Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Thai University Academics' Challenges of Writing for Publication in English

This study examines challenges faced by Thai university lecturers with regards to publishing their academic works in English. 18 academics from two university settings in Thailand were involved in this investigation. The interviews were used to understand the lecturers’ perceptions of the issues in writing for scholarly publication in the English language. Particularly, the aim of the research sought to discover what hindrances Thai university academics experienced and how they handled them. In addition, their needs for successful publishing were explored. The findings revealed three salient emerging themes, including (1) the need for publication in English; (2) difficulties in writing in English; and (3) the need for strenuous research support. The study suggests that university lecturers need more encouragement and support to publishing their academic works as a means of securing professional development, enhancing research culture and maintaining and increasing the national and international reputation of the university along with quality assurance.
Distributed Defense: An Edge over Centralized Defense against DDos Attacks

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is a large-scale, coordinated attack on the availability of services of a target/victim system or network resource/service. It can be launched indirectly through many compromised machines on the Internet. The Purpose behind these attacks is exhausting the existing bandwidth and makes servers deny from providing services to legitimate users. Most detection systems depend on some type of centralized processing to analyze the data necessary to detect an attack. In centralized defense, all modules are placed on single point. A centralized approach can be vulnerable to attack. But in distributed defense, all of the defense modules are placed at different points and do not succumb to the high volume of DDoS attack and can discover the attacks timely as well as fight the attacks with more resources. These factors clearly indicate that the DDoS problem requires a distributed solution than the centralized solution. In this paper, we compare both types of defense mechanisms and identify their relative advantages and disadvantages. Later they are compared against some performance metrics to know which kind of solution is best.
Understanding and Proper Selection of Agile Processes in Software Development

In today's world, the Software industry is growing rapidly and is catering to many aspect of life like Health Care, Finance, Food Services, etc. Due to which there is a rapid increase in the requirements of software products from the developers. Thus, observing the past 40 years tends and methodologies applied to achieve the required output and product cannot be used in this new age of the software development. Many software development companies nowadays aim to produce valuable software in short period of time, in lesser cost and with varying requirement from the client. Agile Methodologies was thus introduced to meet the new requirements of the new age software development companies. This method claims to be people-oriented rather than process-oriented and is more adaptive than the previous methods used in the industry. This method reaches the desired target objective by establishing an efficient link between the developers and stakeholders. The focus of this research paper is to emphasis on the effectiveness of the Agile Method in the software industry and proper implementation of the method in software development.
Public Universities, Tuition and Competition - A Tiebout Model

A simple Tiebout model is presented where states provide university education to both immobile and mobile students. State governments choose the quality of public universities by trading off the value of education for the local immobile student population and the costs, net of tuition revenues, of running the university. The quality of education and the assignment of students to universities in an efficient allocation are characterised. It is shown that decentralised decisions result in efficient choices if states are allowed to choose tuition levels freely. If tuition is capped, ine? ciently low qualities are likely to arise.
Algorithmic Lower Bounds : Fun With Hardness Proofs Fall 2014 Lecture 11 — October 9 , 2014

Recall that one of the most commonly used reductions is the L-reduction, introduced by Papadimitriou and Yannakakis in [11]. This reduction consists of a pair of polynomial mappings (f(.), g(.)) where f maps an instance x of the problem A we are reducing from to an instance x′ of the problem B we are reducing to, and g maps a feasible solution y′ (of x′ i.e. instance of B) to a feasible solution y (of x) such that the following conditions hold:
Perceptions of Psychosocial Healing and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa

Like many other societies that have dealt with the question of how to achieve closure of a past of oppression while simultaneously working toward national reconstruction and reconciliation, South Africa turned to the concept of a truth commission. Public testimony constitutes the central mechanism in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) process. Through the use of social constructionism as a broad framework in which the testimony method may be located, this descriptive study examines various narratives to uncover understandings of healing and the modes of healing invoked by both victims and those facilitating the healing process. Two data sources were used: testimony transcripts from public hearings of the TRC and transcripts from interviews with key players in the process. Thematic analysis revealed that there are multiple understandings of healing but overall, the narratives affirmed the therapeutic value of the testimony method. The central issue under discussion in the article i.
Enriching the ant tree of life: enhanced UCE bait set for genome‐scale phylogenetics of ants and other Hymenoptera

