Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Primers of Using Analytical Tools to Capture TCP Behavior

Arguably, understanding the behaviour of TCP is essential to understanding the behaviour of the whole Internet hence (1) the majority of traffic flows use it for their transportation, (2) it has been around since the inception of the global net thus showing remarkable scalability and robustness, (3) it has been a subject of many modifications in order to absorb technological innovations, and (4) through its self-clocking disposition has displayed flexibility and fairness. The heuristic nature of the TCP extensions and the inherit complexity of the Internet have provided the justification behind using testbeds and simulations in order to describe and study the nature of TCP and the effect of the protocol on the Net. However, having in mind that rudimentary TCP protocol is actually FSM, as well as acknowledging the need for analytical modelling that will supplement the empirical work and thus induce the necessary predictability, has lately induced an intensive research for mathematical paradigms applicable and usable in TCP studies. The article enumerates some of these efforts and compares their effectiveness.
Chapter 1 Neural Signal Estimation through Time-Resolved Functional Imaging

The most effective method for localizing the effects of neural activation throughout the human brain is Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). However, there is currently no method able to derive from the fMRI signal the particular neural signals underlying the measured BOLD waveforms. The goal of the present analysis is therefore to achieve time-resolved estimation of the neural signals determining the temporal waveforms in event-related fMRI. This analysis provides a new level of specificity in the basis of advanced approaches of using fMRI to study brain function as deep as at the level of the neural processing. In particular, we can resolve details of neural response dynamics down to the millisecond level for the analysis of visual processing and its temporal deficits. For this purpose, we develop a nonlinear dynamic forward model of the metabolic demand arising from the transmitter release in the minimal set of component neural populations that account for each fMRI waveform. This model allows derivation of the neural signals underlying the wide variety fMRI waveforms evoked from even the most elementary brief stimuli. Estimation of signal delays between cortical regions is enhanced by an autonormalization procedure to provide maximum temporal precision in mapping the causal interactions among functional subunits across the cortex by means of the pattern of simultaneous covariation in the fMRI responses. This technique is also robust to feedback processes, allowing the mapping of recursive feedback signal between cortical regions at different levels in the response hierarchy. Girard IC, Andre JS (Eds), Brain Mapping Research Progress, NSP: New York, 2009.
Validity and Efficiency of the Check-Slash Transcription Method for Measuring Intelligibility

An abstract of the thesis of Vicky Jo Bacon for the Master of Science in Speech Communication: Speech and Hearing Sciences presented May 10, 1995. Tittle: Validity and Efficiency of the Check-Slash Transcription Method for Measuring Intelligibility Speech-language pathologists are routinely called upon to make professional assessments concerning a speaker's level of intelligibility. The use of subjective judgement procedures for estimating a percentage of intelligibility is the general practice of many speech-language pathologists because they require minimal time. Although efficient, these methods lack any form of numerical support, and their validity and reliability is questionable. The standard within the field that provides data support is the orthographic transcription method, but it is considered to be too time-consuming for practical application (Samar & Metz, 1988). Researchers continue to seek a measure that is both valid and efficient to be used clinically. The purpose of this study was to establish validity of a check-slash transcription method used to provide objective numerical support for assigning percentage of intelligibility for individuals with moderate speech impairments. The study sought to answer the following questions: 1) Is the check-slash method of transcription a valid measure for quantifying percentage of intelligibility? 2) Is the check-slash method a more time-efficient procedure than the orthographic transcription method? The subjects for this study were 20 graduate students from Portland State University, that were randomly assigned to two transcription groups (check-slash or orthographic}. Each listener transcribed 12 samples taken from 2 girls and 10 boys between the ages of 4:1 and 5:6 with a moderate degree of phonological deficiency. 2 The data were analyzed using individual Mann-Whitney U Tests for each of the 12 samples. Results indicated no significant difference between the check-slash and orthographic transcription methods when used to assign a percentage of intelligibility to individuals with a moderate speech deficit. Although no significant difference was found, interrater reliability for both methods was low. This study established efficiency for the check-slash transcription method when compared to the orthographic method. Increased efficiency for the check-slash method ranged from 38% to 54% over the orthographic method. Results may also indicate that listener perception may influence each clinician's ability to be accurate in their assessments. VALIDITY AND EFFICIENCY OF THE CHECK-SLASH TRANSCRIPTION METHOD FOR MEASURING
MULTI-MISSION EARTH ENTRY VEHICLE DEVELOPMENT BY NASA ’ S IN-SPACE PROPULSION TECHNOLOGIES ( ISPT ) PROJECT

