Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Impact of chat layout on usability in customer service chat multitasking

Over the last few years, chat has become an important channel in customer service. The demand for chat as a customer service channel is constantly growing, as more and more customers require real time help during their visits on companies’ websites. This demand highlights the importance of chat agents’ ability to handle multiple simultaneous chats at a time. However, it has been proven by numerous studies, that multitasking has decreasing effects on performance. On the other hand, studies have shown that those effects can be decreased with different user interface design decisions. This thesis studies how user interface layout of a customer service chat system affects usability in chat multitasking. The research problem is addressed by conducting an experiment, where two popular customer service chat layouts are compared: In the first, windowed layout, all simultaneous chat windows are shown for the user at a time. In the second, tabbed layout, only one conversation is shown for the user at a time. In addition, differences between having either three or four simultaneous chats are investigated. The results indicate that the windowed layout was faster in terms of efficiency, when first response time was measured. Other aspects of efficiency, measured as question response time and chat duration, did not differ between the layouts. However, when the chat amount was increased from three to four, it was found that the stress level increased considerably in the windowed layout. All aspects of efficiency decreased in both layouts when the amount of simultaneous chats was increased from three to four. However, increasing the chat amount did not affect any other satisfaction measures than the perceived stress level. Because the response time for actual questions or preference between the layouts did not differ, both layouts can be suggested to be used in chat agent user interface. Slightly better choice would be the windowed layout, if first responses are wanted to be fast. However, the amount of visible chat windows should be considered carefully, to avoid increase in stress levels.
Expression of p-lactamases in Yersinia enterocolitica strains of biovars 2 , 4 and 5

Characteristic patterns of susceptibility to p-lactam antibiotics are associated with different biovars of Yersinia enterucditica. To elucidate the basis for these differences, the P-lactamases of strains of Y: enterocditica biovars 4 (n = 63), 2 (n = 12) and 5 (n = 10) were characterised. PCR fragments were generated from the P-lactamase A (bZaA) and B (bZaB) genes; in addition, P-lactamase induction tests were performed with imipenem as the inducer and P-lactamase inhibition assays were undertaken with aztreonam and clavulanic acid. All the strains yielded PCR amplification fragments with primers to bZaA and bZaB. Biovar 4 strains had uniform patterns of P-lactamase induction and inhibition: uninduced biovar 4 strains predominantly expressed BlaA, but low-level expression of BlaB was also detected; after induction, biovar 4 strains predominantly produced BlaB. P-Lactamase expression varied between and within biovars 2 and 5: uninduced strains predominantly expressed either BlaA or BlaB, or exclusively BlaB; after induction BlaB was predominantly or exclusively expressed. Both the basal and induced levels of P-lactamase varied within biovars 2 and 5. Some biovar 5 strains were not inducible; these predominantly produced BlaA. The results of this study show that biovar 2, 4 and 5 strains contain both bZaA and bZaB, but that the expression of the enzymes is regulated differently between the biovars, and varies within biovars 2 and 5. There was some correlation between antibiogram and the clusters defined from the p-lactamase induction and inhibition tests, but it was not possible to predict P-lactamase expression profiles from MIC data.
’ s repository of research publications and other research outputs Specifying and detecting meaningful changes inprograms Conference or Workshop Item

Software developers are often interested in particular changes in programs that are relevant to their current tasks: not all changes to evolving software are equally important. However, most existing differencing tools, such as diff, notify developers of more changes than they wish to see. In this paper, we propose a technique to specify and automatically detect only those changes in programs deemed meaningful, or relevant, to a particular development task. Using four elementary annotations on the grammar of any programming language, namely Ignore, Order, Prefer and Scope, developers can specify, with limited effort, the type of change they wish to detect. Our algorithms use these annotations to transform the input programs into a normalised form, and to remove clones across different normalised programs in order to detect non-trivial and relevant differences. We evaluate our tool on a benchmark of programs to demonstrate its improved precision compared to other differencing approaches.
Geometric processing workflow for vertical and oblique hyperspectral frame images collected using UAV

