Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dynamic Learning and Market Making in Spread Betting Markets with Informed Bettors

The spread betting market is a prevalent form of prediction market. In the spread betting market, participants bet on the outcome of a certain future event. The market maker quotes cutoff lines as "prices," and bettors take sides on whether the event outcome exceeds the quoted spread lines. We study how the market maker should move the spread lines to maximize profit. In our model, anonymous bettors with heterogeneous strategic behavior and information levels participate in the market. The market maker has limited information on the event outcome distribution. She aims to extract information from the market's responses to her spread lines (i.e., "learning") while guarding against an informed bettor's strategic manipulation (i.e., "bluff-proofing"). In terms of effective policies to adjust the market maker's spread lines, we show that Bayesian policies (BPs) that ignore bluffing are typically vulnerable to the informed bettor's strategic manipulation. To be more precise, the regret for the market maker is linear in the number of bets, and we identify certain strategies of the informed bettor that are profitable. We also show that the poor performance of BPs in our setting is not due to incomplete learning: when the informed bettor is absent in our setting, many simple policies eventually learn the event outcome distribution and achieve a bounded regret. Full Paper: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3283392
We Need to Talk About Microservices: an Analysis from the Discussions on StackOverflow

Microservices are a new and rapidly growing architectural model aimed at developing highly scalable software solutions based on independently deployable and evolvable components. Due to its novelty, microservice-related discussions are increasing in Q&A websites, such as StackOverflow (SO). In order to understand what is being discussed by the microservice community, this work has applied mining techniques and topic modelling to a manually-curated dataset of 1,043 microservice-related posts from StackOverflow. As a result, we found that 13.68% of microservice technical posts on SO discuss a single technology: Netflix Eureka. Moreover, buzzwords in the microservice ecosystem, e.g., blue/green deployment, were not identified as relevant subjects of discussion on SO. Finally, we show how a high discussion rate on SO may not reflect the popularity of a certain subject within the microservice community.
Man vs machine: a study into language identification of stack overflow code snippets

Software engineers produce large amounts of publicly accessible data that enables researchers to mine knowledge, fostering a better understanding of the field. Knowledge extraction often relies on meta data. This meta data can either be harvested from user-provided tags, or inferred by algorithms from the respective data. The question arises to which extent either type of meta data can be trusted and relied upon. We study this problem in the context of language identification of code snippets posted on Stack Overflow. We analyse the consistency between user-provided tags and the classification obtained with GitHub linguist, an industry-strength automated language recognition tool. We find that the results obtained by both approaches are often not consistent. This indicates that both have to be used with great care. Our results also suggest that developers may not follow the evolutionary path of programming languages beyond one step when seeking or providing answers to software engineering challenges encountered.
IP Multicasting: The Complete Guide to Interactive Corporate Networks

Networks and Protocols. The Basics of Multicasting. Multicast Routing Concepts. Multicast Routing Protocols. Transport Protocols. Integrated Network Services and Quality of Service. Session Management and Security. Application Software. The MBone and Other Multicast Networks. Implementation Strategies and Issues. Future Directions. Glossary. Appendix. Index.
Implementación de un Sistema de Recuperación de Información

The work that is presented in this article develops in the area of the Information Recovery Systems (IRS), whose main objective is to implement a System of storage and recovery of information, also it considers to use as software development tools free and technologies of information like web technologies and the XML metalanguage. At the same time to take as reference the Vector Model [1, 13] that is one of the most utilized models in these area. The purpose of the research is to build a competitive and efficient tool that can be utilized to store and to recover information in the different disciplines of the human task. Fundamentally, the following activities have been carried out: 1) The development and the implementation of each one of the modules of the systems; 2) Preparation of the data of test; and 3) Evaluation of the system and the proposal of future tasks.
Multiobjective evolutionary algorithms: classifications, analyses, and new innovations

Abstract : This research organizes, presents, and analyzes contemporary Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithm (MOEA) research and associated Multiobjective Optimization Problems (MOPs). Using a consistent MOEA terminology and notation, each cited MOEAs' key factors are presented in tabular form for ease of MOEA identification and selection. A detailed quantitative and qualitative MOEA analysis is presented, providing a basis for conclusions about various MOEA-related issues. The traditional notion of building blocks is extended to the MOP domain in an effort to develop more effective and efficient MOEAs. Additionally, the MOEA community's limited test suites contain various functions whose origins and rationale for use are often unknown. Thus, using general test suite guidelines appropriate MOEA test function suites are substantiated and generated. An experimental methodology incorporating a solution database and appropriate metrics is offered as a proposed evaluation framework allowing absolute comparisons of specific MOEA approaches. Taken together, this document's classifications, analyses, and new innovations present a complete, contemporary view of current MOEA "state of the art" and possible future research. Researchers with basic EA knowledge may also use part of it as a largely self-contained introduction to MOEAs.
Interrogative and negative constructions in sign languages

