Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Information Seeking Behavior and Technology Adoption: Theories and Trends

With the increasingly complex and ubiquitous data available through modern technology, digital information is being utilized daily by academics and professionals of all disciplines and career paths. Information Seeking Behavior and Technology Adoption: Theories and Trends brings together the many theories and meta-theories that make information science relevant across different disciplines. Highlighting theories that had their base in the early days of text-based information and expanding to the digitization of the Internet, this book is an essential reference source for those involved in the education and training of the next-generation of information science professionals, as well as those who are currently working on the design and development of our current information products, systems, and services.
Parameter Estimation of Composite Continuous Wave Signals in the Presence of Non-Gaussian noise

Abstract: An algorithm for estimation of the amplitudes and phases of composite Continuous Wave (CW) signals is considered. The signals are contaminated with non-Gaussian noise. The considered noise model is the most commonly exist in communication applications. The developed algorithm for estimating the amplitudes and phases of composite CW signals is based on the Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm. The most feature of the developed algorithm is that it reduces the complicated multiparameters optimization required when using the ML approach. The complexity of the algorithm is essentially unaffected by increasing the number of composite signals. Simulation experiment is performed to illustrate the performance of the developed algorithm.
Investigate reordering in Linux TCP

When you’re using your mobile device, you can connect to several wireless networks at the same time, such as 3G (HSPA) / 4G (LTE) and WiFi. These links could be used at the same time to increase the download speed or make streaming of video more reliable. These links introduce differences in delay and TCP should fail if you simply try to aggregate them at the network layer because this will also introduce network reordering in relation to the difference in network delay. There are several existing solutions out there that tries to fix this, but if you simply use Linux and transparently send packets over two different network links which has a large difference in network delay, you will notice that the TCP connection can maintain a high throughput which corresponds to the sum of possible throughput for both links. A patch from August 2013 has made the situation even better, but how does it work? In this thesis, we have investigated how Linux TCP is robust against network reordering. We have also done extensive testing of Linux TCP’s performance where we have transparently sent packets from a TCP connection over two different network paths which differs in both latency and delay.
Magnetic dipolarizations inside geosynchronous orbit with tailward ion flows

Abstract. Electromagnetic field and plasma data from the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) near-Earth probes are used to investigate magnetic dipolarizations inside geosynchronous orbit on 27 August 2014 during an intense substorm with AEmax∼1000 nT. THEMIS-D (TH-D) was located inside geosynchronous orbit around midnight in the interval from 09:25 to 09:55 UT. During this period, two distinct magnetic dipolarizations with tailward ion flows are observed by TH-D. The first one is indicated by the magnetic elevation angle increase from 15 to 25∘ around 09:30:40 UT. The tailward perpendicular velocity is V⊥x∼-50 km s−1. The second one is presented by the elevation angle increase from 25 to 45∘ around 09:36 UT, and the tailward perpendicular velocity is V⊥x∼-70 km s−1. These two significant dipolarizations are accompanied with the sharp increase in the energy flux of energetic electron inside geosynchronous orbit. After a 5 min expansion of the near-Earth plasma sheet (NEPS), THEMIS-E (TH-E) located outside geosynchronous orbit also detected this tailward expanding plasma sheet with ion flows of −150 km s−1. The dipolarization propagates tailward with a speed of −47 km s−1 along a 2.2 RE distance in the X direction between TH-D and TH-E within 5 min. These dipolarizations with tailward ion flows observed inside geosynchronous orbit indicate a new energy transfer path in the inner magnetosphere during substorms.
Umwelt, KVP & DTD : Interactions entre Connaissances (K), Valeurs (V), Pratiques (P) & Délai de Transposition Didactique

