Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Compressed-Sensing Assisted Spatial Multiplexing Aided Spatial Modulation

Spatial-multiplexing aided spatial modulation (SMx-SM) is proposed, which intrinsically amalgamates the concept of vertical bell labs space-time (V-BLAST) and SM to attain a high transmission rate, despite its low number of radio frequency (RF) chains at the transmitter. Specifically, in the SMx-SM scheme, the transmit antennas are partitioned into groups and the SM technique is applied individually to each group. Furthermore, low-complexity threshold-aided compressive sensing-based and message passing-based detectors are derived for our SMx-SM system. Our simulation results show that the proposed SMx-SM system exhibits a better performance despite its lower complexity than the conventional generalized spatial modulation system. More importantly, the proposed SMx-SM system is capable of providing considerable performance gains over the V-BLAST system at the same number of RF chains and throughput. Finally, an upper bound is derived for the average bit error probability, which is confirmed by our simulation results.
Prescriptive Procedures for Infants and Children

In the context of early intervention, infants will wear their hearing aids at fixed, cliniciandetermined settings for months or years before they are able to clearly express their preferences. Therefore, the validity of the clinician-determined hearing aid settings may be of crucial importance for auditory development in the early years of life. In this chapter the validity of prescriptive approaches for determining initial settings of infants’ hearing aids will be examined.
Ion enrichment of snowmelt runoff water caused by basal ice formation

Once meltwater reaches the base of a snowpack it can infiltrate the underlying stratum, runoff, or refreeze and form a basal ice layer. Basal ice formation is most common early in melt over saturated or very cold frozen soils. Initial meltwater becomes enriched in ion concentrations compared to the parent snow due to ion fractionation during thaw and percolation through the snowpack. If ion exclusion occurs during basal ice formation, further enrichment of initial runoff water ion concentrations might occur. The influence of basal ice formation on runoff water chemistry was examined by comparing ion concentrations in runoff water that had sustained basal ice contact, to meltwater before basal ice contact. A series of experiments, involving melting a snowpack in a large insulated box over a cold impermeable substrate in a temperature‐controlled room, were carried out. A cooling system at the chemically inert base ensured formation of basal ice during snowmelt. Meltwater samples were collected throughout melt from within the snowpack using an extraction tube; runoff water was collected at the base. All samples were analysed for major anions and cations. Results showed that formation of basal ice layers can sometimes enrich the initial runoff water compared to meltwater before basal ice contact. Ion concentrations in basal ice contact runoff water were up to sixteen times greater than those in no‐contact meltwater; however, on average, basal ice contact runoff water showed 1·5 times the ion concentrations of the no‐contact meltwater. Enrichment was greatest with the rapid formation of a thick basal ice layer. The implications are that basal ice formation alters both meltwater ion pathway and concentration. When no basal ice is present, enhanced infiltration of meltwater ion load can cause relatively dilute runoff water. When basal ice is present all meltwater runs off and further ion‐concentration enrichment occurs. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
MIMO LTE antenna design for laptops based on theory of characteristic modes

In this paper the theory of characteristic modes is employed to find eigenvalues and current distributions of all relevant modes on a monocoque laptop chassis in the frequency range below 1 GHz. Based on these results a novel type of antenna (inductive coupler), located in the slot between the lid and the base part of the laptop, which exploits one of the characteristic modes is introduced and its performance optimized for the LTE low- and mid-band frequency range. In order to design a MIMO antenna system an additional, conventional antenna (capacitive coupler) is placed at the top of the laptop's lid. Both antennas excite mutually orthogonal current distributions on the laptop's chassis which results in an excellent MIMO antenna performance.
Surface Modification of Polymer Materials Induced by Laser Irradiation

We report on the surface modification effects using allyl‐diglycol CR39 polymer induced by laser irradiation at 157 nm F2 laser (VUV) and 248 nm KrF laser. The motivation is to investigate the ablation effects on this polymer in optical waveguides application the ablation effects on this polymer in optical waveguides. Fabrication of waveguides has been observed using continuous wave (CW) at 244 nm argon ion laser. Ablation effects on the surface of this polymer have been characterized including ablation threshold at different wavelengths from the assorted depth of craters formed from UV pulsed laser. Application of this polymer in optical waveguide application is corroborated by the refractive index value on the CR39 channels that varied as fluences changed when using the continuous wave UV irradiation. A limit for upper fluence at the point where laser ablation originates on this polymer has also been determined.
Random Walks in Biology