Targeted enrichment of conserved genomic regions (e.g. ultraconserved elements or UCEs) has emerged as a promising tool for inferring evolutionary history in many organismal groups. Because the UCE approach is still relatively new, much remains to be learned about how best to identify UCE loci and design baits to enrich them. We test an updated UCE identification and bait design workflow for the insect order Hymenoptera, with a particular focus on ants. The new strategy augments a previous bait design for Hymenoptera by (i) changing the parameters by which conserved genomic regions are identified and retained, and (ii) increasing the number of genomes used for locus identification and bait design. We perform in vitro validation of the approach in ants by synthesizing an ant‐specific bait set that targets UCE loci and a set of ‘legacy’ phylogenetic markers. Using this bait set, we generate new data for 84 taxa (16/17 ant subfamilies) and extract loci from an additional 17 genome‐enabled taxa. We then use these data to examine UCE capture success and phylogenetic performance across ants. We also test the workability of extracting legacy markers from enriched samples and combining the data with published datasets. The updated bait design (hym‐v2) contained a total of 2590‐targeted UCE loci for Hymenoptera, significantly increasing the number of loci relative to the original bait set (hym‐v1; 1510 loci). Across 38 genome‐enabled Hymenoptera and 84 enriched samples, experiments demonstrated a high and unbiased capture success rate, with the mean locus enrichment rate being 2214 loci per sample. Phylogenomic analyses of ants produced a robust tree that included strong support for previously uncertain relationships. Complementing the UCE results, we successfully enriched legacy markers, combined the data with published Sanger datasets and generated a comprehensive ant phylogeny containing 1060 terminals. Overall, the new UCE bait design strategy resulted in an enhanced bait set for genome‐scale phylogenetics in ants and other Hymenoptera. Our in vitro tests demonstrate the utility of the updated design workflow, providing evidence that this approach could be applied to any organismal group with available genomic information.
Timing attack detection on BACnet via a machine learning approach

Building Automation Systems (BAS), alternatively known as Building Management Systems (BMS), which centralise the management of building services, are often connected to corporate networks and are routinely accessed remotely for operational management and emergency purposes. The protocols used in BAS, in particular BACnet, were not designed with security as a primary requirement, thus the majority of systems operate with sub-standard or non-existent security implementations. As intrusion is thus likely easy to achieve, intrusion detection systems should be put in place to ensure they can be detected and mitigated. Existing intrusion detection systems typically deal only with known threats (signature-based approaches) or suffer from a high false positive rate (anomaly-based approaches). In this paper we present an overview of the problem space with respect to BAS, and suggest that state aware machine learning techniques could be used to discover threats that comprise a collection of legitimate commands. We provide a first step showing that the concept can be used to detect an attack where legitimate write commands being sent in rapid succession may cause system failure. We capture the state as a ‘time since last write’ event and use a basic artificial neural network classifier to detect attacks.
Selectivity of metal oxide atomic layer deposition on hydrogen terminated and oxidized Si(001)-(2×1) surface

In this work, the authors used density-functional theory methods and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to study the chemical composition and growth rate of HfO2, Al2O3, and TiO2 thin films grown by in-situ atomic layer deposition on both oxidized and hydrogen-terminated Si(001) surfaces. The growth rate of all films is found to be lower on hydrogen-terminated Si with respect to the oxidized Si surface. However, the degree of selectivity is found to be dependent of the deposition material. TiO2 is found to be highly selective with depositions on the hydrogen terminated silicon having growth rates up to 180 times lower than those on oxidized Si, while similar depositions of HfO2 and Al2O3 resulted in growth rates more than half that on oxidized silicon. By means of density-functional theory methods, the authors elucidate the origin of the different growth rates obtained for the three different precursors, from both energetic and kinetic points of view.
MEDIATED-COMMUNICATION IN LONG-DISTANCE AND GEOGRAPHICALLY-CLOSE ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS AND ITS EFFECTS ON IDEALIZATION, IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT, AND RELATIONSHIP SATISFACTION

