Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage

Leon Theremin led a life of flamboyant musical invention laced with daring electronic stealth. A creative genius and prolific inventor, Theremin launched the field of electronic music virtually singlehandedly in 1920 with the musical instrument that bears his name. The theremin - the only instrument that is played without being touched - created a sensation worldwide and paved the way for the modern synthesizer. Its otherworldly sound became familiar in sci-fi films and even in rock music. This magical instrument that charmed millions, however, is only the beginning of the story. As a Soviet scientist, Theremin surrendered his life and work to the service of State espionage. On assignment in Depression-era America, he became the toast of New York society and worked the engines of capitalist commerce while passing data on U.S. industrial technology to the Soviet apparat.Following his sudden disappearance from New York in 1938, Theremin was exiled to a Siberian labor camp and subsequently vanished into the top-secret Soviet intelligence machine, presumed dead for nearly thirty years. Using the same technology that lay behind the theremin, he designed bugging devices that eavesdropped on U.S. diplomatic offices and stood at the center of a pivotal cold war confrontation. Throughout his life, Theremin developed many other electronic wonders, including one of the earliest televisions and multimedia devices that anticipated performance art and virtual reality by decades.In this first full biography of Leon Theremin, Albert Glinsky depicts the inventor's nearly one hundred-year life span as a microcosm of the twentieth century. Theremin is seen at the epicenter of most of the major events of the century: the Russian Revolution, two world wars, America's Great Depression, Stalin's purges, the cold war, and perestroika. His life emerges as no less than a metaphor for the divergence of communism and capitalism. Theremin blends the whimsical and the treacherous into a chronicle that takes in everything from the KGB to Macy's store windows, Alcatraz to the Beach Boys, Hollywood thrillers to the United Nations, Joseph Stalin to Shirley Temple. Theremin's world of espionage and invention is an amazing drama of hidden loyalties, mixed motivations, and an irrepressibly creative spirit.
SIoTFog: Byzantine-resilient IoT fog networking

The current boom in the Internet of Things (IoT) is changing daily life in many ways, from wearable devices to connected vehicles and smart cities. We used to regard fog computing as an extension of cloud computing, but it is now becoming an ideal solution to transmit and process large-scale geo-distributed big data. We propose a Byzantine fault-tolerant networking method and two resource allocation strategies for IoT fog computing. We aim to build a secure fog network, called “SIoTFog,” to tolerate the Byzantine faults and improve the efficiency of transmitting and processing IoT big data. We consider two cases, with a single Byzantine fault and with multiple faults, to compare the performances when facing different degrees of risk. We choose latency, number of forwarding hops in the transmission, and device use rates as the metrics. The simulation results show that our methods help achieve an efficient and reliable fog network.
Preparing to Stop Action Increases Beta Band Power in Contralateral Sensorimotor Cortex

How do we prepare to stop ourselves in the future? Here, we used scalp EEG to test the hypothesis that people prepare to stop by putting parts of their motor system (specifically, here, sensorimotor cortex) into a suppressed state ahead of time. On each trial, participants were cued to prepare to stop one hand and then initiated a bimanual movement. On a minority of trials, participants were instructed to stop the cued hand while continuing quickly with the other. We used a guided multivariate source separation method to examine oscillatory power changes in presumed sensorimotor cortical areas. We observed that, when people prepare to stop a hand, there were above-baseline beta band power increases (12–24 Hz) in contralateral cortex up to a second earlier. This increase in beta band power in the proactive period was functionally relevant because it predicted, trial by trial, the degree of selectivity with which participants subsequently stopped a response but did not relate to movement per se. Thus, preparing to stop particular response channels corresponds to increased beta power from contralateral (sensorimotor) cortex, and this relates specifically to subsequent stopping. These results provide a high temporal resolution and frequency-specific electrophysiological signature of the preparing-to-stop state that is pertinent to future studies of mitigating provocation, including in clinical disorders. The results also highlight the utility of guided multivariate source separation for revealing the cortical dynamics underlying both movement and response suppression.
Weighing Diverse Theoretical Models on Turkish Maqam Music Against Pitch Measurements: A Comparison of Peaks Automatically Derived from Frequency Histograms with Proposed Scale Tones

