Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Invisible Knowledge Network of International Marketing Studies: Theory and Evidence

This paper aims to explore the theoretical essentials of knowledge production of international marketing studies, from a dataset of 584 journal articles. A computer-aided co-citation network analysis of 21,828 citations that have been meticulously voted by over than ten-thousands of authors traces the historical timeline of the development paths and paradigms shift of international marketing studies. Using network analysis, we mapped the co-citation network and analyzed the top authors from 1997 to 2006. This could function as a concise reading list for Ph.D. students and assist them by economically providing material that acts as a roadmap for preparation for exams and assists in research work. Further, it could guide students in deciding their future research streams. Keywords: International Marketing, Network of Knowledge, Co-citation Analysis
Representation and recognition in vision

Researchers have long sought to understand what the brain does when we see an object, what two people have in common when they see the same object, and what a "seeing" machine would need to have in common with a human visual system. Recent neurobiological and computational advances in the study of vision have now brought us close to answering these and other questions about representation. In Representation and Recognition in Vision, Shimon Edelman bases a comprehensive approach to visual representation on the notion of correspondence between proximal (internal) and distal similarities in objects. This leads to a computationally feasible and formally veridical representation of distal objects that addresses the needs of shape categorization and can be used to derive models of perceived similarity. Edelman first discusses the representational needs of various visual recognition tasks, and surveys current theories of representation in this context. He then develops a theory of representation that is related to Shepard's notion of second-order isomorphism between representations and their targets. Edelman goes beyond Shepard by specifying the conditions under which the representations can be made formally veridical. Edelman assesses his theory's performance in identification and categorization of 3D shapes and examines it in light of psychological and neurobiological data concerning the object-processing stream in primate vision. He also discusses the connections between his theory and other efforts to understand representation in the brain.
Human-computer interaction scenarios as a design representation

Research on the design of end-user applications has focused on methods for empirically determining user requirements, and for managing usability in the design process by analogy with the management of functionality. As an alternative to this approach, the authors propose that both sorts of design considerations be combined in a more comprehensive, task-oriented representation. End-user applications should be represented in the design process as a set of typical and/or critical user-interaction scenarios. An example of this approach is applied to the design of a new inspector for Smalltalk. <<ETX>>
A Novel Credit Assignment to a Rule with Probabilistic State Transition

In this chapter, we introduce profit sharing method (Grefenstette, 1988) (Miyazaki et al., 1994a) which is a reinforcement learning method. Profit sharing can work well on the partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) where a learning agent cannot distinguish an observation between states which need another action, because it is a typical non-bootstrap method, and its Q-value is usually handled accumulatively. So we study profit sharing as the next generation reinforcement learning system. First we discuss how to assign the credit to a rule on POMDP. The conventional reinforcement function of profit sharing does not consider POMDP. So we propose a novel credit assignment which considers the condition of the reward distribution on POMDP. Secondly, we discuss the probabilistic state transition on MDP. Profit sharing does not work well on the probabilistic state transition. We propose a novel learning method which considers the probabilistic state transition. It is similar to the Monte Carlo method. We therefore discuss the Q-values of our proposed method. In an environment with deterministic state transitions, we show the same performance for both conventional profit sharing and the proposed method. We also show the good performance of the proposed method against the conventional profit sharing. In this chapter, we discuss the learning in POMDP and the probabilistic state transition. We show the advantages and disadvantages of the profit sharing method. We propose a novel learning method which has the same advantages and solves the disadvantages. We propose how to handle the Q-values in an action-selection. Section 2 introduces the conventional reinforcement learning methods and profit sharing method. We propose the novel learning method in Section 3. Section 4 shows the results and finally Section 5 concludes this chapter.
Discourse Structures and Language Technologies

I want to tell a story about computational approaches to discourse structure. Like all such stories, it takes some liberty with actual events and times, but I think stories put things into perspective, and make it easier to understand where we are and how we might progress. Part 1 of the story (Section 2) is the past. Here we see early computational work on discourse structure aiming to assign a simple tree structure to a discourse. At issue was what its internal nodes corresponded to. The debate was fierce, and suggestions that other structures might be more appropriate were ignored or subjected to ridicule. The main uses of discourse structure were text generation and summarization, but mostly in small-scale experiments. Part 2 of the story (Section 3) is the present. We now see different types of discourse structure being recognized, though perhaps not always clearly distinguished. An increasing number of credible efforts are aimed at recognizing these structures automatically, though performance on unrestricted text still resembles that of the early days of robust parsing. Generic applications are also beginning to appear, as researchers recognize the value of these structures to tasks of interest to them. Part 3 of the story (Section 4) is the future. We now see the need for a mid-line between approaches hostage to theory and empirical approaches free of theory. An empirical approach underpinned by theory will not only motivate sensible back-off strategies in the face of unseen data, but also enable us to understand how the different discourse structures inter-relate and thereby to exploit their mutual recognition. This should allow more challenging applications, such as improving the performance of statistical machine translation (SMT) through the extended locality of discourse structures and the linguistic phenomena they correlate with.
Implementation of fast radix-4 division with operands scaling