Three concepts that structure my research in Didactics of Biology can also express convergence with the ATD. The umwelt: each living being constructs itself while constructing its world (its umwelt), in an eminently social context for human beings. KVP interactions between knowledge (K), values (V) and social practices (P): possible links with certain dimensions of the praxeological approach, but with more emphasis on values (V); Analysis of the different steps of didactic transposition; Comparison of the conceptions of teachers in thirty countries (notion of system of conceptions). The Didactic Transposition Delay (DTD) separates the emergence of new scientific knowledge from its insertion in programs, textbooks or in the teachers’ conceptions.
Best Effort Location for a Device in Reconfigurable Environment

Reconfigurable intelligent space (R+iSpace) is an intelligent environment proposed to solve the location restrictions of distributed intelligent networked devices (DINDs) installed on walls and ceilings. Such DINDs in R+iSpace are mounted on mobile modules (MoMo), and a MoMo can rearrange its own location. Through the R+iSpace structure, an application that uses such DINDs can accomplish service provision successfully and consistently by rearranging the DINDs to suitable locations. This paper proposes a method to determine suitable DIND locations according to a given environment. The proposed algorithm is verified through simulation experiments.
Endmember Extraction Using Minimum Volume and Information Constraint Nonnegative Matrix Factorization

Simplex volume is the most commonly used parameter for nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF)-based endmember estimation methods, and one of the most popular methods is the NMF method with minimum volume constraint (MVC-NMF). However, when outliers exist in the image, MVC-NMF tends to extract them as endmembers. In most cases, those outlier endmembers could be either physically meaningless or not representative enough for prevalent land covers. So how to extract prevalent land covers instead of outliers as endmembers is a very challenging question. In this letter, we propose a new NMF method with the dual constraints of simplex volume and information content, named the “minimum volume and information constraint NMF” (MIVC-NMF). The method is based on the following facts: when a real endmember is replaced by an outlier, it will cause some pixels containing the replaced endmember not to locate within the endmember hyperplane, and the overall information content contained in the endmember hyperplane will be reduced. The experimental results based on the simulated and real data show that the proposed method outperforms several other commonly used endmember extraction approaches.
On the existence of shock propagation in a flow through deformable porous media

We consider a one-dimensional incompressible flow through a porous medium undergoing deformations such that the porosity and the hydraulic conductivity can be considered to be functions of the flux intensity. The medium is initially dry and we neglect capillarity, so that a sharp wetting front proceeds into the medium. We consider the open problem of the continuation of the solution in the case of onset of singularities, which can be interpreted as a local collapse of the medium, in the general case of convex boundary pressure. We study the behaviour of the solution after the development of a singularity and we study the existence of the solution after the time at which the shock line reaches the surface. Sommario Consideriamo il flusso unidimensionale di un fluido incomprimibile in un mezzo poroso deformabile, in cui la porosita e la conduttivita idraulica dipendono dall’intensita del flusso. Trascurando fenomeni di capillarita, una frontiera regolare penetra nella zona asciutta (inizialmente occupante l’intero mezzo) dividendola dalla zona bagnata. Assumendo che la pressione sul bordo sia una funzione convessa, studiamo il problema della continuazione della soluzione nel caso di eventuali singolarita interpretabili fisicamente come “collassi” locali del mezzo. In particolare si danno condizioni sufficienti per garantire l’esistenza di una soluzione continua fino ad un tempo assegnato e si studia il comportamento della soluzione nel caso in cui appaiano singolarita, dimostrando un teorema di esistenza locale e unicita della soluzione. Work partially supported by the Italian MURST National Project “Problemi non lineari. ” Dipartimento di Matematica “U. Dini”, Universita di Firenze, Viale Morgagni 67/A, 50134 Firenze (Italy) Dipartimento di Scienze Matematiche, Universita di Trieste, Piazzale Europa 1, 34127 Trieste (Italy)
Detection of conical thread with digital image processing technology