Remote sensing based on unmanned airborne vehicles (UAVs) is a rapidly developing field of technology. UAVs enable accurate, flexible, low-cost and multiangular measurements of 3D geometric, radiometric, and temporal properties of land and vegetation using various sensors. In this paper we present a geometric processing chain for multiangular measurement system that is designed for measuring object directional reflectance characteristics in a wavelength range of 400–900 nm. The technique is based on a novel, lightweight spectral camera designed for UAV use. The multiangular measurement is conducted by collecting vertical and oblique area-format spectral images. End products of the geometric processing are image exterior orientations, 3D point clouds and digital surface models (DSM). This data is needed for the radiometric processing chain that produces reflectance image mosaics and multiangular bidirectional reflectance factor (BRF) observations. The geometric processing workflow consists of the following three steps: (1) determining approximate image orientations using Visual Structure from Motion (VisualSFM) software, (2) calculating improved orientations and sensor calibration using a method based on self-calibrating bundle block adjustment (standard photogrammetric software) (this step is optional), and finally (3) creating dense 3D point clouds and DSMs using Photogrammetric Surface Reconstruction from Imagery (SURE) software that is based on semi-global-matching algorithm and it is capable of providing a point density corresponding to the pixel size of the image. We have tested the geometric processing workflow over various targets, including test fields, agricultural fields, lakes and complex 3D structures like forests.
Chromatographic fingerprint analysis of Leaf extracts of Vitex leucoxylon Linn by HPTLC technique

To develop the finger print of medicinally and economically important leaves of Vitex leucoxylon Linn. Chromatographic techniques were used for separation of components from various extracts of dried leaves of Vitex leucoxylon Linn. in different solvents such as Petroleum ether, Benzene and Ethyl acetate. CAMAG HPTLC system equipped with Linomat V applicator, TLC Scanner 3, Reprostar 3 and WIN CATS -4 software were used. HPTLC finger printing of Petroleum ether extract of leaf revealed 8 peaks under 254 nm with Rf values in the range of -0.02 to 0.86 and 5 peaks under 366 nm with Rf values in the range of -0.02 to 0.86; Benzene extract of leaf revealed 10 peaks under 254 nm with Rf values in the range of -0.03 to 1.10 and 8 peaks under 366 nm with Rf values in the range of 0.03 to 0.93; Ethyl acetate extract of leaf revealed 9 peaks under 254 nm with Rf values in the range of -0.03 to 0.91 and 8 peaks under 366 nm with Rf values in the range of -0.03 to 0.79. It can be concluded that HPTLC finger printing analysis of leaf extracts of Vitex leucoxylon can be used as a diagnostic tool for the correct identification of the plant and it is useful as a phytochemical marker and also a good estimator of genetic variability in plant populations.
Anisotropic-Exchange Magnets on a Triangular Lattice: Spin Waves, Accidental Degeneracies, and Dual Spin Liquids

We present an extensive overview of the phase diagram, spin-wave excitations, and finite-temperature transitions of the anisotropic-exchange magnets on an ideal nearest-neighbor triangular lattice. We investigate transitions between five principal classical phases of the corresponding model: ferromagnetic, N\'{e}el, its dual, and the two stripe phases. Transitions are identified by the spin-wave instabilities and by the Luttinger-Tisza approach. Some of the transitions are direct and others occur via intermediate phases with more complicated forms of ordering. In a portion of the N\'{e}el phase, we find spin-wave instabilities to a long-range spiral-like state. In the stripe phases, quantum fluctuations are mostly negligible, leaving the ordered moment nearly saturated even for the $S=1/2$ case. However, for a two-dimensional surface of the full 3D parameter space, the spin-wave spectrum in one of the stripe phases exhibits an enigmatic accidental degeneracy manifested by pseudo-Goldstone modes. As a result, despite the nearly classical ground state, the ordering transition temperature in a wide region of the phase diagram is significantly suppressed from the mean-field expectation. We identify this accidental degeneracy as due to an exact correspondence to an extended Kitaev-Heisenberg model with emergent symmetries that naturally lead to the pseudo-Goldstone modes. There are previously studied dualities within the Kitaev-Heisenberg model on the triangular lattice that are exposed here in a wider parameter space. One important implication of this correspondence for the $S=1/2$ case is the existence of a region of the spin-liquid phase that is dual to the spin-liquid phase discovered recently by us. We complement our studies by the density-matrix renormalization group of the $S=1/2$ model to confirm some of the duality relations and to verify the existence of the dual spin-liquid phase.
Rock unit discrimination on Landsat TM, SIR-C and Radarsat images using spectral and textural information

