clouds are everywhere on the web these days. First popularized by the web sites Flickr, Technorati, and del.icio. us, these amorphous clumps of words now appear on a slew of web sites as visual evidence of their membership in the elite corps of "Web 2.0. " This PDF analyzes what is and isn't a tag cloud, offers design tips for using them effectively, and then goes on to show how to collect tags and display them in the tag cloud format. Scripts are provided in Perl and PHP.Yes, some have said tag clouds are a fad. But as you will see, tag clouds, when used properly, have real merits. More importantly, the skills you learn in making your own tag clouds enable you to make other interesting kinds of interfaces that will outlast the mercurial fads of this year or the next.
Physics Creative Thinking Measurement using Two-Tier Multiple Choice to Support Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

The Importance of STEM as an implementation to Indonesian Curriculum has to be backed with proper assessment. This due to assessment take the most important part in evaluation. This research develops creative thinking assessment, which using 3 stages including test design, trials, and assembling. The design of the test will be tested in two-tier multiple choice and scored using item response theory (IRT) with daily problem in Physics. The answer will be varied in divergent answer, consisting of fluency, flexible, original and elaborate idea as a creative thinking aspect. From 5 expert’s judgements, the test passed with 7.2 value using Aiken’s V index. After revised, the test was reach trial stage with 270 students in several schools in Gunung Kidul. The Reliability of the test described in information function and SEM (Standard error measurement) are valid result and fit to PCM. The test is ready to assemble since its valid and reliable.
Security Mechanism Agreement for SIP Sessions

SIP has a number of security mechanisms. Some of them have been built in to the SIP protocol, such as HTTP authentication or secure attachments. These mechanisms have even alternative algorithms and parameters. SIP does not currently provide any mechanism for selecting which security mechanisms to use between two entities. In particular, even if some mechanisms such as OPTIONS were used to make this selection, the selection would be vulnerable against the Bidding-Down attack. This document defines three header fields for negotiating the security mechanisms within SIP between a SIP entity and its next SIP hop. A SIP entity applying this mechanism must always require some minimum security (i.e. integrity protection) from all communicating parties in order to secure the negotiation, but the negotiation can agree on which specific security is used.
Real Time Object Pose Estimation by Two-Step Crossing Line Fitting

Real-time industrial vision system for object detection and pose estimation is a promising area yet posing a challenge for high processing efficiency. This paper presents a fast object detection and pose estimation method which captures the specific but common visual pattern as contained in many objects - the two-line cross. A two-step grid based scheme is designed, being able to fast detect the crossing line on the objects and thus identifying the object location and pose. Superior efficiency - 4 milliseconds per frame on a laptop with 2.53 HZ is reported for real image data, without any parallelization or hardware acceleration. Our method outperforms the state-of-the-art line detection method significantly, and has been applied in embedded inspection platform for pipeline object pose estimation. Copyright © 2014 IFSA Publishing, S. L.
Achieving the EMBaaSABLE: easy cloud storage, push notifications and social media integration in an introductory mobile computing class

Many of the most popular mobile apps include some combination of access to data from multiple devices, sharing of data among multiple users, push notifications, and social media integration. Consequently, students studying mobile computing naturally expect that they will be able to implement the same in their own projects. This paper explores Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS), a technology that makes what would otherwise be an exceptionally difficult task feasible, even in an introductory Mobile Computing class. It begins with an overview of where MBaaS falls in the spectrum of other services; details the motivation for its use; shows a typical MBaaS API in the app "Virtual Candle! "; provides an experience report; and then concludes with a comparison of MBaaS features among the most prominent vendors.
Are “Dichotic” Deficits Uniquely Dichotic? Investigating Dichotic Performance with the Dichotic Digits Difference Test (DDdT) in a Large Clinical Population of Children Referred for an Auditory Processing Assessment