Romantic idealization and relationship satisfaction has been found to be greater in long- distance romantic relationships (LDRs) than geographically-close romantic relationships (GCRs). This study aims to reestablish this link as well as to provide evidence of impression management as a possible explanation for this relation. Prior research has found that long-distance couples put off conflict in their interactions as a means to maximize the positive nature of their time together. This finding provides some insight on why the use of impression management may be more frequent among these couples. Additionally, we also hypothesize that greater technology use may contribute to both more and selective use of impression management and selective self- presentation among couples in a LDR. Social information processing theory predicts that because owing to of the asynchronous mode of much many forms of technology- mediated communication and the absence of non-verbal cues, impression management and selective presentation behaviors are more easily achieved using these communication channels, . This, so because positive impression management is more easily achieved, these couples in LDRs could maintain idealization for longer periods of time. FurthermoreFinally, this study aims to establish that couples in GCRs who engage in higher levels of technology use may also engage in more impression management in their relationships. Although, tentative, this could possibly lead to greater idealization in GCRs as well.
Financial Globalization in Emerging Economies: Much Ado about Nothing?

Financial globalization, defined as global linkages through cross-border financial flows, has become increasingly relevant for emerging markets as they integrate financially with the rest of the world. This paper argues that, because of the way it is often measured, it has also led to the misperception that financial globalization in emerging markets has been growing in recent years. The authors characterize the evolution of financial globalization in emerging markets using alternative measures, and find that, in the 2000s, financial globalization has grown only marginally and international portfolio diversification has been limited and declining over time. The paper revisits the empirical literature on the implications of financial globalization for local market deepening, international risk diversification, financial contagion, and financial dollarization, and finds them to be rather limited. Whereas financial globalization has indeed fostered domestic market deepening in good times, it has yielded neither the dividends of consumption smoothing (in line with limited portfolio diversification) nor the costs of amplifying global financial shocks. In turn, financial de-dollarization has largely reflected the undoing of financial offshoring and the valuation effects of real appreciation.
How Much Information Does Dependence Between Wavelet Coefficients Contain?

ABSTRACT This article is motivated by several articles that propose statistical inference where the independence of wavelet coefficients for both short- as well as long-range dependent time series is assumed. We focus on the sample variance and investigate the influence of the dependence between wavelet coefficients and this statistic. To this end, we derive asymptotic distributional properties of the sample variance for a time series that is synthesized, ignoring some or all dependence between wavelet coefficients. We show that the second-order properties differ from the those of the true time series whose wavelet coefficients have the same marginal distribution except in the independent Gaussian case. This holds true even if the dependency is correct within each level and only the dependence between levels is ignored. In the case of sample autocovariances and sample autocorrelations at lag one, we indicate that first-order properties are erroneous. In a second step, we investigate several nonparametric bootstrap schemes in the wavelet domain, which take more and more dependence into account until finally the full dependency is mimicked. We obtain very similar results, where only a bootstrap mimicking the full covariance structure correctly can be valid asymptotically. A simulation study supports our theoretical findings for the wavelet domain bootstraps. For long-range-dependent time series with long-memory parameter d > 1/4, we show that some additional problems occur, which cannot be solved easily without using additional information for the bootstrap. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.
Karakoram glacier surge dynamics

We examine the surges of five glaciers in the Pakistan Karakoram using satellite remote sensing to investigate the dynamic nature of surges in this region and how they may be affected by climate. Surface velocity maps derived by feature‐tracking quantify the surge development spatially in relation to the terminus position, and temporally with reference to seasonal weather. We find that the season of surge initiation varies, that each surge develops gradually over several years, and that maximum velocities are recorded within the lowermost 10 km of the glacier. Measured peak surge velocities are between one and two orders of magnitude greater than during quiescence. We also note that two of the glaciers are of a type not previously reported to surge. The evidence points towards recent Karakoram surges being controlled by thermal rather than hydrological conditions, coinciding with high‐altitude warming from long‐term precipitation and accumulation patterns.
Urban objects recognition feasibilities by airborne hyperspectral and multispectral remote sensing