A contactless detection system for the conical thread with the digital imaging processing technology was presented. The system used image manipulation method to measure geometrical parameters, including binary image production, edge detection, contour hunting and the thread geometrical parameter calculation. Sizes of a conical thread detected by suggected method were given, and the feasibility and correctness of the method were validated theoretically and practically.
Novel Modular Fractional Slot Permanent Magnet Machines With Redundant Teeth

In order to ease the manufacture process of very large permanent magnet (PM) machines, such as direct drive wind power generators, modularity technique is usually adopted. Although conventional fractional slot PM machines with all teeth wound windings show good performance, the coils located at the end part of each segment could be easily damaged because of being exposed to the air. In addition, the local winding faults could easily proliferate to the whole machine due to the physical touch of adjacent coils. Thus, a novel modular fractional slot PM machine with redundant teeth is proposed in this paper, while three phases within each set of winding are still balanced. The construction of the proposed modular PM machine having 42-slots/32-poles (42S/32P) combination is described in detail as an example, which can be treated as the integration of six 6S/5P segments and a redundant 6S/2P machine. The reason for using 6S/2P machine is to get rid of the undesirable unbalanced magnetic force (UMF), which usually exists in rotating asymmetric machines, such as 3S/2P PM machine. Since the end part of each segment in the proposed modular PM machine can be covered by half redundant tooth during the production, more protection can be provided for coils located in these regions. Furthermore, the separation of six segments can improve the fault-tolerant capability of the machine. The electromagnetic performance predicted by finite-element analysis (FEA) also demonstrates that the proposed modular machine will perform better if dual three-phase winding is adopted. Finally, the experiments on the prototyped machine validate the analysis in the paper.
Marketing communication mix

The purpose of this report is to present theoretical concepts and developments in the concept of " marketing communication mix". This article explains what is the marketing communication mix, describing its nature, importance, types of instruments and efficiency. Designing the right marketing mix involves the four P’s i.e. Product, Price, Place and Promotion. In the field of marketing communications, must be coordinate efforts towards the last P of the marketing mix – Promotion. And need to develop strong sales and advertising messages that will connect with your customers instantly and effectively highlight product’s quality and brand`s differentiation from others. Successful marketing communication relies on a combination of tools called the “promotional mix”. These tools include: Advertising, Public relations, Sales promotion, Direct marketing, Personal selling, and are used to describe the set of tools that a business can use to communicate effectively the benefits of your products or services to its customers.
Glyph Representation of Texture Properties

A novel approach to visually represent perceptual features of textures is proposed and analysed. This approach combines statistical properties of the texture together with qualitative measures coming from human perception. Quantitative measures, coming from co-occurrence analysis, have been in turn visually represented using an effective iconic representation, producing an immediate and easy tool to discriminate a texture from a larger set. Such a representation is very effective to formulate approximate queries to a database of textures for similarity based retrieval
Determination of Mass Attenuation Coefficients of Different Types of Concretes using Monte Carlo Method

Zirhlanma ve radyasyondan korunma medikal ve tarim sektorunden tuketim urunlerine kadar oldukca fazla sayida alan icin oldukca onemli bir konu basligidir. Bu calismada nukleer teknoloji, radyasyondan korunma ve medikal tip alaninda potansiyel kullanima sahip betonlarin kutle azaltma katsayilarini, µ/ρ, farkli foton enerjilerinde MCNPX (versiyon 2.6.0) Monte Carlo kodu kullanilarak hesaplanmaktadir. Foton enerjisini degistirerek betonlarin kutle azaltma katsayilari icin kayda deger farkliliklar kaydedilmistir. MCNPX sonuclari mevcut deneysel arastirmalar ve teorik XCOM sonuclari ile karsilastirilmis ve iyi bir uyum gozlenmistir. Bu calisma, MCNPX simulasyon yonteminin, gama etkilesiminin arastirilmasinda alternatif bir yontem olarak kullanilacak uygun bir yontem oldugunu gostermektedir ve radyasyon dozimetresi ve nukleer teknoloji alaninda oldukca faydali materyaller icermektedir.
Characterisation of the Dicke-Switch Chopper System and AGPM Coronagraph for the NEAR Experiment at the ESO-VLT