A radix-4 divider can potentially achieve a speedup of two with respect to a radix-2 implementation by halving the number of steps. However, the complicated quotient-digit selection function increases the critical path and almost eliminates the speedup. The authors present an implementation of a scheme that scales the divisor close to unity, making the quotient-selection function independent of the divisor. They show a gate-array implementation that achieves a speedup of 1.5 with respect to the radix-2 case, doubling the number of gates. The speedup achieved is still considerably lower than the theoretical maximum of twice. <<ETX>>
ASSESSING THE SINGLE INTERVAL ADJUSTMENT MATRIX YES-NO TASK

The SIAM Yes-No task is an efficient procedure for estimating absolute thresholds, thougharguably requires further assessment prior to its adoption into mainstream psychophysicalresearch. We report two experiments, undertaken on the auditory modality designed to assessthe functionality and efficiency of the SIAM procedure. First, an audiometric paradigm wasemployed in which absolute thresholds were estimated for both left and right ears at sevenfrequencies. Second, a modified version of the SIAM, the SIAM-Rapid, was compared to theorthodox SIAM procedure using 1000-Hz tones of 100 ms duration. Both experimentsdemonstrate the efficiency and precision of the SIAM approach.
A review of current mobility prediction techniques for ad hoc networks

Next Generation Networks (3G & beyond) will support real-time multimedia applications through traditional wide-area networking concepts as well as hot-spot (WLAN) and ad hoc networking concepts. In order to fulfil the vision of Next Generation Networks a method of maintaining a real-time flow despite frequent topology changes and irregularity in user movement is required. Mobility Prediction has been identified as having applications in the areas of link availability estimation and pro-active routing in ad hoc networks. In this work we present an overview of current mobility prediction schemes that have been proposed. Simulation results are also presented.
Visual memory improvement in recognition

Fluid intelligence and working memory has been improved by training on a visual working memory n-back task (Jaeggi, Buschkuehl, Jonides & Perrig, 2008). The present study investigated whether n-back training can improve visual memory using a test of visual recognition. A sample of 47 participants were trained for 20 days on either the single n-back task (n = 26) or a general knowledge and vocabulary task (n = 21). The results showed that training using the single n-back task did not significantly increase scores on a test of visual recognition when compared with general knowledge and vocabulary training. However, when initial scores were compared with final scores at completion of the training period, participants who had a high gain in scores on the vocabulary training task improved their visual recognition scores significantly more than those participants who had a low gain in scores on the vocabulary training task. This pattern was not repeated for those participants who were trained in the n-back task. During debrief, participants in the high gain vocabulary training group described shape recognition strategies which they used to improve their performance. It was concluded that the vocabulary task was more successful at training visual recognition than the n-back task which suggested the vocabulary task had a confounding effect on the results of this experiment.
Estimating the Number of Unseen Studies in a Meta-Analysis

A parameter estimate from a meta-analysis is biased when the experiments to be combined are a non-random sample from the population of all experiments done on the hypothesis of interest. In particular, publication bias occurs when studies with significant results are more likely to be published than studies with non-significant results. We develop a model for the distribution of the total number of studies carried out, both published and unpublished, dependent on the probability of publication. We assume a selection m-odel where all studies significant at level a: are published, while non-significant studies are published with probability p. Using Metropolis simulation and Gibbs sampling techniques, we generate random samples from the distribution of the total number of studies and study how it changes as p varies. An application on lead exposure and IQ level in children is presented and the results interpreted. Comparisons are made with Rosenthal's fail-safe estimators.
Formal verification of the pastry protocol