THE FIRST VOLUME IN THE SIGN LANGUAGE TYPOLOGY SERIES includes data on interrogative and negative constructions from 35 sign languages around the world. In a truly pioneering undertaking, the editor and the contributors from eight different countries open up to the reader the universe of typological diversity across sign languages. In-depth studies of questions and negation in six sign languages constitute the central part of the book, augmented by shorter contributions from another four sign languages, as well as an introductory theoretical section. The accompanying CD includes several hundred video clips in easily accessible MPG format. A subject index and original research materials are also included in the book More
Functional properties of throughput in tandem lines with unreliable servers and finite buffers

: We explore functional properties of throughput in tandem production lines with unreliable servers, finite buffers, and arbitrazy failure and repair times. We provide a mathematical framework that makes use of a function space construction to model the dependence ofthroughput on buffer capacities and maximum flow rates of machines. Using this framework we prove various structural properties of throughput and mention how these properties can be used to guarantee almost-sure convergence of sample-path optimization, a simulation-based optimization method, when applied to the optimal buffer allocation problem. Our exposition demonstrates the utility of using multifunctions in the modeling, analysis, and optimization of discrete event dynamic systems. Among the properties established, monotonicity in buffer capacities and in machine flow rates aze especially important. Although monotonicity results of this nature have appeared in the literature for diacr~ete tandem lines, as far as we are awaze the kind of analysis we present here has not yet been done for continuous tandem lines. concave
Design Hints for didactic Simulators

The authors have observed that interactive simulators can be very efficient tools for clarifying the underlying principles of computer architecture and network routing provided that the effort students have to make to use the simulator is small compared to the learning benefits expected from the it. A series of simulators have been designed specifically for didactic purposes. Learning how to use them should not require more than 15 minutes. The functionality and operating principles of a set of simulators for routing algorithms in wireless sensor networks are described, with emphasis on how, through repeated interactions with the student-users, the design goals could be mostly fulfilled.
Literature Survey on Topic Focused Multi-Document Summarization

-Multi-document summarization is the way of generating summaries that are highly related to human generated summaries from multiple documents that are retaining the most important characteristics of the original document. It’s a process of summarizing a text by computer where a text is given to the computer as input and the output is a shorter and less redundant. There are two approaches in multi document summarization: abstractive based summarization and extractive based summarization. In this paper, we compare various techniques done for multi-document summarization. So that in future one can gets significant instruction for further analysis.
Image registration using the Morphon algorithm: an ITK implementation

Medical image registration is becoming a more and more useful component of a large number of applications. The presented method aims to enrich the ITK library. This method, called Morphon registration algorithm, computes a dense deformation field accepting inputs from different intensity contrasts. This article presents its implementation within the Insight Toolkit. In this paper, we provide a brief description of the algorithm, a presentation of the implementation, the justification of our modified classes and the results given by the algorithm. We demonstrate the algorithm in application of different images intesity constrasts and dimensions.
Measurement of ecological capital of Chinese terrestrial ecosystem based on remote sensing

The biosphere of the Earth is essential to human survival and development. The services of ecosystems are critical to the functioning of the Earth’s life-support system. They contribute to human welfare both directly and indirectly. Ecological capital refers to the sum of the direct biological resources value and the indirect ecosystem services value. It is necessary to estimate the ecological capital in order to bring it to the society and market economic system, and draw the social attention to ecological environment constructions. An estimation model for ecological capital based on remote sensing is presented in this paper. The parameters in the model are quantitatively measured using NOAA/AVHRR and other ancillary data, including the land cover types, the vegetation coverage, and the vegetation net primary productivity (NPP) of terrestrial ecosystem. Based on the economic parameters in previously published studies and a few original calculations, the annual ecological capital of the entire terrestrial ecosystem of China is quantitatively estimated at 6.44 trillion (1012) yuan (RMB), and the spatial distribution of the ecological capital is also analyzed. Traditional ecological methods to ecological capital measurement are based on homogeneous plot scales, and the regional scaling is a key problem in their applications. As the proposed remote sensing approach, it provides a new method to ecological capital measurement completely based on observation data. It can not only overcome the regional scaling problem easily, but also allows the ecological capital to be estimated objectively and spatial-explicitly.
Experimental study of dynamic look-ahead scheme for vehicle steering control