This book is a lucid, straightforward introduction to the concepts and techniques of statistical physics that students of biology, biochemistry, and biophysics must know. It provides a sound basis for understanding random motions of molecules, subcellular particles, or cells, or of processes that depend on such motion or are markedly affected by it. Readers do not need to understand thermodynamics in order to acquire a knowledge of the physics involved in diffusion, sedimentation, electrophoresis, chromatography, and cell motility--subjects that become lively and immediate when the author discusses them in terms of random walks of individual particles.
Approximate Minimum Enclosing Ball algorithm with smaller core sets for binary Support Vector Machine

Core Vector Machine (CVM) is a promising technique for scaling up a binary Support Vector Machine (SVM) to handle large data sets with the utilization of approximate Minimum Enclosing Ball (MEB) algorithm. However, the experimental results in implementation show that there always exists some redundancy in the final core set to determine the final decision function. We propose an approximate MEB algorithm in this paper to decrease the redundant core vectors as much as possible. The simulations on synthetic data sets demonstrate the competitive performances on training time, core vectors' number and training accuracy.
The Schmittlets for automated SAR image enhancement

Multi-looking is the essential step in SAR image preprocessing with respect to distributed targets. The presumably independent single intensity measurements of the same target are averaged in order to reduce the local variability and to retrieve a stable “mean” intensity for the target of interest [1]. In practice, multi-looking commonly is performed with a uniform number of looks all over the image though numerous studies already proofed that this is not suitable because signal of smaller targets possibly get mixed while larger targets are insufficiently smoothed. Thus, it is necessary to identify single targets, i.e. their location and their shape, to aggregate sample coming from the same main unit (statistically speaking). Three different approaches can be found in literature and in practice so far. Firstly, locally adaptive filtering techniques switch the filtering kernel of a fixed extension according to the local environment (multi-directional) [2]. Unfortunately, the extension of the local environment to be considered is uniform for the whole image. Hence, the scale of the targets of interest must be known in advance. Secondly, image segmentation aggregates neighboring pixels to segments of arbitrary shape according to homogeneity criteria (multi-directional and quasi multi-scale) [3]. The introduction of sharp edges between neighboring pixels, though very practical for computation, is not justified from an image processing perspective because a higher image resolution is feigned than existent. Furthermore, it denies the existence of mixed pixels in the single look image which are unavoidable due to the limited resolution of SAR images [4]. And thirdly, alternative image representations deliver an optimal multi-directional and multi-scale image description [5]. Evaluating the difference between neighboring scales of the image their application is restricted to images showing additive characteristics, i.e. a normal distribution as commonly accepted for optical images or logarithmic SAR intensities [6]. Therefore, this contribution introduces the Schmittlets as first alternative image representation (multi-directional, multi-scale, and multi-shape) that is applicable to SAR intensities in linear scale. Accordingly, it can easily be utilized for SAR image enhancement and SAR image analysis as well. The Schmittlet index layer indicating the best-fitting Schmittlet out of a selection of 35 geometric primitives for each location in the image gives valuable texture or structure information which can be used for scene characterization or classification purposes.
Attaching Semantic Metadata to Cryptocurrency Transactions

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have provided a platform for parties to transfer digital value in a decentralised way. However, to support scalability, the amount of extra data that can be attached to a transaction is very limited, greatly limiting the possibility of attaching descriptive metadata to them with the same guarantees that the Blockchain In this paper we study the problem of attaching metadata in RDF to Bitcoin-style transactions, where extra data is limited to 83 bytes per transaction, linking the problem to the one of RDF-Compression. However, the motivating scenarios for RDF compression (IOT devices and Big Data Publish/Exchange) do not have the same requirements as ours, as memory is extremely limited, but the input data is small and there is no need for energy eﬃciency or providing a query interface. We evaluated the size reduction of 7 RDF compression algorithms on two small documents (4 and 10 triples), ﬁnding that only two of them on 4 triples and none on 10 triples were able to improve over a naive gzip compression. Our ﬁndings motivate the need of further research on adequate representations for this particular use case.
Performance monitoring of solar photovoltaic systems using reference cells

Performance monitoring of solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems is very essential for initial system evaluation, and continuous output optimization. Currently, PV system monitoring is complicated and expensive and limited to large scale grid connected solar PV plants. This paper surveys PV system monitoring methods and proposes a simple and economic method that can be used by stand alone PV power systems. The method uses reference cells to collect real time data and an electronic subsystem for processing. Experimental results show that reference cells power output correlate well with monitored module output and can be used for monitoring and optimization.
Caretaker’s Perceptions on Caretaker-Adolescent Communication on Sexual and Reproductive Health in Unguja-Zanzibar: Implication for Intervention