The Planetary Science Decadal Survey, published in March 2011, includes several missions to return samples to Earth from around the Solar System. NASA’s In-Space Propulsion Technologies (ISPT) Project, funded by the Science Mission Directorate, is continuing to conduct activities that will mature a class of vehicles in support of Earth entry, descent and landing mission phases. This paper will provide an explanation of the Multi-Mission Earth Entry Vehicle (MMEEV) class, concept, context and benefits, and details of Fiscal Year 2011-12 activities, including development of an analysis tool, thermal soak modeling, impact foam testing, space environmental effects arc-jet testing, dynamic subsonic stability testing and design tool development. Plans for followon hypersonic testing and analysis are also provided. The ISPT Project’s funding level does not currently support a dedicated flight test prior to MMEEV use. The current strategy is to mature the vehicle critical characteristics for a range of MMEEVs to TRL5-6 before the next Discovery or New Frontiers Announcement of Opportunity.
Surgical approach to giant hepatic hydatid cysts : a single-center experience from Istanbul

Background: The aim of this study was to determine the presence of cystobiliary communication (CBC) and to assess the treatment and follow-up of existing and postoperative fistulae in giant hepatic hydatid cysts managed by either conservative or radical surgery. Methods: A total of 40 patients with hepatic hydatid cysts of 10 cm or greater in diameter were examined. These patients were seen in the General Surgery Clinic between January 2005 and June 2015. Conservative and radical surgeries were performed in 25 (62.5%) and 15 patients (37.5%), respectively. In patients that underwent conservative surgery, perioperative cholangiography was performed following pericystectomy and cholecystectomy by passing a 6F nelaton catheter through the cystic duct. Presence of CBCs and daughter vesicles was assessed. Results: Perioperative fistula was detected in 15 patients (60%) in the conservatively managed group. Successful closure with primary suturing was achieved in 14 patients (93%). One patient (7%) developed a postoperative biliary fistula (PBF). Of the 10 cases that were free of fistulae perioperatively, 4 (16%) developed PBF. True positivity and false negativity rates for detecting perioperative fistulae were 84% and 16%, respectively. Choledochoduodenotomies with T-tube drainage were performed in 2 out of 5 patients in which daughter vesicles were detected in the biliary tree. Duodenotomies with sphincteroplasty were performed in the remaining 3. Conclusion: Cholecystectomy with partial cystectomy and perioperative visualization of the biliary tree is a safe and useful procedure for management of giant hepatic hydatid cysts.
Nervecheck for the detection of early sensory loss and neuropathic pain in diabetes Running head : NerveCheck for diabetic neuropathy

Aim: Detection of early sensory loss in patients with diabetes may allow identification of patients with symptoms as having painful diabetic neuropathy and also allow timely identification and treatment of patients to prevent foot ulceration. Widely deployed methods such as the monofilament only detect moderate to severe neuropathy. This study was undertaken using NerveCheck, a portable quantitative sensory testing (QST) device to determine the prevalence of early sensory loss in relation to neuropathic symptoms and to determine its diagnostic performance in relation to objective end points for small and large fibre damage. Methods: 144 subjects (74 with and 70 without diabetes) underwent QST; nerve conduction study (NCS); corneal nerve fibre density (CNFD) and intra epidermal nerve fibre density (IENFD) assessment. Diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) was defined using the neuropathy disability score (NDS). Results: Of the 74 subjects with diabetes 41 had DPN. The incidence of sensory deficits was high in subjects without symptoms of numbness (43 %) and was significantly higher in those with positive neuropathic symptoms (65 %) (P ≤ 0.0001). The prevalence of sensory deficits in subjects with painful symptoms was 78 %. NerveCheck performed best for vibration testing against NCS (AUC 82 %) and with the cold testing for CNFD (AUC 78 %) and for IENFD (AUC 70 %), respectively. Conclusions: This study shows the clinical utility of NerveCheck, an inexpensive ($500) QST device for identifying large and small fibre deficits in relation to symptoms and deficits. The diagnostic performance of NerveCheck is high in relation to established end points for large and small fibre damage.
Material Properties Characterization of BiCMOS BEOL Metal Stacks for RF-MEMS Applications

The mechanical material parameters of complex metal layer stacks embedded inside a BiCMOS process have been analyzed. Finite-Element-Method simulations (FEM) with a combination of statistical calculation methods have been used to accurately determine the material properties. The Young’s modulus of AlCu and TiN have been found to be 65 GPa and 410 GPa. The residual stress values have been extracted as -514 MPa (compressive), 494 MPa (tensile) and -964 MPa (compressive) for the TiN Top-layer, AlCu and the TiN Bottom-layer which is in good agreement to in-line wafer curvature measurement. Intrinsic stress was found to play an important role for the reason that it partly compensates temperature-induced stress and offers a reliable RF-MEMS switch operation. The extracted material parameters are very useful to perform accurate FEM simulations and help to reduce the design/modeling time of new BiCMOS embedded MEMS components.
A weighted finite di ff erence method for subdi ff usive Black Scholes Model

