Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploring Cherishing: A Qualitative Approach

The word cherishing is frequently used in our daily jargons. It is also very often mentioned in empirical literature on cherished possessions. However, despite the relevance of the term in the empirical literature on cherished possessions, very little is known about the way it operates in people’s lives. The only link with cherishing happens to be the studies conducted in individualistic cultures on cherished possessions. Besides, there is hardly any consensus on how cherishing operates in collectivistic culture such as India owing to the scarce literature available on the topic. Hence, the present study addresses the gap in the literature with the objective to explore the concept of cherishing. The present study examines cherishing through qualitative investigation by using semi-structured interviews in India. Forty-eight participants were interviewed for the study. Analysis of the data based on grounded theory techniques revealed three major themes: (i) the attributes of cherishing, (ii) functions of cherishing and (iii) the objects of cherishing. The attributes of cherishing convey a sense of protectiveness, a tendency to care, affective orientation and reminiscence. The functions reveal the benefits experienced from cherishing. The objects of cherishing convey the targets towards which one experiences cherishing. Recommendations for further study, along with theoretical and practical implications of the study findings, are also discussed.
Integrating affinity propagation clustering method with linear discriminant analysis for face recognition

The Fisherface method suffers from the problem of using all training face images to recognize a test face image. To tackle this problem, we propose combining a novel clustering method, affinity propagation (AP), recently reported in the journal Science, with linear discriminant analysis (LDA) to form a new method, AP-LDA, for face recognition. By using AP, a representative face image for each subject can be obtained. Our AP-LDA method uses only these representative face images rather than all training images for recognition. Thus, it is more computationally efficient than Fisherface. Experimental results on several benchmark face databases also show that AP-LDA outperforms Fisherface in terms of recognition rate.
DisC diversity: result diversification based on dissimilarity and coverage

Recently, result diversification has attracted a lot of attention as a means to improve the quality of results retrieved by user queries. In this paper, we propose a new, intuitive definition of diversity called DisC diversity. A DisC diverse subset of a query result contains objects such that each object in the result is represented by a similar object in the diverse subset and the objects in the diverse subset are dissimilar to each other. We show that locating a minimum DisC diverse subset is an NP-hard problem and provide heuristics for its approximation. We also propose adapting DisC diverse subsets to a different degree of diversification. We call this operation zooming. We present efficient implementations of our algorithms based on the M-tree, a spatial index structure, and experimentally evaluate their performance.
DOA error estimation using 2.6 GHz DBF array antenna

The DOA (Direction Of Arrival angle) estimation errors due to hardware problems are investigated experimentally using a four-channel DBF array antenna system operating at the 2.6 GHz IMS band. The DOA estimation by the MUSIC (MUltiple SIgnal Classification) algorithm is examined inside a radio anechoic chamber to clarify the estimation error mechanism. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the DOA correctly for all arrival directions. To examine the error in detail, the estimation error has been measured in the case of one transmission source, and the error is /spl plusmn/12 degrees without any corrections. We investigated these error factors and found two major factors: the inaccurate interval of array elements and the mutual coupling between the elements. By compensating these errors using the mode vector measured correctly, the error was reduced to /spl plusmn/3 degrees. In addition, when the mode vector, measured at intervals of up to 20 degrees, is interpolated by the spline interpolation method, the estimation error is restrained within /spl plusmn/5 degrees.
Adaptive eager boolean encoding for arithmetic reasoning in verification

Decision procedures for first-order logics are widely applicable in design verification and static program analysis. However, existing procedures rarely scale to large systems, especially for verifying properties that depend on data or timing, in addition to control. This thesis presents a new approach for building efficient, automated decision procedures for first-order logics involving arithmetic. In this approach, decision problems involving arithmetic are transformed to problems in the Boolean domain, such as Boolean satisfiability solving, thereby leveraging recent advances in that area. The transformation automatically detects and exploits problem structure based on new theoretical results and machine learning. The results of experimental evaluations show that our decision procedures can outperform other state-of-the-art procedures by several orders of magnitude. The decision procedures form the computational engines for two verification systems, UCLID and TMV These systems have been applied to problems in computer security, electronic design automation, and software engineering that require efficient and precise analysis of system functionality and timing. This thesis describes two such applications: finding format-string exploits in software, and verifying circuits that operate under timing assumptions.
Polaris: The Next Generation in Parallelizing Compilers