Abstract Background: Previous studies in a large population of typically developing (TD) children and a small clinical group showed high correlations between the dichotic and diotic conditions of the Dichotic Digits difference Test (DDdT), as well as between DDdT performance and measures of memory and attention. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to investigate the performance on the DDdT in a large clinical sample. Research Design: Correlational analysis between the DDdT diotic condition and the dichotic free recall (FR) right-ear, left-ear, and total (ear-averaged) conditions, as well as between DDdT and memory performance. Study Sample: One hundred one children (6 years 3 months to 15 years 0 month, mean 9 years 6 months) were referred for assessment to the Australian Hearing Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD) service. Results were compared with data from 112 TD children collected from previously published studies. Data Collection and Analysis: Z-scores were used to account for the effect of age on performance. Mean differences between clinical and TD children were investigated using analysis of variance (ANOVA). Pearson product-moment correlations determined the strength of relationships between DDdT conditions and the number memory forward (NMF) and reversed (NMR) subtests of the Test of Auditory Processing Skills—Third Edition. Results: Performance by the clinical group on the DDdT dichotic FR (RE, LE, and total) conditions was significantly correlated with the diotic condition (r = 0.7; 0.7, 0.8; p < 0.001). Significant correlations were found between the DDdT diotic and dichotic FR conditions and the NMF (r = 0.5–0.6, p < 0.001) and NMR (r = 0.2–0.5, p < 0.025–0.001). ANOVA revealed no significant difference between the TD and clinical groups (p = 1.0000) in respect to the advantage they got from dichotic listening (calculated as dichotic FR total minus diotic score). Multiple regression revealed that diotic performance and short-term memory accounted for 68% of the variation in dichotic performance. Random measurement error accounted for a further 16%. Conclusions: Factors other than dichotic performance strongly impact a child’s ability to perform a dichotic digit listening task. This result has widespread implications in respect to the interpretation of CAPD test results.
Cultural context's influence on the relationships between leadership personality and subordinate perceptions

Fascination with leadership and the pursuit of its understanding have been common across disciplines throughout history (Bass & Stogdill, 1990). Studying leadership in an organization provides value in understanding its relation to outcomes such as employee attitudes (PodsakofF, MacKenzie, & Bommer, 1996), individual performance (Tierney, Farmer, & Graen, 1999) and organizational performance (Day & Lord, 1988; Sully de Luque, Washburn, Waldman, & House, 2008). Leadership is suggested to be the underlying human factor key to organizational effectiveness (Hogan & Kaiser, 2005). In spite of the vast body of literature, much remains to be understood, especially understanding context (McCall & Hollenbeck, 2002). Particularly, research is needed to understand leadership in cross-cultural contexts (Leung & Peterson, 2011). For years researchers have attempted to predict leadership success and more recently have become concerned with factors that predict leadership failure, which in some cases can be associated with higher costs (McCall & Lombardo, 1983). Personality characteristics, or specifically dark side personality traits, have been a primary focus of studying leadership derailment. Research in this topic has been primarily U.S. centric and research suggests that we do not fully understand the influence of cultural context (Bass, Burger, Dokotor, & Barrett, 1979; Griffeth, Horn, DeNisi & Kirchner, 1980). In order to bridge the research gap, the current study was an effort to shed light on non-linear relationships between dark side personality dimensions (Bold, Cautious, and Diligent) and performance, moderated by cultural context. The organizational data included individuals from a Fortune 50, multi-national, consumer packaged goods organization, representing all major geographic regions, various business functions and levels in the organization APPROVAL FOR SCHOLARLY DISSEMINATION The author grants to the Prescott Memorial Library of Louisiana Tech University the right to reproduce, by appropriate methods, upon request, any or all portions of this Dissertation. It was understood that “proper request” consists of the agreement, on the part of the requesting party, that said reproduction was for his personal use and that subsequent reproduction will not occur without written approval of the author of this Dissertation. Further, any portions of the Dissertation used in books, papers, and other works must be appropriately referenced to this Dissertation. Finally, the author of this Dissertation reserves the right to publish freely, in the literature, at any time, any o r ; on.
Active queue management techniques to improve Quality of Service for real-time flows in third generation wireless networks