In this paper we focus on the subdiffusive Black Scholes model. The main part of our work consists of the finite difference method as a numerical approach to the option pricing in the considered model. We derive the governing fractional differential equation and the related weighted numerical scheme being a generalization of the classical Crank-Nicolson scheme. The proposed method has 2 − α order of accuracy with respect to time where α ∈ (0, 1) is the subdiffusion parameter, and 2 with respect to space. Further, we provide the stability and convergence analysis. Finally, we present some numerical results.
A Low Power CMOS Design of An All Digital Phase Locked Loop

This dissertation presents a proposed all digital phase locked loop and a digitally controlled oscillator with low power consumption for fractional-N frequency synthesis applications. The basic operation of the conventional PLL-based frequency synthesizers is first briefly reviewed, followed by the literature review of some reported digital PLL based frequency synthesizer. An all digital PLL is thus proposed, including the system architecture and implementations of its sub-blocks. In the proposed all digital PLL, the PFD-TDC pair used in many reported digital PLLs is replaced by a customized time-to-digital converter. A novel Schmitt trigger based digital controlled oscillator is proposed to achieve a wide linear tuning range with low power consumption. The novel locking process of the proposed ADPLL is separated into frequency and phase acquisition. Instead of ”ahead” or ”behind” comparison, the time-todigital converter is used to measure the frequency difference accurately, which greatly reduces the lock-in time. The phase acquisition only takes two reference clocks. One cycle for resetting the DCO and the other cycle for updating the control considering the path delay. To further prove the feasibility of the novel ADPLL, a fractional-N frequency synthesizer is implemented based on the proposed ADPLL. An extra TDC is applied to obtain the fractional value avoiding the use of fractional divider, which is the main source of fractional spur in a fractional-N frequency synthesizer. The proposed Fractional-N frequency synthesizer is implemented using a 0.9V 32nm Practical Transistor Model. The phase noise performance, the frequency locking speed as well as the tuning range of the digitally controlled oscillator was measured and well agrees with the theoretical analysis.
Chapter 4 : The Typology of Rounding Harmony

Rounding harmony is a phonological process whereby certain vowels surface as rounded under the influence of a neighbouring rounded vowel. What is striking about rounding harmony is the fact that the simplest possible statement—”a vowel must be rounded when preceded by/followed by a rounded vowel”—fails to characterise the great majority of rounding harmony systems. In most cases, conditions referring to tongue body position (height and/or backness) are imposed on either the triggering element, the target, or both. I argue that this interaction among vowel features renders traditional rule-based accounts of the typological patterns nonexplanatory. Within a constraint-based framework such as Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993), however, the interaction of rounding with these other phonological dimensions can be modelled in a straightforward manner which allows for the characterisation of all attested rounding harmony patterns, while making falsifiable predictions regarding the logically possible but cross-linguistically unattested patterns. Central to my analysis is the claim that phonological systems are organised around principles of articulation and perception. These principles are encoded in the formal grammar as Optimality-theoretic constraints.
Fuzzy Similarity-based Feature Clustering for Document Classification

Feature clustering is a useful method to reduce the dimensionality of text data. We propose a fuzzy similarity-based self-constructing algorithm for feature clustering in text classification, by which the number of extracted features is obtained automatically. In the algorithm, words are represented as distributions and processed one by one sequentially. If a word is not similar to any existing cluster, a new cluster is created for this word. Similarity between a word and a cluster is defined by considering both the mean and the variance of the cluster. When all words have been fed in, desired clusters are formed. We then have one extracted feature for each cluster. The extracted feature corresponding to a cluster is a weighted combination of the words contained in the cluster. Using this approach, trial-and-error for determining the appropriate number of extracted features can be avoided. Experimental results obtained from real-world data sets have shown that our method can perform better than other methods.
Development Environment for a Multi-Robot Team

Development of software for a multi-robot team is typically a daunting task. As more complex tasks are required from coordinated teams of robots, roboticists are faced with a huge increase in complexity of the needed underlying system, requiring an equal huge amount of effort to be built. This thesis describes the design and application of a development environment tailored to assist roboticists in easily overcoming recurrent problems in robotic applications and helping them concentrate their efforts in higher-level aspects of the robotic system. The development environment here described offers the roboticist a software middleware for abstracting from low-level details, a high-level software architecture for structuring the developed software and tools for runtime visualization and deployment of the system.
The epidemiological, clinical, radiological profiles and outcome of stroke in reference sub-Saharan African intensive care unit: a cross-sectional study