It is the goal of the Polaris project to develop a new parallelizing compiler that will overcome limitations of current compilers. While current parallelizing compilers may succeed on small kernels, they often fail to extract any meaningful parallelism from large applications. After a study of application codes, it was concluded that by adding a few new techniques to current compilers, automatic parallelization becomes possible. The techniques needed are interprocedural analysis, scalar and array privatization, symbolic dependence analysis, and advanced induction and reduction recognition and elimination, along with run-time techniques to allow data dependent behavior.
Propagation of Spurious Data for Wireless Cognitive Sensor Network in the Smart Grid: A Social Network Method

The nature of white space utilization, tremendous data processing, heterogeneous coexistence and security guarantees in Wireless Cognitive Sensor Network (WCSN) brings significant advantages over traditional Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) used in the smart grid. However, one of the main security threats to WCSN in the smart grid is the transmission of spurious data by malicious secondary users, which can induce the control center to make a wrong spectrum allocation and power dispatching decisions. In this paper, after analyzing the reference structure of smart grid and the feasibility of applying the epidemic theory into WCSN, we propose the UDG model of WCSN in the smart grid. Based on the epidemic theory in social network, we model and analyze the spurious data propagation process and identify key factors determining potential epidemic outbreaks in WCSN. In conclusion, we validate the feasibility of SIS model and perform investigations on the system dynamics.
Comparison of Methods for Image Analysis on cDNA Microarray Data

Microarrays are part of a new class of biotechnologies which allow the monitoring of expression levels for thousands of genes simultaneously. Image analysis is an important aspect of microarray experiments, one that can have a potentially large impact on subsequent analyses such as clustering or the identification of differentially expressed genes. This article reviews a number of existing image analysis approaches for cDNA microarray experiments and proposes new addressing, segmentation, and background correction methods for extracting information from microarray scanned images. The segmentation component uses a seeded region growing algorithm which makes provision for spots of different shapes and sizes. The background estimation approach is based on an image analysis technique known as morphological opening. These new image analysis procedures are implemented in a software package named Spot, built on the R environment for statistical computing. The statistical properties of the different segmentation and background adjustment methods are examined using microarray data from a study of lipid metabolism in mice. It is shown that in some cases background adjustment can substantially reduce the precision—that is, increase the variability—of low-intensity spot values. In contrast, the choice of segmentation procedure has a smaller impact. The comparison further suggests that seeded region growing segmentation with morphological background correction provides precise and accurate estimates of foreground and background intensities.
1 FT / 1-5 The Spherical Tokamak Fusion Power Plant

The design of a 1GW(e) steady state fusion power plant, based on the spherical tokamak concept, has been further iterated towards a fully self-consistent solution taking account of plasma physics, engineering and neutronics constraints. In particular a plausible solution to exhaust handling is proposed and the steam cycle refined to further improve efficiency. The physics design takes full account of confinement, MHD stability and steady state current drive. It is proposed that such a design may offer a fusion power plant which is easy to maintain: an attractive feature for the power plants following ITER.
eSQUARE : A Formal Methods Enhanced SQUARE Tool

1 Currently in Computer Science Department, University of Kaiserslautern, Germany 67663. Abstract This paper presents a formal methods enhanced tool named eSQUARE that supports the SQUARE security requirements engineering methodology developed by CMU SEI [7]. Development of security requirements has been neglected for a long time in the software development industry [9]. This has caused many errors and failures in the delivered software products and increased the cost on defect correction and product maintenance. Therefore it is important to have precise and concise specification of security requirements and have early integration of security requirements in software development process. The tool presented is aiming at helping practitioners to integrate the specification of security requirements using formal language Z [3, 6, 11] with the security requirement engineering methodology SQUARE.
Adaptic: A Shape Changing Prop with Haptic Retargeting

We present Adaptic, a novel ”hybrid” active/passive haptic device that can change shape to act as a proxy for a range of virtual objects in VR. We use Adaptic with haptic retargeting to redirect the user’s hand to provide haptic feedback for several virtual objects in arm’s reach using only a single prop. To evaluate the effectiveness of Adaptic with haptic retargeting, we conducted a within-subjects experiment employing a docking task to compare Adaptic to non-matching proxy objects (i.e., Styrofoam balls) and matching shape props. In our study, Adaptic sat on a desk in front of the user and changed shapes between grasps, to provide matching tactile feedback for various virtual objects placed in different virtual locations. Results indicate that the illusion was convincing: users felt they were manipulating several virtual objects in different virtual locations with a single Adaptic device. Docking performance (completion time and accuracy) with Adaptic was comparable to props without haptic retargeting.
EXPLORING THE FLEXIBLE LEARNING PREFERENCES