A popular automatic steering control approach for passenger cars is to decouple the yaw motion from lateral motion by using yaw rate feedback. It has been shown that by re-defining the control position at a frequency-dependent distance ahead of the vehicle, the yaw dynamics can also be decoupled. In this paper, open-loop experimental tests are conducted at different vehicle speeds to verify the effectiveness of this dynamic look-ahead scheme. A fully equipped Buick LeSabre sedan is utilized as a test platform in this experimental study. Both the vehicle yaw rate and lateral acceleration frequency response data are obtained in the experimental tests by applying frequency sweeping techniques at different vehicle longitudinal velocities. It is shown that a decoupled input-output vehicle dynamics can be obtained by applying the dynamic look-ahead scheme to the open-loop frequency response data.
Security policy realization in an extensible operating system

We describe the practical application of security to extensible operating systems, focusing on the SPIN extensible OS. Because SPIN and other extensible operating systems support the loading of user-developed extensions directly into the kernel, they require the application of traditional user-level security in addition to kernel-level security, to prevent kernel extensions from subverting kernel functionality. In order to show that such an approach to extensible OS security is possible and practical, we augmented the existing security architecture of SPIN, maintaining the separation between policy mediation and enforcement. Several well-known user-level policies, described here, are supported in the architecture. In addition, we have introduced kernel-level security through the separation of kernel code into segments and the enforcement of a domain/type policy on threads as they progress through system code. Finally, we have devised a useful domain/type policy extensibility strategy that is conservative, but preserves the existing policy.
Rigid image registration via column sparse optimisation for seal registration

Image registration is an essential and important process in seal identification. Rigid image registration in seal identification is known to be more suitable than elastic registration. The registration process is quite sensitive to outliers in matched feature point pairs. A novel method to take the matching outliers as data corrupted by `sample-specific' error which can be modelled by a column sparse matrix is proposed. An optimisation problem is developed to describe this model. By solving the optimisation problem, corruption can be eliminated and the transformation model can be recovered simultaneously. An efficient algorithm called column sparse registration is given via the augmented Lagrange multiplier method. Experiments on real-world seal registration data demonstrate that the proposed method is robust to outliers among matched pairs and outperforms the state-of-the-art methods.
Nanotechnology and the Emergence of a General Purpose Technology

This article examines how closely nanotechnology resembles a general purpose technology (GPT). Using patented nanotechnology inventions during 1975-2006, we test for characteristics of GPTs identified in the prior literature, and find evidence that nanotechnology shows both “pervasive” adoption and “spawning” of follow-on innovation. Offering a methodological contribution, we employ concentration indexes such as the Gini index and Lorenz curve to construct “knowledge dissemination curves” for different technologies, thereby providing evidence that nanotechnology shares relevant characteristics with other GPTs. Using an entirely new dataset, we use three different definitions of a “nanotechnology patent” and calculate patent generality indexes, finding that nanotechnology patents are significantly more likely to be referenced across technology space than are patents in information technology, another widely-adopted GPT. In another contribution, we suggest that innovative materials may demonstrate the characteristics of a GPT, and provide a historical parallel between the advancement of steel technology in the 19th Century with that of nanotechnology in the present day.
Software Estimation Best Practices, Tools, & Techniques: A Complete Guide for Software Project Estimators

Software Estimation Best Practices, Tools & Techniques covers all facets of software estimation. It provides a detailed explanation of the various methods for estimating software size, development effort, cost, and schedule, including a comprehensive explanation of test effort estimation. This unique desk reference, for the novice to expert, also offers direction on which methods are most appropriate for each of the different software project types commonly executed and criteria for selecting software estimation tools. Key Features -- Presents software estimation best practices and shows how to avoid common pitfalls -- Demonstrates a practical methodology with templates for using Delphi estimation and analogy-based estimation for software projects -- Introduces a new method referred to as software size units for measuring software size that does not make use of the untenable concept of complexity for adjusting software size -- Provides useful methods for converting software size to effort, deriving true productivity, and analyzing variances between actual and estimated values as a tool for productivity improvement -- WAV offers a free downloadable test effort estimation tool (TPPal), a software size unit estimation tool (SSUPal), and a 180-day demo for a comprehensive estimation tool known as EstimatorPal available from the Web Added Value Download Resource Center at jrosspub.com
Automatic classification of RADARSAT SAR images of the Northern Sea Route

