Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Experiment on the Generic Polycentricity of Urban Growth in a Cellular Automatic City

Post-Fordist urban growth is characterised by ever-increasing dispersal and polycentricity. The transformation of urban spatial structure has profound implications for sustainable development. There is now a substantial literature both on confirming the existence of polycentricity through equilibrium and evolutionary theories and on empirical identification of subcentres. However, more research is needed to explore the generically polycentric urban growth. A microscopic simulation approach is thus applied to study how stable subcentres, measured in terms of population density, can be established. In this study, an experiment carried out in an artificial cellular city is reported. One innovative feature of this simulation is that the state of the cellular automaton comprises a quantity variable (population density) as well as a binary state variable (selected or not selected). The two are interlinked through the evolution of the city. The experiment suggests that the combined forces of accumulative population density and local interactions can lead to the formation of stable subcentres. In such a regime, subcentres are first established through stochastic ‘errors’, for example, clusters of local developments. Thereafter the clusters continue to capture development opportunities through reinforced local interactions. With the evolution, however, disutilities, such as congestion, are accumulated from the concentration of local development. The growth of disutilities changes the relative attractiveness between formed (sub)centres and other areas. When significant disutilities are accumulated, another stochastic change may overturn the dominance of (sub)centres and drive developments to other locations. The subcentre formation is validated under the general discussion of ‘goodness of fit’ of possible urban automata, and population density surfaces are measured through various ‘signatures’.
SOME THINGS I TEND TO OVERLAP EVEN IF NOT NECESSARY. A DISCUSSION ON PIM ARTIFACTS BETWEEN RESEARCHER AND RESEARCH AGENT

The spread of mobile communications and IT artifacts in general, gives rise to a pervasive number of mobile working modalities, inducing transformations in social practices and organizational environments in a networked society. In order to design information systems we need to understand how information artifacts are used to get work done, and how these support work, inside and outside the organizations. By drawing on personal information management studies, information needs, and information-related myths, we built a qualitative study to uncover artifacts used to cross different information spaces, by different individuals, in different working contexts, over three years. The present case follows an approach built by researcher and research agent, across different information spaces, where we confronted the existing body of knowledge with empirical data collected. The first results show that permanent reconfigurations of working spaces beyond organizational boundaries are supported by deliberate mixes of information artifacts, that seem to be determined by familiarity with place, anticipation of needs, type of transportation used, distance and time covered, and access issues.
Analog CMOS realization of fuzzy logic membership functions

The design of a monolithic CMOS analog function synthesizer based on a current-mode algorithm and its application in fuzzy membership function synthesis is presented. The proposed circuits require only one reference current, independently of the course or the number of implemented functions. The networks are temperature and technology insensitive. Other features are a small chip area and a simple design process for any arbitrary functions. Matching considerations allow a prediction of the available approximation accuracy. Theoretical evaluations are validated by measurements of several membership functions fabricated in an experimental 1.0- mu m CMOS technology. >
Directed Fuzzing Based on Dynamic Taint Analysis for Binary Software

Traditional Fuzzing is simple and easy to deploy but inefficient due to different inputs usually execute the redundant path. In this paper, we put forward a binary-oriented Fuzzing technique based on input format analysis and dynamic taint analysis, which can detect vulnerability more efficient than traditional Fuzzing method. We implemented a prototype system called Smart and Directed Fuzz (SDFuzz), which first searches the locations where interested functions are called, then uses dynamic taint analysis technique to classify input data into safety-related data and safety-unrelated data, finally mutates safety-related data to direct the test procedure. The evaluation shows that our method can be used to detect vulnerabilities in binary software efficiently.
Open problems in CEM: Porting an explicit time-domain volume-integral-equation solver on GPUs with OpenACC

Graphics processing units (GPUs) are gradually becoming mainstream in high-performance computing, as their capabilities for enhancing performance of a large spectrum of scientific applications to many fold when compared to multi-core CPUs have been clearly identified and proven. In this paper, implementation and performance-tuning details for porting an explicit marching-on-in-time (MOT)-based time-domain volume-integral-equation (TDVIE) solver onto GPUs are described in detail. To this end, a high-level approach, utilizing the OpenACC directive-based parallel programming model, is used to minimize two often-faced challenges in GPU programming: developer productivity and code portability. The MOT-TDVIE solver code, originally developed for CPUs, is annotated with compiler directives to port it to GPUs in a fashion similar to how OpenMP targets multi-core CPUs. In contrast to CUDA and OpenCL, where significant modifications to CPU-based codes are required, this high-level approach therefore requires minimal changes to the codes. In this work, we make use of two available OpenACC compilers, CAPS and PGI. Our experience reveals that different annotations of the code are required for each of the compilers, due to different interpretations of the fairly new standard by the compiler developers. Both versions of the OpenACC accelerated code achieved significant performance improvements, with up to 30× speedup against the sequential CPU code using recent hardware technology. Moreover, we demonstrated that the GPU-accelerated fully explicit MOT-TDVIE solver leveraged energy-consumption gains of the order of 3× against its CPU counterpart.
‘Building an Adaptive Evaluation System: A Design Education Application’