As part of the New Earths in the Alpha Cen Region (NEAR) experiment, VISIR, an imager and spectrometer for the mid-infrared at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory, will be soon upgraded to improve its performance in terms of high contrast and sensitivity for the detection of Earth-like planets in the Alpha Centauri star system, the closest to the Sun. Part of the VISIR upgrade consists in a novel chopper system based on the Dicke-switch concept to suppress the excess low frequency noise (ELFN) suffered by the detector array. The ELFN is a form of temporally correlated noise and can be mitigated by modulating the incident light at high enough frequency. The other main challenge of the NEAR experiment is the need of high contrast to image the circumstellar environment, and it will be achieved with the implementation of an annular groove phase mask (AGPM) coronagraph for the suppression of the starlight. The main goals of the thesis project were the validation of the Dicke-switch chopper systems to assess its ability to mitigate background level and ELFN, and the characterisation of the performance of the AGPM coronagraph in terms of null depth and contrast level. The first part of the laboratory characterisation of the Dicke-switch chopper system focused on the verification of the radiometric flux level achievable by its internal blackbody unit and by the so called artificial sky, a cold blackbody needed to reproduce the background level typical at the VLT, where the combined sky and telescope thermal radiation is the same as the one of a greybody at 280K and 10% emissivity. After the completion of the radiometric tests and mitigation of parasitic light effects caused by reflection of internal and external thermal radiation, the tests to validate the ability of the Dicke-switch chopper system to remove background level and suppress the ELFN started. The obtained results confirm that the Dicke-switch chopper system mitigate the ELFN as done also with pseudo-chopping. This was verified also for large offsets between the flux level of internal blackbody unit and artificial sky. Similarly, the characterisation of the AGPM coronagraph started with the preparation of the laboratory setup, in particular design of the optical setup, alignment of all the optical components and measurement of the optical quality of the system to limit residual aberrations and vignetting. The results of the coronagraphic tests revealed that the two candidate AGPMs for the NEAR campaign, both optimised for wavelengths between 10 and 12.5 μm, are not able to provide the required contrast level and null depth. On the contrary, an older AGPM, spare part of the one currently mounted in VISIR, and thus optimised for wavelengths between 11 and 13.1 μm, provided better coronagraphic performance, and even though it is still not compliant with the requirements, at present it represents the baseline for the NEAR experiment.
Uml Distilled A Brief Guide To The Standard Object Modeling Language

Software engineering is concerned with the development and evolution of high-quality software systems in a systematic, controlled, and efficient manner. Software engineers are concerned with safety and reliability of the product as well as the cost and schedule of the development process. The lectures and the group projects will cover all aspects of the software life cycle, from development team management, problem specification and analysis, system design techniques, implementation and documentation practices, testing, to maintenance and evaluation of the final product.
Competition between chaotic advection and diffusion: stirring and mixing in a 3-D eddy model

Abstract. The importance of chaotic advection relative to turbulent diffusion is investigated in an idealized model of a 3-D swirling and overturning ocean eddy. Various measures of stirring and mixing are examined in order to determine when and where chaotic advection is relevant. Turbulent diffusion is alternatively represented by (1) an explicit, observation-based, scale-dependent diffusivity, (2) stochastic noise, added to a deterministic velocity field, or (3) explicit and implicit diffusion in a spectral numerical model of the Navier–Stokes equations. Lagrangian chaos in our model occurs only within distinct regions of the eddy, including a large chaotic “sea” that fills much of the volume near the perimeter and central axis of the eddy and much smaller “resonant” bands. The size and distribution of these regions depend on factors such as the degree of axial asymmetry of the eddy and the Ekman number. The relative importance of chaotic advection and turbulent diffusion within the chaotic regions is quantified using three measures: the Lagrangian Batchelor scale, the rate of dispersal of closely spaced fluid parcels, and the Nakamura effective diffusivity. The role of chaotic advection in the stirring of a passive tracer is generally found to be most important within the larger chaotic seas, at intermediate times, with small diffusivities, and for eddies with strong asymmetry. In contrast, in thin chaotic regions, turbulent diffusion at oceanographically relevant rates is at least as important as chaotic advection. Future work should address anisotropic and spatially varying representations of turbulent diffusion for more realistic models.
Audiovisual Archives: Digital Text and Discourse Analysis