The paper presents results for spectral and textural analysis of the rock units in Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) images, dual-band (L and C) and dual-polarization (HH and HV) Shuttle Imaging Radar (SIR)-C images, and C-band HH polarization Standard Beam 4 and Extended High Incidence Beam 3 Radarsat images from a study area between California and Arizona, USA. Fractal dimension, lacunarity and grey-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) textural feature images were created from the SIR-C and Radarsat images. Fractal dimensions were calculated using a differential box counting method and lacunarity measures were obtained using a new grey-scale lacunarity estimation method for 36 sample images extracted from the SIR-C and Radarsat images. The fractal dimension and lacunarity curves and class signature separability analysis show that, for rock unit discrimination using image textural features in the study area, the SIR-C L-HH image is more suitable than other SIR-C images and Radarsat images, and that co-polarization (HH) generally provides more textural information than cross-polarization (HV) in the study area. The study also shows that lacunarity measures can reveal the scaling properties of radar image textures for rock units. The combination of spectral information from Landsat TM images and textural information from radar images improves the image classification accuracy of rock units in the study area.
Figure 5 : Side ‐ Emitting Optical Fibers with leakage due to micro ‐ perforations

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is considered to be a promising method for treating various types of cancer. A homogeneous and reproducible illumination during clinical PDT plays a determinant role in preventing under‐ or overtreatment. The development of flexible light sources would considerably improve the homogeneity of light delivery. The integration of optical fiber into flexible structures could offer an interesting alternative. This paper aims to describe different methods proposed to develop Side Emitting Optical Fibers (SEOF), and how these SEOF can be integrated in a flexible structure to improve light illumination of the skin during PDT. Four main techniques can be described: i) light blanket integrating side‐ glowing optical fibers, ii) light emitting panel composed of SEOF obtained by micro‐ perforations of the cladding, iii) embroidery‐based light emitting fabric and iv) woven‐based light emitting fabric. Woven‐based light emitting fabrics give the best performances: higher fluence rate, best homogeneity of light delivery, good flexibility.
Estimating Driver Unawareness of Pedestrian Based On Visual Behaviors and Driving Behaviors

Taking into account the driver's state is a major challenge for designing new advanced driver assistance systems. In the context of pedestrian safety, a lot of research and many applications are able to detect the pedestrian with in-vehicle sensors and inform the driver of their presence. However, most of these alert systems do not adapt to the driver, they become distracting and are often ignored or deactivated. In this paper, we present a discussion on the danger to pedestrian that is related to the driver. We talk about the problem of pedestrian detectability. We do a review on the methods that help to detect the inattention state of the driver. Finally, we propose a new approach to analyze directly the driver’s awareness or unawareness of pedestrian based on driver’s visual and driving behaviors.
Beware of What You Share: Inferring User Locations in Venmo

Mobile payment apps are seeing explosive usage worldwide. This paper focuses on Venmo, a very popular mobile person-to-person payment service owned by Paypal. Venmo allows money transfers between users with a mandatory transaction note. More than half of transaction records in Venmo are public information. In this paper, we propose a multilayer location inference (MLLI) technique to infer user locations from public transaction records in Venmo. MLLI explores two observations. First, many Venmo transaction notes contain implicit location cues. Second, the types and temporal patterns of user transactions have strong ties to their location closeness. With a large dataset of 2.12M users and 20.23M Venmo transaction records, we show that MLLI can identify the top-1, top-3, and top-5 possible locations for a Venmo user with accuracy up to 50%, 80%, and 90%, respectively. Our results highlight the danger of sharing transaction notes on Venmo or similar mobile payment apps.
Predicting the health of a project? An assessment in a major IT company