AbstractThis paper relies on observation and analysis of a collaborative international digital design workshop to propose a situation-mapped neural network model functioning in a virtual environment. This model can be used to guide mutual validation and revision with the underlying design cognition model. We expect that the results of this work can lead to the establishment of a scoring mechanism that can “adapt” to the difficulty of assigned problems, and the mechanism can be used to assess students’ progress. The mechanism is based on the neural network’s calculation of the difference between the “output value” and the “desired value. ” Such a student progress-based assessment mechanism can encourage students to select relatively difficult design problems and thereby promote more design originality.
Preparation and physical properties of some deoxybenzoins and isoflavones

Die Hydroxylgruppen des durch Kondensation von Phloroglucin (I) mit p-Nitrophenylacetonitril erhaltlichen Desoxybenzoins (II) lassen sich nicht unter Aufrechterhaltung der offenkettigen Ketonstruktur verestern.Bei der Acetylierung erfolgt vielmehr Ringschlus zu den Isoflavonen (IIIa) oder (unter milderen Bedingungen) (IIIb) (Ausb. 20%) als Hauptprodukten.
Enriching content-based image retrieval with multilingual search terms

Summary Content-based visual image retrieval is a research domain with the goal to allow efficient access to the large amount of visual information that is being produced in medical institutions. Currently, visual retrieval is most often strictly separated from textual information extraction and retrieval in medical records. The complementary nature of the two methods by contrast invites to use the two together in an integrated fashion. We use a visual retrieval system (medGIFT) and a textual search engine powered with biomedical terminological resources (easyIR) together on a data set presented at the imageCLEF image retrieval competition. Both systems are available free of charge as open source. The dataset is also publicly available to make results reproducible and comparable. Results show that a simple combination of visual and textual features for retrieval improves performance significantly for fully automatic retrieval as well as for runs with manual relevance feedback. The currently applied techniques are fairly simple combinations and better results can be expected when optimizing the combined weighting based on learning data. Visual and textual features should be used together for information retrieval whenever they are both available to allow optimal access to varied data sources.
Phraseology and frequency of occurrence on the web: native speakers’ perceptions of Google-informed second language writing

Usage-based theories of language learning suggest that native speakers of a language are acutely aware of formulaic language due in large part to frequency effects. Corpora and data-driven learning can offer useful insights into frequent patterns of naturally occurring language to second/foreign language learners who, unlike native speakers, are not privy to a lifetime of input and fine-tuning. Recently, the use of the web in combination with the Google search engine as an accessible corpus and concordancer has received much attention. This article describes an experiment which tests the hypothesis that native speakers of English perceive learner-generated phrases to be more natural after learners have searched the phrases on Google and modified them in light of the frequency of search results. The findings indicate that native speakers perceive phrases that generated more results in Google searches to be more natural.
Laddering: technique and tool use in knowledge acquisition

Abstract Laddering is a structured questioning technique derived from the repertory grid technique, enabling a hierarchy of concepts to be established. Previous empirical studies have demonstrated its utility for knowledge elicitation in two classificatory domains. In this paper, three experimental studies of laddering are described. In experiment 1, the technique was used in another classificatory domain, metallic corrosion, and the effects of repeated exposure to the technique and feedback, in the form of Pseudo-English Production Rules, were investigated. These variables had no effect on the productivity of the technique. Experiment 2 compared the laddering technique with three other techniques in a medical diagnostic domain. As in previous studies laddering was found to be the most productive technique despite the change in the type of domain about which knowledge was elicited. In experiment 3, the preferences of subjects interviewed using two versions of the laddering technique, "textual" and "graphical", were compared with those obtained when the subjects were interviewed using a computerised laddering tool. Although the "gain" obtained in the three conditions varied, the group of subjects did not prefer one type of laddering to another. The laddering tool used in the experiment was designed as one tool in an integrated Knowledge Engineering Workbench (KEW). The potential for synergy between the laddering tool and other knowledge acquisition techniques implemented within KEW is explored. Guidance and advice concerning the appropriate context to employ laddering within the knowledge acquisition process is provided.
A special-purpose parallel system for predictable real-time systems