Le protocole Pastry realise une table de hachage distribue sur un reseau pair a pair organise en un anneau virtuel de noeuds. Alors qu'il existe plusieurs implementations de Pastry, il n'y a pas encore eu de travaux pour decrire formellement l'algorithme ou verifier son bon fonctionnement. Integrant des structures de donnees complexes et de la communication asynchrone entre des noeuds qui peuvent rejoindre ou quitter le reseau, ce protocole represente un interet certain pour la verification formelle. La these se focalise sur le protocole Join de Pastry qui permet a un noeud de rejoindre le reseau. Les noeuds ayant integre le reseau doivent avoir une vue du voisinage coherente entre eux. La propriete principale de correction, appelee CorrectDelivery, assure qu'a tout moment il y a au plus un noeud capable de repondre a une requete pour une cle, et que ce noeud est le noeud le plus proche numeriquement a ladite cle. Il n'est pas trivial de maintenir cette propriete en presence de churn. Ce travail nous a permis de decouvrir des violations inattendues de la propriete dans les versions publiees de l'algorithme. Sur la base de cette analyse, le protocole IdealPastry est concu et verifie en utilisant l'assistant interactif a la preuve TLAPS pour TLA+. Le protocole LuPastry est obtenu en assouplissant certaines hypotheses de IdealPastry. Il est montre formellement que LuPastry verifie CorrectDelivery sous l'hypothese qu'aucun noeud ne quitte le reseau. Cette hypothese ne peut etre relâchee a cause du risque de perte de connexion du reseau dans le cas ou plusieurs noeuds quittent le reseau en meme temps
High-speed low-power sense comparator for multilevel flash memories

This paper presents a voltage comparator designed for use in high-performance sense circuits for multilevel flash memories. The comparator is made up by an input buffering stage followed by a regenerative gain stage. A fully differential scheme and offset compensation of both stages allows resolution and speed requirements to be met. Separate supply voltages are used for the two stages to guarantee the required large input common-mode range and, simultaneously, minimise power consumption from the high-voltage supply which is provided by a charge-pump based voltage multiplier. Simulation results show an overall comparison time within 20 ns (input signal 10 mV) with a current drain of 15 /spl mu/A from the high-voltage generator, which makes the proposed comparator well suited to multilevel sensing.
A study on multiuser DSL channel capacity with crosstalk environment

This paper describes a new approach to enhance digital subscriber line (DSL) (emphasizing DMT-ADSL) throughput with multiuser channel model. We have studied the spectral distribution of DSL interference and the capacity of a twisted pair channel. The current single user DSL approach ignores the structure of the crosstalk interference and the underlying sources of the crosstalk environment. Our study has shown a significant improvement on multiuser DSL channel capacity, while treating the crosstalk as the sum of filtered coupling of other DSL signals onto the desired DSL receiver. With this the DSL deployment restrictions may be relaxed and the DSL services can also extend the loop reach and/or increase the throughput at any given loop length. This study also has the potential implication and benefit for DSL spectral management.
Gestão de Descarregamentos: Um estudo empírico de várias abordagens baseadas em regressão

Hydroelectric plants have come to occupy a position of particular importance in energy production in Portugal and other countries. Due to the growth in number and relevance, dams have raised several issues related to their construction and operation, one of them being the management of releases. Releases are indispensable for the correct operation of a dam and their good management provides a number of benefits, not only for the company responsible but also for the local communities and the environment. However, in the rainy season and with high tributary flows, this task becomes particularly difficult, and the existence of auxiliary tools for releases management is benefic. In order to address this problem, several approaches were developed to predict the future state of important hydrological variables in the release decisions. To create these models, several Data Mining techniques were applied on data from a pair of reservoirs in cascade. Specifically, hourly and sporadic data were used, from two reservoirs located consecutively, and the models were developed using time series analysis, quantile regression and prediction of rare extreme values, allowing the forecast of the tributary flow over a 10 hour prediction horizon. These last two approaches are relevant because, since the focus is on floods seasons and not in normal situations, it is important to study proper methods for extreme and rare cases. It should also be noted that, according to the search elaborated, these two methods have not been implemented on the release prediction yet, being therefore more challenging and innovative approaches than the others. A new approach was also developed, taking advantage of the previous study but with some changes in the concept, causing this to be a simulation approach. Although the desired performance was not achieved in the flood cases, several interesting conclusions can be drawn and even acceptable results are presented in the general case. The last mentioned approach made possible to obtain better results in the flood cases, comparing with the previous ones, and better predictions than the ones in the naive model.
Conexões entre Espaços de Lazer e Futebol: Um Templo Europeu Chamado Camp Nou