In this thesis, we analyze the behavior of real-time flows with hard time deadline using link layer retransmission to overcome wireless errors, and propose two new mechanisms to improve these flows' end-to-end Quality-of-Service (QoS) over a wireless network. Wireless channels have the characteristic that link quality varies according to propagation conditions. For real-time flows with hard time deadlines, link layer retransmissions over a wireless network, necessitated by fluctuations in link quality, may result in a high number of packets being dropped, as deadlines expire. The expired packets waste network resources and lead to long queuing delays for subsequent packets. After analyzing the characteristics of the Radio Link Control (RLC) layer of the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)/Universal Mobile Telecommunication Services (UMTS) network, we have developed a new set of mechanisms to minimize expiration packet drops in favour of overflowlike packet drops. We propose to use active queue management to limit transmission queue length, hence queuing delay, thus eliminating expiration packet drops. This allows the buffer and wireless bandwidth, otherwise be wasted by expiring packets, to be released earlier for other packets. We apply this mechanism to the radio link control layer in the GPRS/ U M T S wireless networks. The effectiveness of the proposed mechanism is verified by simulations. Furthermore, we extend the similar idea from the radio link control layer to the whole GPRS/UMTS domain. We adapt the Early Regulation of Unresponsive Flows (ERUF) to the characteristics of wireless channels employing link layer retransmissions. We propose to regulate those congested flows at the DiffServ domain ingress edge nodes of the GPRS/
Hybrid Hierarchical Clustering Approach for Community Detection in Social Network

: Social Networks generally present a hierarchy of communities. To determine these communities and the relationship between them, detection algorithms should be applied. Most of the existing algorithms, proposed for hierarchical communities identification, are based on either agglomerative clustering or divisive clustering. In this paper, we present a hybrid hierarchical clustering approach for community detection based on both bottom-up and bottom-down clustering. Obviously, our approach provides more relevant community structure than hierarchical method which considers only divisive or agglomerative clustering to identify communities. Moreover, we performed some comparative experiments to enhance the quality of the clustering results and to show the effectiveness of our algorithm
Party Politics And Internal Democracy In Nigeria: People‟s Democratic Party (PDP) In Anambra State, 2006-2016

Examines party politics and internal democracy in Nigeria ,specifically the Anambra State Chapter of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Elite theory was used as the theoretical framework , also the study relied mainly on primary sources of data, descriptive survey design was adopted. The study was analyzed using Simple Percentage and Chi-Square. The study revealed that . there is a significant relationship between political ‘godfathers’ and internal party democracy in PDP in Anambra State; Also is the decision on the composition of party leadership among other manipulations against the interest of the majority of party members. The study concludes that Internal democracy is the foundation for real expansion of democracy in a developing society like Nigeria. It, therefore, calls for concern when members violate party constitution and display executive arrogance within the party, this act has not only torn many parties apart but also occasioned the decampment of many party stalwarts and crippled internal party democracy in Nigeria. Based on the findings, the following recommendations were made; hence the influence of godfathers in party politics in Anambra state is alarming, it is, therefore, necessary to adhere to party financial guidelines, re-defining of the legislative framework governing party registrations, functioning, and device measures to limit the role of godfathers and barons in party politics. There is also the need for reform of political financing, that is, the introduction of measures to strengthen parties to raise their own funds and also enhance their capacity to be more accountable and transparent in matters of party and campaign financing.
Measurement of Physics Problem-Solving Skills in Female and Male Students by PhysTeProSS

Problem-solving skills in physics (PSSP) are essential in 21st-century life, and it is no exception for senior high school students; therefore, assessment has to be done in the senior high school. The study aimed at (1) describing students’ PSSP and (2) comparing the PSSP between female and male students. A total of 466 students were selected, 290 female and 176 male, as research participants selected by stratified random sampling from low, moderate, and high scores of the national physics examination. To measure the students’ problem-solving skill levels, the PhysTeProSS test was administered. The data were polytomous in four categories and were analyzed by the partial credit model (PCM). The results showed that the students’ level of PSSP was dominantly at the moderate type (48.28%) and the high and very high level are at 27.43 %. In other words, female students showed a higher level of PSSP than male students.
Using Commodity Coprocessors for Host Intrusion Detection