Abstract Since the early 20th century, various theories have been advanced in order to mathematically explain and notate modes of Traditional Turkish music known as maqams. In this article, maqam scales according to various theoretical models based on different tunings are compared with pitch measurements obtained from select recordings of master Turkish performers in order to study their level of match with analysed data. Chosen recordings are subjected to a fully computerized sequence of signal processing algorithms for the automatic determination of the set of relative pitches for each maqam scale: f0 estimation, histogram computation, tonic detection + histogram alignment, and peak picking. For nine well-recognized maqams, automatically derived relative pitches are compared with scale tones defined by theoretical models using quantitative distance measures. We analyse and interpret histogram peaks based on these measures to find the theoretical models most conforming with all the recordings, and hence, with the quotidian performance trends influenced by them.
Spacing and Displacing as Artistic Enquiry

This chapter presents a philosophical journey and practical piece of experimentation on spatiality, virtuality and displacement. A series of art practices using photography, installation and art writing form the trajectory for a sequence of conceptual maps. The discussion engages with spacing and displacing as an artistic enquiry on space. The chapter consists of an examination of the typology and meaning of displacement in its translation from Korean, and a discussion of the formation of a gendered and artistically constructed displacement by extending the scope of the theory to the displacement of women in a colonial situation. This chapter explores the way in which displaced women (in the very particular case of Korean “comfort women” during the colonial war with Japan, and through the case of the artist, Hyeseok Na) cannot belong in either their home or a foreign land. Virtual-ness, here, is approached with an artistic understanding, and is found to constitute an unreal living space rather than merely a virtual environment through technology.
Sécurisation de l'Internet des objets

L'Internet des Objets ou en anglais the Internet of Things (IoT) represente aujourd'hui une partie majeure de notre vie quotidienne. Des milliards d'objets intelligents et autonomes, a travers le monde sont connectes et communiquent entre eux. Ce paradigme revolutionnaire cree une nouvelle dimension qui enleveles frontieres entre le monde reel et le monde virtuel. Son succes est du a l’evolution des equipements materiels et des technologies de communication notamment sans fil. L’IoT est le fruit du developpement et de la combinaison de differentes technologies. Il englobe presque tous les domaines de la technologie d’information (Information Technology (IT)) actuels.Les reseaux de capteurs sans fil representent une piece maitresse du succes de l'IoT. Car en utilisant des petits objets qui sont generalement limites en terme de capacite de calcul, de memorisation et en energie, des environnements industriels, medicaux, agricoles, et autres peuvent etre couverts et geres automatiquement.La grande puissance de l’IoT repose sur le fait que ses objets communiquent, analysent, traitent et gerent des donnees d’une maniere autonome et sans aucune intervention humaine. Cependant, les problemes lies a la securite freinent considerablement l’evolution et le deploiement rapide de cette haute echnologie. L'usurpation d’identite, le vols d’information et la modification des donnees representent un vrai danger pour ce systeme des systemes.Le sujet de ma these consiste en la creation d'un systeme de securite permettant d’assurer les services d’authentification des objets connectes, d’integrite des donnees echangees entres ces derniers et de confidentialite des informations. Cette approche doit prendre en consideration les contraintes des objets et des technologies de communication utilisees.
Facebook as a site of information: A study in the Indian context