More and more companies would like to mine software data with the goal of assessing the health of their software projects. The hope is that some software metrics could be tracked to predict failure risks or confirm good health. If a factor of success was found, projects failures could be anticipated and early actions could be taken by the organisation to help or to monitor closely the project. Allowing to act in a preventive mode rather than a curative one. We were called by a major IT company to fulfil this goal. We conducted a study to check whether software metrics can be related to project failure. The study was both theoretic with a review of literature on the subject and practical with mining of past projects data and interview with project managers. We found that metrics used in practice are not useful to assess project outcome.
olecular cloning and expression analysis of Foxp 3 from Nile ilapia

Foxp3 is a crucial transcription factor for the development and function of CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells (Tr) which play a key role in preventing autoimmune diseases and maintaining maternal-fetal tolerance in mammals. However, the knowledge of Foxp3 and its regulation in teleosts is limited. In the present study, the Foxp3 cDNA was cloned from Nile tilapia and characterized. The full length cDNA of Nile tilapia (nt)Foxp3 contained a 5′UTR of 104 bp, a 3′UTR of 239 bp and an open reading frame of 1134 bp. The putative ntFoxp3 contained a C2H2 zinc finger domain, a winged-helix/fork head domain and a leucine zipper-like domain with a consensus of V-x(6)-L-x(6)-L-x(6)-L, which are typical motifs of a Foxp3. The highest mRNA expression of ntFoxp3 was observed in the spleen, with moderate expression in the head kidney, intestine, kidney, liver and brain. Stimulation of peripheral blood mononuclear cells with PHA and LPS led to a significant increase of ntFoxp3 mRNA expression at 6 and 24 h, respectively. In contrast, stimulation with PMA had no effect during the sampling period. After injecting 1 × 107 cells of live Aeromonas hydrophila into adult female Nile tilapias, the mRNA expression of ntFoxp3 significantly increased in the gill and intestine at 6 h, while unchanged in the spleen. In all the tissues examined, a clearly up-regulation of ntFoxp3 expression was detected at 24 h after the second challenge. These results suggest that ntFoxp3 might be involved into lymphocyte activation and immune responses as reported in mammals. Meanwhile, the correlation between the expression profile of ntFoxp3 and serum estrogen (17-beta-estradiol, E2) concentration was investigated by real-time PCR and enzyme immunoassay. The results showed that E2 could regulate the expression of ntFoxp3 in the intestine and kidney but not in the spleen. This work will help future investigations into Tr cells and extend our understanding of interactions between sex hormones and immune related molecules in teleosts.
The Impact of Satellite‐Derived Land Surface Temperatures on Numerical Weather Prediction Analyses and Forecasts

Land surface temperature (LST) observations from a variety of satellite instruments operating in the infrared have been compared to estimates of surface temperature from the Met Office operational numerical weather prediction (NWP) model. The comparisons show that during the day the NWP model can underpredict the surface temperature by up to 10 K in certain regions such as the Sahel and southern Africa. By contrast at night the differences are generally smaller. Matchups have also been performed between satellite LSTs and observations from an in situ radiometer located in Southern England within a region of mixed land use. These matchups demonstrate good agreement at night and suggest that the satellite uncertainties in LST are less than 2 K. The Met Office surface analysis scheme has been adapted to utilize nighttime LST observations. Experiments using these analyses in an NWP model have shown a benefit to the resulting forecasts of near‐surface air temperature, particularly over Africa.
NEXT-GENERATION NUMERICAL MODELING: INCORPORATING ELASTICITY, ANISOTROPY AND ATTENUATION