Flexible learning is emerging as a new education paradigm for responding to the demographic, economic, political and technological changes confronting university educators in Australia. Tourism and hospitality management programs are not immune to the flexible learning revolution, and indeed some educators have already embraced this concept. The purpose of this study is to examine tourism students’ perceptions of the attractiveness of various flexible learning opportunities at a regional Australian university. The findings suggest that students are enthusiastic about the prospect for more flexibility and have strong preferences for structured approaches that provide ‘real life’ experiences and allow them to interact with educators, peers and future employers. Students are not enthusiastic about flexible learning approaches which impinge on their ability to work while studying.
Efficient Reliable Group Communication for Distributed Systems

Many applications can profit from broadcast communication, but few operating systems provide primitives that make broadcast communication available to user applications. In this paper we introduce primitives for broadcast communication that have been integrated with the Amoeba distributed operating system. The semantics of the broadcast primitives are simple, powerful, and easy to understand. Our primitives, for example, guarantee total ordering of broadcast messages. The proposed primitives are also efficient: if a network supports physical multicast, a reliable broadcast can be done in just slightly more than two messages on the average, so, the performance of a reliable broadcast is roughly comparable to that of a remote procedure call. In addition, the primitives are flexible: user applications can, for example, trade performance against fault tolerance.
Keyword spotting based on mixed grammar model

We present a novel keyword spotting method based on the mixed grammar model. By merging the filler model and the finite state grammar, two conventional technologies of keyword spotting, the mixed grammar model incorporates both a priori knowledge and the capability of covering all possible sentential forms in real speech, thus makes up for the weaknesses of both parental technologies. Experimental results show that the mixed grammar model excels the filler model in overall performance and the finite state grammar in robustness. The expansibility of the mixed grammar model is shown in its capacity of easy incorporation of further improvement of both the filler model and finite state grammar.
ECONOMIC CRISIS AND THE RISE IN WOMEN ’ S EMPLOYMENT RATE IN A SUB-SAHARAN AFRICAN COUNTRY : Explaining the Rise in Women ’ s Employment Rate in the Urban Areas of Kenya Paper submitted

Focusing on urban Kenya, this paper attempts to identify the sources of the temporal increase in women’s employment rate between 1986 and 1998. The paper relies on labour survey data, household responses to coping strategies and case studies. The analysis presented in the paper shows that the bulk of the increase in women’s insertion into the labour market comes from an increase in the work participation of married women. While women’s higher educational endowments, particularly the increase in secondary education, account for an improvement in their employment prospects, the period also witnesses a sharp decline in the importance given to education in determining employment and by 1998, university graduates were just as likely to be employed as individuals with no education. The period between 1986 and 1998 witnessed civil service reforms, restructuring of the private sector, firm closures and increasing job insecurity. Notwithstanding the role of education, declining opportunities for males, who in 1986 were the primary breadwinners and the accompanying income and employment insecurities within households seem to be the key factors prompting the sharp increase in the labour supply of (married) women. Underscoring the use of the informal sector as a last resort option, I find that declines in husbands’ real earnings are associated with a sharp increase in women’s participation in the informal sector. The increasing participation of women in the vulnerable informal sector is consistent with the feminist version of the structuralist characteriziation of the informal sector. The analysis presented in this paper focused mainly on the period 1986 and 1998 and while more recent data would have provided an updated picture of the issues discussed in this thesis, there is little evidence to suggest that the situation of women in Kenya’s labour market has changed substantially in recent years.
ICS Master Thesis

This master thesis is a part of the ongoing research on EAT development project. Its main goal is to research whether Eclipse Modeling Project can be used as an alternative platform to using NetBeans in implementing EAT tool. In order to fulfill this goal, it contains analysis of the current EAT tool version and design research of a new version using EMP. The design addresses most of the issues related to building a new version and eventually recommends porting EAT to EMP.
Kinetic Monte Carlo simulation of thin film morphology evolution during growth