With the increasing advent of social media in perpetrating changes in social and political issues, world leaders also find it necessary to be part of a social media platform to communicate with their electorates. There is a lot of information on current affairs, world news, and political propaganda movements on social networking sites (SNS). This study aims to understand how personality traits and online sociability impacts the use of Facebook as a Site of information. This is one of the first studies focusing on this aspect of Facebook in the context of an Indian social networking population. The results indicate that online sociability, gender, conscientiousness, neuroticism and frequency of Facebook usage significantly impacts the usage of Facebook as a site of information. The parameter estimates of online sociability, conscientiousness, neuroticism and frequency of Facebook usage were all found to be positive indicating that the more a person embodied these characteristics/habits, the more likely he is to use Facebook for sharing links on current affairs and thereby as a site of information.
Discontinuation Decision in Assisted Reproductive Techniques

Background: In vitro fertilization (IVF) and intra cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) are recognized as established and increasingly successful forms of treatment for infertility, yet significant numbers of couples discontinue treatment without achieving a live birth. This study aims to identify major factors that influence the decision to discontinue IVF/ICSI treatments. Materials and Methods: We studied the data of 338 couples who discontinued their infertility treatments after three cycles; based on medical records and phone contact. The main measure was the reason for stopping their treatments. Results: Economical problems were cited by 212 couples (62.7%), as their mean income was significantly less than other couples (p<0.0001). Lack of success was reported as a reason by 229 (67.8%), from whom 165 (72%) also had economical problems. Achieving independent- ART pregnancy was the reason for discontinuation in 20 (5.9%) couples. Psychological stress, depression and anxiety were reported as other cessation factors by 169 (50%), 148 (43.8%) and 182 (53.8%) couples, respectively. Conclusion: This survey suggests that the most common reasons for assisted reproductive technique (ART) discontinuation after three cycles are: prior unsuccessful cycles, economical and psychological problems. Therefore, the substantial proportion of couples could benefit from psychological intervention, increasing awareness of ART outcomes and health funding to cope more adequately with failed treatments.
Using WordNet to Build Lexical Sets for Italian Verbs

We present a methodology for building lexical sets for argument slots of Italian verbs. We start from an inventory of semantically typed Italian verb frames and through a mapping to WordNet we automatically annotate the sets of fillers for the argument positions in a corpus of sentences. We evaluate both a baseline algorithm and a syntax driven algorithm and show that the latter performs significantly better in terms of precision.
A conceptual model and evaluation process for educational technology learning resources: a legal case study

The University of Southern Queensland (USQ), Australia, has more than 25 years experience in distributed education. More recently, USQ has embraced information and communication technologies to delivery learning resources in a more integrated and interactive environment to on‐campus and external students. To understand the complex reactions of students to this new learning environment, a comprehensive conceptual model was developed to explain students’ beliefs, attitudes and intentions towards using technology‐based learning resources based on a legal case study, the Law CD. A detailed evaluation process provides direction for future research and will deliver valuable information to assist in the redesign and development of educational technologies. Un modèle conceptionnel et un procès d’évaluation pour les ressources de formation technologique: Une étude de cas légale L’Université de Southern Queensland (USQ) en Australie a plus de vingt‐cinq ans d’expérience d’études par correspondance. Récemment, l’USQ a inclut les technologies d’information et de communication afin de diffuser les ressources de formation aux étudiants externes et du campus dans des environnements plus intégrés et interactifs. Afin de comprendre les réactions complexes des étudiants à ce nouvel environnement de formation, un modèle conceptionnel global a été développé pour expliquer les opinions des étudiants, leurs attitudes et intentions envers l’utilisation de ressources de formation technologiques dans une étude de cas légale, le « Law CD ». Un procès d’évaluation détaillé démontre la direction à prendre pour la future recherche et diffuse des informations exploitables de remaniement et de développement de la formation technologique. Ein Konzeptionsmodell und Bewertungsprozess für bildungstechnologische Lernressourcen: Eine offizielle Fallstudie Die Southern Queensland Universität (USQ) in Australien besitzt eine mehr als 25‐jährige Erfahrung im Bereich Fernstudium. Gegenwärtig hat sich die USQ Informations‐ und Kommunikationstechnologien angeeignet, um Lernressourcen in einer integrierteren und interaktiveren Umgebung an externe und Hochschulstudenten weiterzugeben. Um die komplexen Reaktionen der Studenten auf dieses neue Lernumfeld zu verstehen, wurde ein umfassendes Konzeptionsmodell entwickelt, welches die Ansichten, Einstellungen und Absichten der Studenten gegenüber der Verwendung von technologie‐basierten Lernressourcen in einer offiziellen Fallstudie, der "Law‐CD”, beschreibt. Ein detaillierter Bewertungsprozess gibt die Richtung für die zukünftige Forschung an und liefert verwertbare Informationen, um Bildungstechnologien zu überarbeiten und weiterzuentwickeln.
Physical Education as a Subject in France (School Curriculum, Policies and Discourse): The Body and the Metaphors of the Engine--Elements Used in the Analysis of a Power and Control System during the Second Industrial Revolution