Whilst the precise objectives and mechanisms used by malicious code will vary widely and may involve wholly unknown techniques to achieve their respective objectives, certain second-order operations such as privilege escalation or concealment of the code’s presence or activity are predictable. In particular, concealment mechanisms must modify well-known data structures, which could be detected trivially otherwise. We argue that any such mechanism is necessarily non-atomic and can hence be detected through concurrent observations forcing an interleaved linearization of the malicious code with observations of memory state changes induced in tightly coupled concurrent processing units. Extending previous research for the case of symmetric concurrent observation, we propose a computational model and observation mechanism for the case of tightly coupled asymmetric concurrent processing units as may be found in most current computing environments with particular emphasis on metrics for the cost of forced synchronizations and resource contention caused by observations. We argue that the resulting observations will provide a novel sensor datum for intrusion detection but may also be used as a standalone probabilistic detection mechanism particularly suited to detect attacks in progress.
Transfer learning with open web data

In recent years, transfer learning has been applied to a variety of real-world application domains, ranging from text classification, image classification, link prediction, activity recognition, to social network analysis. Transfer learning is particularly useful when we only have limited labeled data in a target domain, which requires that we consult one or more auxiliary or source domains to gain insight on how to solve the target problem. Thus, the key point for successful knowledge transfer is that one or more “right” source data should be given by the problem designer at the learning time. However, it is very difficult to identify a proper set of source data. An intuitive idea is whether we can directly seek the needed source data from the open Web. In this thesis, we try to study how to extend the existing transfer learning techniques to cope with the need for transfer learning from the massive and noisy Web data. The main contribution of this thesis is that we use two popular applications as prototypes and investigate their applicability and the difficulties in the Web-based transfer learning. We focus on tackling the following four research issues: (1) Transfer over information gap; (2) Transfer from heterogeneous data; (3) Transfer with partially labeled correspondence; (4) Selective transfer from massive and noisy sources. For each of the above mentioned issues, we first conduct extensive study on the difficulty of the problems, and then propose a series of effective solutions accordingly. Moreover, to cope with the need for manipulating the massive Web data as the source, we also investigate how to make our transfer learning models to be scalable with the assist of distributed computing techniques. We apply these methods to two diverse applications: text classification and link prediction, and achieve promising results. Experimental results show that our methods can successfully benefit from the truly useful information contained in the Web, while reducing the risks caused by massive and noisy property of the open Web to the minimum.
A Sentiment Calculation Method Based on Tibetan Semantic Relations

Sentiment analysis is shown significant and indispensable status in hot topic, public-opinion poll, knowledge acquiring and recommended goods fields, which is the fundamental work for natural language processing. This paper proposes an approach to build the Tibetan sentiment dictionary and to calculate the sentiment value base on the Tibetan semantic relations. We test our approach on experimental corpus crawled from Sina weibo and the experimental results demonstrate good performance on Tibetan language.
Third Year University Students’ Accounts for Choosing Chemistry

This study examined final year undergraduate chemistry students’ choice of study programme offered at a large research-intensive university in South Africa, applying Social Cognitive Career Theory as a theoretical framework. The sample consisted of 18 students of diverse ethnicity and gender from both the extended curriculum programme and the mainstream programme who had successfully entered their final year chemistry course. These students were interviewed, and the transcripts were subjected to qualitative inductive thematic analysis. The study revealed that chemistry was a second-choice option for most of the students. Retrospective criteria significantly influenced the choice for the majority of extended curriculum programme students, especially those who chose chemistry as a second option. For the majority of the mainstream students who chose chemistry as either first or second option, it was a mixture of retrospective and prospective criteria, with a bias towards the prospective criteria. For this study, the university’s requirement of a second major for the Bachelor of Science degree was an emerging reason for students choosing chemistry.