Investigations of surface relief evolution during deposition processes were carried out using Monte Carlo simulation. Different types of deposition processes were under consideration: molecular beam epitaxy on flat and porous surfaces, deposition on porous glass surfaces and atomic layer deposition (ALD). The influence of interlayer atomic exchange on two dimensional island density, average and maximum island sizes in different atomic layers were in question. Enlargement of island sizes with an increase in atomic layer number was demonstrated. Simulation was demonstrated to be useful for deposition parameters optimization in the process of thin dielectric barrier growth. For thin and flat dielectric layer formation over porous substrates, the diffusivity of adsorbate along the surface between pores was demonstrated to be much higher than along pore walls. Simulation of the ALD process of thin dielectric barrier formation shows the way for estimation of the minimal number of ALD cycles necessary for complete coverage of the substrate and evaluation of the surface roughness.
An extended packet reservation multiple access protocol for wireless multimedia communication

We present an extended packet reservation multiple access (EPRMA) protocol for wireless multimedia services. It supports multi-bit-rate reservation, dynamic slot and frequency carrier association, and an effective contention mechanism. The improved link utilisation is achieved by burst traffic statistically multiplexed on a wide bandwidth. Simulation study shows the significant increase in trunking efficiency. Principles of traffic control and resource management are suggested. Simulation results for homogeneous traffic multiplexing are presented. It shows how the maximum link utilisation is influenced by source utilisation, average burst length and peak-to-link ratio. It is concluded that higher bandwidth utilisation can only be achieved when peak-to-link ratios for a sufficient portion of the traffic are far smaller than 0.1. With this knowledge, the admission control function accepts connections according to their statistical parameters, so that both QOS and network performance are guaranteed.
Exchange Rate Manipulation and Constructive Ambiguity : The Meaning of Transparency

I explore the implications of central bank transparency during foreign exchange interventions and develop dynamic models in which investors have imperfect common knowledge about both interventions and fundamentals. The benchmark two-period model is simple enough so that most of it can be solved analytically, and it presents the main result that transparency can often exacerbate any misalignment between the exchange rate and fundamentals. This is a consequence of two distinct effects of transparency. First, transparency reveals some information about fundamentals to investors (the truth-telling effect). Second, transparency increases the precision of the exchange rate as a signal of those fundamentals that remain unknown (the signalprecision effect). If a central bank announcement does not reveal much information about fundamentals, then this second effect dominates and transparency magnifies exchange rate misalignment. An important implication of this result is that during times of crisis, when risky assets are often oversold for reasons of agency, liquidity, and psychology, a policy of ambiguity can in fact increase the effectiveness of intervention to support a declining currency. The benchmark model is both extended to an infinite horizon (with and without common knowledge of the past) and also expanded into a Bayesian signalling game, and I demonstrate that the principal results do not change. ∗Contact Information: fernholz@econ.berkeley. edu. I am grateful to my advisor Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, for invaluable guidance in this project, and also to David Ahn and Barry Eichengreen for their many important and helpful suggestions. I also thank Christian Bauer, Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Kristoffer Nimark, Maurice Obstfeld, Demian Pouzo, and seminar participants at Universität Trier for helpful comments. All remaining errors are mine.
MONOTONE ITERATION SCHEME AND ITS APPLICATION TO PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATION SYSTEMS WITH MIXED NONLOCAL AND DEGENERATE DIFFUSIONS

A monotone iteration scheme for traveling waves based on ordered upper and lower solutions is derived for a class of nonlocal dispersal system with delay. Such system can be used to study the competition among nonlocally diffusive species and degenerately diffusive species. An example of such system is studied in detail. We show the existence of the traveling wave solutions for this system by this iteration scheme. In addition, we study the minimal wave speed, uniqueness, strict monotonicity and asymptotic behavior of the traveling wave solutions.
EverCrypt: A Fast, Verified, Cross-Platform Cryptographic Provider

We present EverCrypt: a comprehensive collection of verified, high-performance cryptographic functionalities available via a carefully designed API. The API provably supports agility (choosing between multiple algorithms for the same functionality) and multiplexing (choosing between multiple implementations of the same algorithm). Through abstraction and zero-cost generic programming, we show how agility can simplify verification without sacrificing performance, and we demonstrate how C and assembly can be composed and verified against shared specifications. We substantiate the effectiveness of these techniques with new verified implementations (including hashes, Curve25519, and AES-GCM) whose performance matches or exceeds the best unverified implementations. We validate the API design with two high-performance verified case studies built atop EverCrypt, resulting in line-rate performance for a secure network protocol and a Merkle-tree library, used in a production blockchain, that supports 2.7 million insertions/sec. Altogether, EverCrypt consists of over 124K verified lines of specs, code, and proofs, and it produces over 29K lines of C and 14K lines of assembly code.