An analysis of several works by people who contributed greatly to the development of physical education in France from the middle of the nineteenth century to the 1960s enables us to pinpoint the rules underlying the specialized language used in this field and the metaphorical and mythological systems that were set up as systems of control over the body. Among these images, it is particularly interesting to examine how 'man' came to be seen in terms of a steam engine, then as a machine, and even more generally as a humanized form of 'productivity'.
Comparative Analysis of Flooding and Jamming Attacks in Wireless Sensor Networks

In the development of the computer networks Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) plays an important role. In recent time, there are many out-of-doors applications like medical and military examination in which wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been generally used. Therefore it is important to give surety up to the required level of security. Due to some weaknesses like limited processing capability, memory, and because of the broadcast transmission medium Wireless Sensor Networks are mostly susceptible to Denial of Service attacks like jamming and flooding. Since sensor nodes are very resource controlled so security is one of the primary issues in sensor networks. In this paper, we have done comparative analysis of flooding and jamming attack in wireless sensor networks using NS2 simulator. In analysis we found that jamming attacks are harder to detect as compared to flooding attacks because jamming attacks targets or jams a particular region or area.
Constitution d'un corpus de traduction de la parole : augmentation du corpus LibriSpeech

Il existe des corpus paralleles en grande quantite tels que Europarl, OpenSubtitles, etc. pour les systemes de traduction automatique. Toutefois, dans le domaine de la traduction automatique de la parole, le nombre de corpus disponibles est tres restreint. Dans ce memoire de recherche, nous nous sommes interesses a la constitution d’un corpus reel de grande taille (236h) pour les systemes de traduction automatique de la parole a partir du corpus LibriSpeech. Tout d'abord, nous avons recupere les livres electroniques francais correspondant aux livres audios presents dans LibriSpeech en anglais. Ensuite, apres avoir aligne les œuvres en francais avec les œuvres en anglais correspondantes, nous avons egalement aligne les segments de paroles des livres audio avec les livres electroniques en anglais, au niveau de la phrase (utterance). Ceci nous a permis d’obtenir l’alignement des segments de parole avec la traduction du texte original en francais. Finalement, nous avons evalue manuellement 200 alignements et avons ajoute des scores de correspondance entre les transcriptions et les traductions pour trier le corpus en fonction de ces scores.
Konduit VQB: a Visual Query Builder for SPARQL on the Social Semantic Desktop

With the adoption of Nepomuk as an organic part of KDE the semantic desktop became a reality to a great number of users and is employed by a growing number of applications. Thus, the amount of semantic data is constantly growing on the desktop. Therefore users need a way to access this data outside of the limiting use cases of the applications employing Nepomuk-KDE. We aim to assist users in building queries and running them to make use of RDF data that would otherwise be partially or completely hidden. In this paper, as an initial iteration of our efforts, we present four approaches to building SPARQL queries visually, based on two different categorizations: schema-based vs. instance-based and SELECT vs. CONSTRUCT queries. We present the used interfaces, visual languages and query generation methods associated to each of approaches as well as the autocompletion techniques for the instancebased query builders.
Análisis del comportamiento histórico de balsas de tierra en la provincia de alicante. Criterios de diseño