Background: Although stroke or cerebrovascular accidents (CVA) account for the second cause of death worldwide, data on CVA in the intensive care units (ICU) of Cameroon is scant. We investigated the sociodemographic, clinical, and radiological profiles, as well as outcomes of patients with CVA admitted to the ICU of the Yaounde Central Hospital. Methods: We analyzed the hospital files of all patients admitted to the ICU of Yaounde Central Hospital from 1st January 2016 to 31st December 2016. All patients with confirmed CT-scan diagnosis of CVA were retained. Patients’ files were studied for sociodemographic data, clinical variables, radiological patterns, and outcomes of ICU admission. Results: The prevalence of cerebrovascular accidents was 12.2%. The mean age was 66.2±13.5 years and 50% were males. The main reason for ICU admission was coma in 92.3%. The frequencies of comorbidities were hypertension (65.4%) and diabetes (7.7%). The main lesion for hemorrhagic CVA was at the capsulolenticular area and the main occluded vessel in ischemic CVA was the middle cerebral artery. Conclusions: The findings suggest CVA patients in the aforementioned ICU have modifiable cardiovascular factors such as hypertension and diabetes for preventive interventions. Many patients have severe hypertension on admission, reflecting uncontrolled high blood pressure before their cardiovascular event. Overall, there is an urgent need for adequate follow-up of hypertension especially in elderly patients for CVA prevention.
Di ¡ erential inheritance modes of DNA methylation between euchromatic and heterochromatic DNA sequences in ageing fetal bovine ¢ broblasts

To elucidate overall changes in DNA methylation occurring by inappropriate epigenetic control during ageing, we compared fetal bovine fibroblasts and their aged neomycinresistant versions using bisulfite^PCR technology. Reduction in DNA methylation was observed in euchromatic repeats (18SrRNA/art2) and promoter regions of single-copy genes (the cytokeratin/L-lactoglobulin/interleukin-13 genes). Contrastingly, a stable maintenance of DNA methylation was revealed in various heterochromatic sequences (satellite I/II/alphoid and Bov-B). The differential inheritance mode of DNA methylation was confirmed through the analysis of individual neomycinresistant clones. These global, multi-locus analyses provide evidence on the tendency of differential epigenetic modification between genomic DNA regions during ageing. ß 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. on behalf of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies.
Anchoring Inflation Expectations in Unconventional Times: Micro Evidence for the Euro Area

We exploit micro data from professional forecasters to examine the stability of the distribution of long-term inflation expectations in the euro area following the Great Recession. Although mean expectations declined somewhat, we find no evidence that the central tendency of the long-run distribution became unanchored. Also, the degree of co-movement of expectations with other variables did not increase noticeably. In contrast, long-term inflation uncertainty increased and expectations became negatively skewed. Such findings are in line with the predictions of theoretical models emphasizing the impact of the lower bound on policy rates and uncertainty about the transmission of unconventional monetary policies.
Automatic Baseline extraction based on PCA (Principal Component Analysis) method

Recent baseline extraction and correction techniques are based on Penalized Least Square method; which is focused on two mains parameters: weight vector and smooth parameters estimation. Weight vector is computed iteratively based on the difference between original signal and the i extracted baseline, when the smooth parameters are generally computed empirically. The drawback of these techniques is that the algorithm associated for baseline optimization; which mainly overestimated if the signal is below a fitted baseline and under estimated when the signal is above a fitted baseline. In this paper, we proposed an efficient algorithm for robust baseline extraction; in which the optimal weight vector is computed based on logic distribution function; and, the smooth parameters using PCA method. The new algorithm has been extended to existing extraction methods. Simulations results have shown the effectiveness of the propose algorithm, and the advantage of using multi-smooth parameters for automatic baseline removal.
Analysis of Different Steganography Algorithms and Security Issues

The data transfer through internet aims to provide faster data transfer rate and accuracy of data being transferred. In addition to it when security of the data is prime concern while communicating without any alterations, the data transfer technique aims to provide sufficient security while transferring data which is achieved by employing certain approaches and one such approach is steganography which is discussed in this paper. Steganography is an encryption technique used to hide only the messages (that requires to be kept secretive) in innocent looking public communication such as in image so that their presence remain undetected and protect them from prevailing security attacks. In this paper we tend to present the comparative analysis of different steganography algorithms such as DCT transform, Wavelet transform etc. and also discuss various security issues involved and hence evaluate the existing techniques limelight and drawbacks. Keywords— DCT Transform Image, Cryptography Steganography, and Security attacks.