Parallel systems usually increase the complexity of evaluating the program execution time, so as to verify timing constraints into real-time environments. For this reason, the approach described in this paper is based on a massively parallel architecture using VLSI to implement in a fine-grain mode the data-flow paradigm. The system employs the static data-flow execution model that does not need to use a control token. A cluster of functional units has been simulated in order to validate the proposed architecture and the first results confirm that the overall behaviour is predictable. <<ETX>>
Concurrency exploitation in data-driven distributed systems

Studies the effect of the degree of task firing strictness (data availability) on the performance of a data-driven multiprocessing system. A prototype distributed system model, where inherent concurrency is exploited at the procedural level, is discussed. A set of behavioral programs has been simulated, and the speed-up versus the degree of task firing strictness (for different network delays) has been plotted. Simulation shows that, as the degree of strictness is relaxed, more concurrency is exploited in a computation, whence a better utilization of the distributed system resources is achieved. <<ETX>>
NEW, EASY AND EFFECTIVE METHOD TO TAKE DERMATOGLYPHIC PRINTS

Introduction: The most common method used to take dermatoglyphic prints is the ‘Ink method’. It has a few drawbacks because it is not subject friendly or user friendly. In spite of this alternative methods have been rarely described. We experimented with different methods and found an innovative, easy, effective and very economical method to obtain the dermatoglyphic prints by using a ‘Lip Stick’. Methodology: The lip Stick method was perfected and steps documented. A100 medical students were adequately trained and divided into smaller groups. They performed the ‘Dermatoglyphic Print’ obtaining and analysis process, by both the conventional ‘Ink method’ and by the new ‘Lip Stick’ method. They then evaluated both the procedures under headings of ease of procedure, clarity, ease of analysis and subject friendliness by questionere method. Results: The lipstick method was found to be more easy to perform (94%), better in clarity (63%), easier to analyze (55%) and very much subject friendly (100%) when compared to the ink method. Conclusion: This ‘Lip stick’ method is easy, subject friendly, user friendly and as efficient for analysis as the conventional method of printer’s ink, and very cheap compared to the other hi tech methods. We recommend that this method should be used preferably for dermatoglyphic studies.
Extending the vocabulary of a speaker independent recognition system

The authors discuss the extension and adaptation of a speaker-independent, small-vocabulary, isolated word recognition system based on tied density hidden Markov models. In the proposed approach, the density functions are trained from a basic set of words using acoustic segmentation, position-dependent segment labeling, and clustering of the segment specific densities. Then the parameters of the word models are estimated by means of a Viterbi update procedure. With a given set of densities the Viterbi update can also be used to generate models for words not included in the basic set. The dependency between the recognition performance and the amount of reference data both for speaker-independent and speaker-dependent experiments is examined in detail. The authors compare different algorithms to avoid zero probabilities in the word models due to insufficient data. <<ETX>>
Preparing Teachers to Design Instruction for Deep Understanding in Middle School Earth Science

This study compared the efficacy of 3 approaches to professional development in middle school Earth science organized around the principles of Understanding by Design (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998) in a sample of 53 teachers from a large urban district. Teachers were randomly assigned to a control group or to 1 of 3 conditions that varied with respect to the conceptions of ideal curriculum use embedded within. Teachers either designed units of instruction, adopted units developed by expert Earth scientists and Earth science educators, or learned principled ways to adapt expert-designed curricula. Relying on data from surveys and independent ratings of naturally occurring teacher assignments, we used hierarchical linear modeling techniques to analyze the impacts of the professional development on how teachers planned and coordinated instruction. Our results suggest that to realize positive effects on both their planning and coordination of instruction, teachers need access to high-quality curriculum materials and professional development that helps them plan for principled adaptation of those materials.
PopGenReport: simplifying basic population genetic analyses in R