Today, audiovisual archives and libraries have become very popular especially in the field of collecting, preserving and transmitting cultural heritage. However, the data in these archives or libraries videos, images, soundtracks, etc. constitute as such only potential cognitive resources for a given public (or “target community”). One of the most crucial issues of digital audiovisual libraries is indeed to enable users to actively appropriate audiovisual resources for their own concern (in research, education or any other professional or non-professional context). This means, an adaptation of the audiovisual data to the specific needs of a user or user group can be represented by small and closed "communities" as well as by networks of open communities around the globe. "Active appropriation" is, basically speaking, the use of existing digital audiovisual resources by users or user communities according to their expectations, needs, interests or desires. This process presupposes: 1) the definition and development of models or "scenarios" of cognitive processing of videos by the user; 2) the availability of tools necessary for defining, developing, reusing and sharing meta-linguistic resources such as thesauruses, ontologies or description models by users or user communities. Both aspects are central to the so-called semiotic turn in dealing with digital (audiovisual) texts, corpora of texts or again entire (audiovisual) archives and libraries. They demonstrate practically and theoretically the well-known “from data to metadata” or “from (simple) information to (relevant) knowledge” problem, which obviously directly influences the effective use, social impact and relevancy, and therefore also the future, of digital knowledge archives. This book offers a systematic, comprehensive approach to these questions from a theoretical as well as practical point of view.
3D Probe for Magnetic Imaging and Non-destructive Testing

The thesis is dedicated to the development of probes based on magnetoresistive sensors capable of detecting the three components of the field simultaneously for eddy current non-destructive testing and for magnetic imaging. A first part provides an overview of the state of the art of sensors, and imaging and control methods. In a second part, the realization of the three-axis probes is given. This included the micro-fabrication, the realization of the reading electronics, the design and realization of the mechanical part and emission. For this, an important simulation work was necessary. The application of these probes to model cases for magnetic imaging with submillimeter resolution is then described. The probe proposed in this thesis has also been used successfully to detect defects in aluminum and titanium samples with a good signal-to-noise ratio.
Assessing Systematic Topic Difficulty Based on Query and Collection Features.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) initiated the Text Retrieval Conference (TREC) in 1990 to evaluate the performance of different retrieval systems and promote the development of text retrieval technology. Intensive experimental studies have been conducted to compare the performance of different systems ever since. A number of influential retrieval systems were able to be forged and enhanced in the conference. The effectiveness of different retrieval systems was compared based on several systematic evaluation measures (e.g. precision, recall or average precision) that were derived from classic Cranfield tests (Cleverdon, Mills & Keen, 1966).
Experimental Evaluation of a New Shortest Path Algorithm (Extended Abstract)

We evaluate the practical efficiency of a new shortest path algorithm for undirected graphs which was developed by the first two authors. This algorithm works on the fundamental comparison-addition model. Theoretically, this new algorithm out-performs Dijkstra's algorithm on sparse graphs for the all-pairs shortest path problem, and more generally, for the problem of computing single-source shortest paths from ω(1) different sources. Our extensive experimentalanalysis demonstrates that this is also the case in practice. We present results which show the new algorithm to run faster than Dijkstra's on a variety of sparse graphs when the number of vertices ranges from a few thousand to a few million, and when computing single-source shortest paths from as few as three different sources.