Caretaker-adolescent communication is an appealing source for influencing adolescents’ knowledge, attitudes and behavior, because caretakers are an accessible and often willing source of information for their children. With the realization of the importance of caretakers in influencing adolescent behaviours, it becomes interesting to explore their perceptions about caretaker-adolescent communication on Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH). An exploratory qualitative research design was conducted in all six districts of Unguja-Zanzibar. Twelve focus group discussions (FGDs) with caretakers who were purposively selected were conducted. Thematic analysis guided the interpretation of the data. The main themes that were identified are perceived the risk of adolescents; style, time and content of communication; barriers to parent-child communication on SRH; and helping our children pass through adolescence safely. The findings show that participants have acknowledged the apparent risky sexual behaviors of their adolescents, and that information on SRH should be offered to children before they reach puberty. Participants had the opinion that communication on SRH should be in the form of warning, threat and unidirectional. Topics such as teenage pregnancy, STIs and HIV, and drug and alcohol were proposed to be openly discussed. However, topics on condom and contraceptives use faced strong opposition. Lack of favorable time, caretakers’ limited knowledge and skills, myth on SRH communication, and being uncomfortable were among the caretaker-adolescent communication barriers identified by caretakers. The findings suggest that participants are keen to help their adolescents to avoid SRH problems, most importantly they emphasised on the need to empower caretakers by equipping them with knowledge of SRH, good communication skills and religious knowledge. Communal parenting on the other hand has been identified as the major weapon in shaping adolescents’ behaviour. This information provides insight in designing family-based intervention aiming at increasing communication about SRH between caretakers and adolescents.
Non-Audit Service and Auditor Independence: The Role of Auditor Incentive Structure

This paper investigates how the different incentives drive auditors' behavior. We examine whether economic dependence on clients impacts the propensity of the auditor to violate her independence in a setting where the auditor also has an incentive to prevent litigation and reputation loss. Since the Procomp scandal has led the litigation environment become severe as compared with past in Taiwan, we have opportunity to investigate how the incentive structure change affects auditor independence. The coefficient for non-audit fees ratio in two litigation environments (before and after Procomp event) has significant difference. Using non-audit fees to replace non-audit fees ratio to conduct regression analysis yields similar results. This finding is consistent with the notion that auditors make a trade-off between gaining service fees and avoiding litigation and reputation loss. Policy implications are also offered.
A foundation for spatial data warehouses on the Semantic Web

Large volumes of geospatial data are being published on the Semantic Web (SW), yielding a need for advanced analysis of such data. However, existing SW technologies only support advanced analytical concepts such as multidimensional (MD) data warehouses and Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) over non-spatial SW data. To remedy this need, this paper presents the QB4SOLAP vocabulary, which supports spatially enhanced MD data cubes over RDF data. The paper also deﬁnes a number of Spatial OLAP (SOLAP) operators over QB4SOLAP cubes and provides algorithms for generating spatially extended SPARQL queries from the SOLAP operators. The proposals are validated by applying them to a realistic use case.
Approximate MLFMA as an efficient preconditioner

In this work, we propose a preconditioner that approximates the dense system operator. For this purpose, we develop an approximate multilevel fast multipole algorithm (AMLFMA), which performs a much faster matrix-vector multiplication with some relative error compared to the original MLFMA. We use AMLFMA to solve a closely related system, which makes up the preconditioner. Then, this solution is embedded in the main solution that uses MLFMA. By taking into account the far-field elements wisely, this preconditioner proves to be much more effective compared to the near-field preconditioners.
Rough Noise-Filtered Easy Ensemble for Software Fault Prediction

Software fault prediction is the very important research topic for software quality assurance. Data-driven approaches provide robust mechanisms to deal with software fault prediction. However, the prediction performance of the model highly depends on the quality of the data set. Many software data sets suffer from the problem of class imbalance. In this regard, undersampling is a popular data pre-processing method in dealing with the class imbalance problem; easy ensemble presents a robust approach to achieve a high classification rate and address the biases toward majority class samples. However, imbalance class is not the only issue that harms the performance of classifiers. Some noisy data and irrelevant and redundant features may also reduce the performance of predictive accuracy of the classifier. In this paper, we propose two-stage data pre-processing, which incorporates feature selection and rough set-based K nearest neighbour rule (KNN) noise filter afore executing easy ensemble rough-KNN noise-filtered easy ensemble (RKEE). In the first stage, we eliminate the irrelevant and redundant features by the feature ranking algorithm, and in the second stage, we handle the imbalance class problem by using rough-KNN noise filter to eliminate noisy samples from both the minority and the majority class and also handle the uncertainty and the overlapping problem from both the minority and the majority class. Experimental evaluation on real-world software projects, such as NASA and Eclipse data set, is performed in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed approach. Furthermore, this paper comprehensively investigates the influencing factor in our approach, such as the impact of the rough set theory on noise-filter, the relationship between model performance and imbalance ratio, and so on. Comprehensive experiments indicate that the proposed approach shows outstanding performance with significance in terms of area-under-the-curve.
Characterization and control of self-oscillating contactless resonant converter with fixed voltage gain