A new effort has been initiated between the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) to investigate what features the next generation of numerical seismic models should contain that will best address current technical problems encountered during exploration in increasingly complex geologies. This collaborative work is focused on designing and building these new models, generating synthetic seismic data through simulated surveys of various geometries, and using these data to test and validate new and improved seismic imaging algorithms. The new models will be both 2- and 3-dimensional and will include complex velocity structures as well as anisotropy and attenuation. Considerable attention is being focused on multi-component acoustic and elastic effects because it is now widely recognized that converted phases could play a vital role in improving the quality of seismic images. An existing, validated 3-D elastic modeling code is being used to generate the synthetic data. Preliminary elastic modeling results using this code are presented here along with a description of the proposed new models that will be built and tested.
CHIRAL BIOMOLECULE-INDUCED CHIROPTICAL ACTIVITY IN QUANTUM DOTS

ix PROJECT HYPOTHESIS AND AIMS. x CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO QUANTUM DOTS . 1 CHAPTER 2: INDUCED CHIRALITY WITH THIOL-CONTAINING LIGANDS . 12 CHAPTER 3: REACTIONS WITH THIOL-FREE LIGANDS . 22 CONCLUSION . 32 CHAPTER 4: METHODS AND MATERIALS . 33 LIST OF REFERENCES . 36
Limnological properties of permafrost thaw ponds in northeastern Canada

Arctic warming has recently accelerated, triggering the formation of thaw ponds and the mobilization of a car- bon pool that has accumulated over thousands of years. A survey of 46 thaw ponds in the Canadian arctic and subarctic re- gions showed that these ecosystems have high concentrations of dissolved organic matter (DOM) and nutrients and are relatively productive. This activity was reflected in the optical properties of DOM that indicated a dominance of allochtho- nous sources but a significant contribution of low molecular weight compounds. Several subarctic ponds were stratified in summer, resulting in a hypoxic hypolimnion. Most ponds were supersaturated in CO2 and CH4, with higher gas concentra- tions in bottom waters. However, arctic thaw ponds colonized by benthic microbial mats showed lower CO2 concentra- tions, likely caused by active photosynthesis. CO2 was correlated with both the quantity and the optical properties of DOM, suggesting the significant role of dissolved compounds from melting organic soils and catchment vegetation on the balance between heterotrophy and autotrophy. The large variability observed in limnological properties of this series of ponds precludes generalisations about their role in greenhouse gas production. However, the fact that all thaw ponds were supersaturated in CH4 underscores the importance of estimating their global significance. Resume ´ : Le rechauffement arctique s'est recemment accelere ´, activant la formation des mares de fonte du pergelisol et la mobilisation d'une reserve de carbone accumulee sur plusieurs millenaires. L'etude de 46 mares de fonte en regions arc- tique et subarctique canadiennes montre que ces ecosystemes possedent des concentrations elevees en matiere organique dissoute (MOD) et en nutriments, ainsi qu'une productiviterelativement elevee. Cette activitese reflete dans les proprietes optiques de la MOD qui indiquent une dominance des sources allochtones mais une contribution significative par les com- poses de faibles poids moleculaires. Plusieurs mares subarctiques etaient stratifiees l'ete ´, avec presence d'un hypolimnion hypoxique. La plupart de ces mares etaient supersaturees en CO2 et en CH4, avec des concentrations de gaz superieures au fond. Toutefois, les mares arctiques colonisees par d'epais tapis microbiens montraient de plus faibles concentrations en CO2, probablement causees par l'activitephotosynthetique. Le CO2 etait correleavec la quantiteet les proprietes optiques de la MOD, suggerant le role significatif des composes dissous provenant de la fonte des sols organiques et des plantes du bassin versant sur l'equilibre entre l'heterotrophie et l'autotrophie. La grande variabilitedes conditions limnologiques ob- servees dans cette serie de mares nous garde de faire des generalisations sur leur role dans la production de gaz aeffet de serre. Toutefois, le fait que toutes les mares etaient supersaturees en CH4 souligne le besoin d'estimer leur importance globale.