Using scripting languages such as R to perform population genetic analyses can improve the reproducibility of research, but using R can be challenging for many researchers due to its steep learning curve. PopGenReport is a new R package that simplifies performing population genetics analyses in R, through the use of a new report‐generating function. The function popgenreport allows users to perform up to 13 pre‐defined and 1 user‐defined analyses through the use of a single command line. Each analysis generates figures and tables that are incorporated into a pdf report and are also made available as individual files (figures are provided in multiple formats, table contents are provided as csv files). The package includes new R functions that simplify the importation of data from a spreadsheet file, examine allele distributions across populations and loci and identify private alleles, determine pairwise individual genetic distances using the methods of Smouse and Peakall ( ) and Kosman and Leonard ( ), respectively, detect the presence of null alleles, calculate allelic richness, and test for spatial autocorrelation in genotypes using the methods of Smouse and Peakall ( ). The package has a modular structure that makes the process of adding new functionality straightforward. To facilitate the addition of user‐designed functions, the package includes a fully customizable module that can be automatically included in the pdf report. To support users not experienced in R, the website (www.popgenreport.org) has a tutorial for the package and a downloadable, portable version of the package with LaTeX pre‐configured for the Windows operating system.
On the delusiveness of adopting a common space for modeling IR objects: are queries documents?

Many authors, who adopt the vector space model, take the view that documents, terms, queries, etc., are all elements within the same (conceptual) space. This view seems to be a natural one, given that documents and queries have the same vector notation. We show, however, that the structure of the query space can be very different from that of the document space. To this end, concepts like preference, similarity, term independence, and linearity, both in the document space and in the query space, are discussed. Our conclusion is that a more realistic and complete view of IR is obtained if we do not consider documents and queries to be elements of the same space. This conclusion implies that certain restrictions usually applied in the design of an IR system are obviated. For example, the retrieval function need not be restricted to the ones that have the possibility to be interpreted as a similarity measure. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
A WS-inspection based decentralized service discovery service in OGSA

Grid service discovery (GSD) is an important part of the newly proposed OGSA (open grid services architecture). This paper describes the implementation of a specific GSD service which is realized as an extended part of the OGSI technology preview. OGSI (open grid services infrastructure) has implemented the fundamental interfaces of OGSA. It provides a container registry service for the query in grid services. However, this service does not provide full flexibility for GSD, since it only supports querying among services registered to the local service container. The implemented GSD service is a decentralized one and is based on WS-inspection. It is designed as a high-level service, which is based upon the container registry service, provided in OGSI, so that direct access towards low-level data structure is avoided. The implementation details will be discussed in this paper, including the whole GSD mechanism and some more specific discovery methods used. Some furthering issues on the GSD implementation will also be discussed in this paper. Analysis on parallel and sequential searching algorithms will be given in a separate section, based on an ideal k-way tree model of the grid topology. Other possible improvements of the GSD service will be discussed as well, for example, a better use of the WSIL to extend the flexibility of the GSD service.
Developing and evaluating a web-based collocation retrieval tool for EFL students and teachers

The development of adequate collocational knowledge is important for foreign language learners; nonetheless, learners often have difficulties in producing proper collocations in the target language. Among the various ways of learning collocations, the DDL (data-driven learning) approach encourages independent learning of collocations and allows learners to directly use corpora and tools to search for proper collocations. Concordancers have been one of the key tools in the DDL approach. However, based on the findings of empirical studies, many existing web concordancers have not been very helpful in retrieving collocations. To help EFL students and teachers quickly locate proper collocates, this article introduces a web-based collocation retrieval tool, WebCollocate, which is based on a large part of speech-tagged Gutenberg corpus. To determine if the new tool can facilitate the searching of collocations, this tool and the Hong Kong Polytechnic web concordancer were used by two groups of college EFL students to find proper collocates in a translation task. The results showed that the students who used the WebCollocate tool found more proper English collocates. In addition, a group of 35 pre-service English teachers were also invited to evaluate the effectiveness of this collocation tool. These EFL teachers indicated that they could easily find proper English collocates with the help of WebCollocate. However, they also suggested that the search options and the presentation of search outcomes of this tool can be further improved. It seems that a more dedicated collocation retrieval tool can facilitate collocation teaching and learning, but the functions of this tool can be further enhanced. The findings of this study can be useful for language teachers, researchers, and developers of corpus-based tools.
Bringing "No Ceiling" to Scratch: Can One Language Serve Kids and Computer Scientists?

Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu) is a computer programming language for children, with a graphical drag-and-drop user interface. It is a descendent of Logo, developed at the MIT Media Lab. A small but growing trend among universities is to develop computer science courses for non-majors using Scratch as the programming environment, because it isn’t threatening―the same reason it works for kids. Also, the visible use of multiple threads in Scratch provide a simple introduction to parallelism. One such course was piloted this year at the University of California, Berkeley: “The Beauty and Joy of Computing. ”