To ensure reliable control under variable-load and variable-coupling-coefficient condition, a self-oscillating control method for contactless resonant converters is proposed and discussed. Base on the characterization of four basic compensation topologies, such as the voltage gain, transfer impedance, a simple and general self-oscillating control method for S/S, S/P and P/S topology is proposed. Theoretical and experimental results had shown that the proposed control strategy is capable to lock the switching frequency at load independent frequency. Besides the good regulation, the proposed control method can also realize high efficiency for minimal extra component introduced.
Depth generation method for 2D to 3D conversion

An efficient depth map generation method is presented for static scenes with moving objects. Firstly, static background scene is reconstructed. Depth map of the reconstructed static background scene is extracted by linear perspective. Then, moving objects are segmented precisely. Depth values are assigned to the segmented moving objects according to their positions in the static scene. Finally, the depth values of the static background scene and the moving objects are integrated into one depth map. Experimental results show that the proposed method can generate smooth and reliable depth maps.
CHAPTER 8 The Split-Attention Principle in Multimedia Learning

The split-attention principle states that when designing instruction, including multimedia instruction, it is important to avoid formats that require learners to split their attention between, and mentally integrate, multiple sources of information. Instead, materials should be formatted so that disparate sources of information are physically and temporally integrated thus obviating the need for learners to engage in mental integration. By eliminating the need to mentally integrate multiple sources of information, extraneous working memory load is reduced, freeing resources for learning. This chapter provides the theoretical rationale, based on cognitive load theory, for the split-attention principle, describes the major experiments that establish the validity of the principle, and indicates the instructional design implications when dealing with multimedia materials. Definition of Split-Attention Instructional split-attention occurs when learners are required to split their attention between and mentally integrate several sources of physically or temporally disparate information, where each source of information is essential for understanding the material. Cognitive load is increased by the need to mentally integrate the multiple sources of information. This increase in extraneous cognitive load (see chapter 2) is likely to have a negative impact on learning compared to conditions where the information has been restructured to eliminate the need to split attention. Restructuring occurs by physically or temporally integrating disparate sources of information to eliminate the need for mental integration. The split-attention effect occurs when learners studying integrated information outperform learners studying the same information
The epidemiology of herpes simplex virus type-2 infection among married women in Mysore, India.

Herpes simplex virus type-2 (HSV-2) is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases in the world. Although the prevalence of HSV-2 infection varies widely by country and population subgroup generally higher rates are found in developing countries where the prevalence in adults can reach 50%. Although data are sparse for India studies have shown HSV-2 seroprevalences among sexually transmitted diseases clinic attendees ranging from 43% to 83% and lower prevalences in population-based cross-sectional studies from 7.9% to 14.6%. There is growing evidence that HSV-2 infection in addition to being a significant source of morbidity is a risk factor for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) acquisition and transmission. One study showed a 3-fold increased risk for HIV infection among individuals with recent seroconversion to HSV-2.4 This raises the possibility that HSV-2 infection may be a key determinant of HIV incidence rates in populations and that HSV-2 detection and management of herpes infections may offer a prevention strategy for HIV. (excerpt)
Gross Worker Flows and Unemployment Dynamics in Japan

This paper studies worker flows dynamics in Japan for the period between 1980 and 2009. We construct gross worker flows data from the monthly Labour Force Survey. Our data enables us to examine the size and cyclical patterns of the flows and transition rates between the states of employment, unemployment, and not-in-the labor force. We find that the cyclical pattern of worker flows is similar to that found in other countries, while worker flows in Japan are generally smaller than those in the U.S. and European countries. We also decompose changes in unemployment into contributions due to changes in unemployment inflow and outflow rates. We find that both inflow and outflow rate play an important role to account for variation in the unemployment rate in Japan.
Distributed Signing Protocol for Tamper-Resistant Module

In this paper, we present a protocol for a ID-based signature scheme using a tamperresistant module that holds a private key for signing. This is a distributed-signature scheme, and a computation using a private key is executed on the tamper-resistant module (TRM), with the remaining computations performed on a host PC. The scheme is secure against both passive and active adversaries, even those that can corrupt the host PC. The computational complexity on the TRM is reduced to one multiplication, one addition, and one symmetric key decryption, and the transaction data size is small.