Two automatic sea ice classification algorithms based on linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and feedforward backpropagation multilayer perceptron (MLP) were compared for classification of RADARSAT ScanSAR images of the Western part of the Northern Sea Route. Texture and local statistical parameters in addition to radar image brightness are used as input features to the algorithms. Simultaneous in-situ observations were carried out during an expedition to the Barents and Kara seas afforded to assess the performance of the algorithms.
Panel discussion: Autonomy in engineering systems: What is it and why is it important? Setting the stage: Some autonomous thoughts on autonomy

Engineering systems typically exhibit some degree of autonomy. But what exactly do we mean by autonomy? What is the significance and role of autonomy in man-made systems? Is autonomy important? How do we quantify autonomy and say that this system has greater autonomy that the other one? Why is it important to understand and strive for autonomy? These are some of the issues that will be addressed by the panelists.
Fast Functional Lists, Hash-Lists, Deques, and Variable Length Arrays

Since its inception Functional Programming, J. McCarthy, has almost universally used the Linked List as the underpinning data structure. This paper introduces a new data structure, the VList, that is compact, thread safe and significantly faster to use than Linked Lists for nearly all list operations. Space usage can be reduced by 50% to 90% and in typical list operations speed improved by factors ranging from 4 to 20 or more. Some important operations such as indexing and length are typically changed from O(N) to O(1) and O(lgN) respectively. A language interpreter Visp, using a dialect of Common Lisp, has been implemented using VLists and the benchmark comparison with OCAML reported. It is also shown how to adapt the structure to create variable length arrays, persistent deques and functional hash tables. The VArray requires no resize copying and has an average O(1) random access time. Comparisons are made with previous resizable one dimensional arrays, Hash Array Trees (HAT) Sitarski [1996], and Brodnik, Carlsson, Demaine, Munro, and Sedgewick [1999].
Proposing a Novel Method based on Network- Coding for Optimizing Error Recovery in Wireless Sensor Networks

In Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), signals are used as channels for communicating data. Wireless channels are inherently insecure; hence, the vulnerability of signals to external destructive factors and to the interference of intruders can result in the production of errors in data to be transferred. On the other hand, in as much as wireless sensors have limited energy, optimal consumption of energy for enhancing network lifetime is of high significance. In this paper, a protocol based on block-level retransmission and network-coding has been proposed which is intended to optimize error recovery in sensor networks. This protocol takes the parameters of reliability and energy consumption into account. In this protocol, data frames are divided into blocks and in the case of error occurrence, the total frame need not to be transferred since only the error containing block is retransferred using the network coding technique. This procedure minimizes the number of transfer and reception in the nodes. Consequently, energy consumption is reduced. The simulation results revealed that utilizing the networking coding technique in the proposed method results in reliability enhancement. Thus, the simulation results indicate that the proposed method leads to higher reliability and lower energy consumption than the LIERMO method.
Short message service and paging cluster size impact on the DCCH capacity (TIA/EIA/IS-136)

This paper evaluates the signaling capacity of the digital control channel (DCCH) on both downlink and up-link on the basis of the short message service (SMS), the number of mobile stations (MS) in a paging cluster and the SMS transaction rate per MS. Performance figures such as voice call setup message failure rate, SMS failure rate, and MS registration failure rate are assessed as a function of different loading factors. Simulations show that the down-link SMS traffic has no impact on voice call setup procedures if a higher priority is assigned to voice call setup messages. However, the up-link SMS traffic can impact voice call set up capability if the up-link SMS transaction rate is high. Simulations show that for the same SMS failure rate, the up-link DCCH can handle more SMS transactions per MS than the down-link DCCH. The impact of the number of MSs within a paging cluster on the SMS failure rate can also be significant. This paper investigates the relationship between the number of MSs in the paging cluster, the SMS transaction rate per MS, and the down-link SMS blocking rate.
A Usability Evaluation of a Blended MOOC Environment: An Experimental Case Study.

In the past few years, there has been an increasing interest in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a new form of Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL), in higher education and beyond. Recognizing the limitations of standalone MOOCs, blended MOOCs (bMOOCs) that aim at bringing in-class (i.e. face-to-face) interactions and online learning components together have emerged as an alternative MOOC model of teaching and learning in a higher education context. In this paper, we present the design, implementation, and evaluation details of a bMOOC course on “Teaching Methodologies” at Fayoum University, Egypt in cooperation with RWTH Aachen University, Germany, provided using the bMOOC platform L2P-bMOOC. In order to gauge the usability and effectiveness of the course, we employed an evaluation approach based on Conole’s 12 dimensions rubrics, ISONORM 9241/110-S as a general usability evaluation, and a custom effectiveness questionnaire reflecting the different MOOC stakeholder perspectives.