Este artigo teve o objetivo de analisar, a partir de fotografias, elementos que constituem o CampNou como estadio de referencia mundial e como esse espaco de lazer pode ser iconico e identitario para os frequentadores. A metodologia utilizada foi pautada na analise fotografica. Os registros fotograficos foram realizados a partir de visitas ao CampNou entre os anos de 2013 e 2014. Tambem foram utilizados registros a partir do acervo encontrado no site do estadio. Nesse sentido, o estadio pode constituir um lugar com relacoes afetivas intensas a partir das vivencias ludicas que os individuos tem nele. Percebeu-se que o CampNou, nao somente criou uma grande identidade clubistica com o FC Barcelona, mas tambem uma identidade cultural, relacionadacom as experiencias de lazer e com a regiao em que se encontra: a Catalunha. Connections Between Leisure and Football Spaces: A European Temple Called Camp Nou This article aimed at analyzing from photographs, elements that constitute the Camp Nou as a world reference stadium and how this space of leisure can be iconic and a representation of identity for the regulars. The methodology used was based on the photographic analysis. The photographic records were made from visits to the Camp Nou between the years of 2013 and 2014. Records were also used from the collection found on the website of the stadium. In this sense, the stadium can constitute a place with intense affective relations from the ludic experiences that individuals have in it. It was noticed that the Camp Nou not only created a great club identity with FC Barcelona, but also a cultural identity, related to the leisure experiences and with the region in which it is located: Catalonia.
Performance of hybrid II ARQ schemes using punctured RS code for wireless ATM

To overcome the high level and bursty nature of bit errors in wireless channels a new data link control (DLC) frame structure for transmitting wireless ATM cells is proposed. The throughput, undetected error probability and error correcting probability of the proposed DLC frame structure employing a hybrid II ARQ (automatic repeat request) scheme with RS (Reed-Solomon) code are analysed for a fading channel that is characterised by a two-state Markov chain model. Using the analysis method, the parameters of the proposed DLC structure can be determined so that the throughput performance is optimised in a wireless channel with bursty errors. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the effects of burstiness and the parameters of the proposed DLC frame format on the performance. To verify the analytical model, analytical results and simulation results are compared. It is observed that the effect of channel fading on the throughput is not necessarily negative.
Generalized mutual exclusion contraints on nets with uncontrollable transitions

The authors study a class of specifications, called generalized mutual exclusion constraints, for discrete event systems modeled using place/transition nets. These specifications may be easily enforced by a set of places called monitors on a net system where all transitions are controllable. However, when some of the transitions of the net are uncontrollable, this technique is not always applicable. For some classes of nets, the authors prove that generalized mutual exclusion constraints may always be enforced by monitors, even in the presence of uncontrollable transitions. <<ETX>>
First experiences with a semantic modeling method to guide simulation-based PACS development

The design of PAC systems benefits from modelling and simulation. Within the scope of the Dutch PACS project several simulation studies have shown that simulation is a powerful tool to evaluate hardware architectures, image management strategies and clinical working methods before they are actually implemented. Besides using simulation techniques for obtaining insight into a PACS's performance and behaviour, they can also be applied to actively support the design of a PACS. In order to capture the full complexity of PAC systems in a simulation model, and to take full advantage of simulation as a design tool, we are currently developing new techniques for model construction. This paper summarizes the underlying principles of our modelling method, and describes our first experiences with it.
Complex networks in recommendation systems

Complex network theory was boosted in 1967 thanks to the experiment of Milgram: since then, the application of this special kind of graphs has given fruitful results in social science problems, from sexual disease control to music communities identification. When focusing on the problem of recommending items to a user (i.e. a customer of an e-store), the underlying transaction data can be seen as a complex network (specifically, a bipartite network): inside this structure, information about customer tastes is codified and can be of good use for future suggestions.
Design of a Knee Exoskeleton Using Foot Pressure and Knee Torque Sensors

This study presents the development of a modular knee exoskeleton system that supports the knee joints of hemiplegic patients. The device is designed to realize the polycentric motion of real human knees using a four-bar linkage and to minimize its total weight. In order to determine the user's intention, force-sensitive resistors (FSRs) in the user's insole, a torque sensor on the robot knee joint, and an encoder in the motor are used. The control algorithm is based on a finite state machine (FSM), where the force control, position control and virtual damping control are applied in each state. The proposed hardware design and algorithm are verified by performing experiments on the standing walking and sitting motion controls while wearing the knee exoskeleton.
LinkCluE: A MATLAB Package for Link-Based Cluster Ensembles

Cluster ensembles have emerged as a powerful meta-learning paradigm that provides improved accuracy and robustness by aggregating several input data clusterings. In particular, link-based similarity methods have recently been introduced with superior performance to the conventional co-association approach. This paper presents a MATLAB package, LinkCluE, that implements the link-based cluster ensemble framework. A variety of functional methods for evaluating clustering results, based on both internal and external criteria, are also provided. Additionally, the underlying algorithms together with the sample uses of the package with interesting real and synthetic datasets are demonstrated herein.