Las balsas de tierra para riego impermeabilizadas con geomembranas presentan un excelente comportamiento, que unido a su bajo coste, se ha traducido en una fuerte expansion en los ultimos anos, concentrandose fundamentalmente en el Sureste espanol en general, y en la provincia de Alicante en particular, convirtiendose en un eje fundamental en torno al cual gira la consolidacion y modernizacion de los regadios existentes. La concepcion de este tipo de obras, desde sus inicios, hace unos treinta anos hasta la actualidad ha sufrido un proceso de evolucion logica en cuanto a las siguientes caracteristicas: * Tecnicas constructivas. * Aumento de la Capacidad. * Nuevos materiales geosinteticos. * Incorporacion de nuevos elementos hidraulicos, etc. En la presente tesis, se analizan los siguientes aspectos: 1,- Establecimiento de una metodologia, basada en fotografia aerea y un posterior tratamiento estadistico para establecer un censo de balsas en una determinada area geografica, obteniendose ademas la capacidad conjunta de todas ellas y la superficie de geomembranas instaladas, aplicandose en concreto a la provincia de Alicante. 2,- Analisis del comportamiento de las distintas unidades de obras que componen las balsas de tierra, extrayendose conclusiones que permitan establecer criterios de diseno en el proyecto y construccion de las obras futuras. 3,- Establecimiento de una lineas generales en cuanto a su explotacion, mantenimiento, etc.
An analysis of disk performance in VMware ESX server virtual machines

VMware ESX Server is a software platform that efficiently multiplexes the hardware resources of a server among virtual machines. This paper studies the performance of a key component of the ESX Server architecture: its storage subsystem. We characterize the performance of native systems and virtual machines using a series of disk microbenchmarks on several different storage systems. We show that the virtual machines perform well compared to native, and that the I/O behavior of virtual machines closely matches that of the native server. We then discuss how the microbenchmarks can be used to estimate virtual machine performance for disk-intensive applications by studying two workloads: a simple file server and a commercial mail server.
A robust integral type backstepping controller design for control of uncertain nonlinear systems subject to disturbance

This paper considers the design of a robust controller for a class of nonlinear systems subject to both model uncertainties and unknown external disturbances. Using the concept of both backstepping design and sliding mode control theory, an integral type control algorithm is presented. The proposed controller not only stabilizes nonlinear systems in the presence of mismatched uncertainties, eliminates/reconstructs exogenous disturbances, but also provides smooth control effort. As a result, the developed method is adequate for practical implementation. A criterion of control gains setting for achieving closed-loop stability and disturbance rejection is addressed. Control system design for an unstable nonlinear system is used to illustrate the applicability of the proposed approach and experimental study is also provided to demonstrate the disturbance rejection/reconstruction capability.
Evaluation of Staff Personnel Administration in Universities in North Central Nigeria, 2007-2012.

This study was designed to evaluate staff personnel administration in Universities in North Central Nigeria, with a view to finding out the extent to which the guidelines on staff personnel administration are adhered to. The instruments used included; Staff Personnel Administration Questionnaire (SPAQ), oral interview and examination of documents. The SPAQ was used to collect relevant data from 358 university officers sampled from 6 out of 15 of the universities in the region. Standard deviation and means were used to answer the research questions while analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Scheffe test were used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed among others that to a large extent, universities adhered to the approved guidelines in staff recruitment and to a low extent in orientation practices. This situation cut across Federal, State and Private universities. Some of the implications of the study are that the universities should not be blamed for any unrest or job dissatisfaction since they complied with the regulations governing staff personnel administration. Some recommendations were made to the effect that Universities should produce and make guidelines available to all staff, and incorporate orientation practices in the guidelines. It was also recommended that universities should ensure a balance growth through the training of their administrative staff.