This paper explores the recognition uncertainty of urban objects by multiband imagery. The purpose is to recognize the urban objects by their spectral signature, using an external spectral library. Two Vis-NIR images were used for the study: a four bands Kompsat-2 multispectral image and a 16 bands Ricola‘s airborne hyperspectral image, two supervised classifiers were tested; a spectral based classifier, called the Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM), coupled to an external spectral library and a machine learning based classifier called the Support Vector Machine (SVM), in a second step the classification results obtained by the two classifiers were merged, the goal was to take advantage of both techniques, to optimize the classification result. The classifiers performance and the objects recognition feasibility were discussed for both images.
Optimality and non-preemptive real-time scheduling revisited

In this paper, we investigate the non-preemptive scheduling problem as it arises with single processor systems. We extend some previously published results concerning preemptive and non-preemptive scheduling over a single processor. We examine non-idling and idling scheduling issues. The latter are of particular relevance in the case of non-preemption. We first embark on analyzing non-idling scheduling. The optimality of the non-idling non-preemptive Earliest Deadline First scheduling policy is revisited. Then, we provide feasibility conditions in the presence of aperiodic or periodic traffic. Second, we examine the concept of idling scheduling, whereby a processor can remain idle in the presence of pending tasks. The non-idling non-preemptiv- e Earliest Deadline First scheduling policy is not optimal since it is possible to find feasible task sets for which this policy fails to produce a valid schedule. An optimal algorithm to find a valid schedule (if any) is presented and its complexity analyzed. This paper shows that preemptive and non-preemptive scheduling are closely related. However, non-preemptive scheduling leads to more complex problems when combined with idling scheduling.
The genetic basis of incipient speciation in Arabidopsis lyrata

The study of speciation has been an area of primary interest in evolutionary biology from Darwin to the present day. Understanding the processes that give rise to new species requires knowledge on how reproductive isolation develops between diverging populations. An irreversible and therefore important component of reproductive isolation is intrinsic postzygotic isolation. Postzygotic incompatibilities often manifest themselves through hybrid inviability or sterility, and distort allelic transmission ratios in hybrid progenies. The genetic basis of such incompatibilities has often been found to be negative interactions between two or more loci, also known as BatesonDobzhansky-Muller incompatibilities. During the last decade some genes involved in this type of incompatibilities have been identified, but especially in plants our knowledge remains scarce. In this thesis I examined whether intrinsic postzygotic isolation had developed between allopatric populations of a perennial, outcrossing plant; Arabidopsis lyrata. The studied populations of A. lyrata were found to be genetically highly differentiated. In F2 progenies of crosses between populations many molecular markers reveal non-Mendelian genotype ratios, that is, show transmission ratio distortion (TRD). By contrast, TRD was found to be nearly absent in progenies of within population crosses. The degree of TRD clearly increased with genetic distance between the crossed populations, and origin for TRD was often in F1 gamete formation, instead of F2 zygotic level. The genetic basis of TRD appeared due to interactions between nuclear loci, and between nuclear and cytoplasmic factors. In addition to transmission ratio distortion, reduced male fertility and cytoplasmic male sterility was found in the F2 hybrids between A. lyrata subspecies petraea and lyrata. Quantitative trait loci for reduced male fertility were polymorphic within populations, and dependent on cytoplasm. Thus, the findings in this thesis underline the role of cytonuclear interactions, and the possibility of development of genic incompatibilities through genomic conflicts due to divergence likely unrelated to local adaptation.
Genomic prediction in a large African maize population

First-year yield trials in large maize breeding programs involve many diverse lines and many trials but very limited replication and environments/ management scenarios. Later-stage trials focus on testing fewer top lines but more testers and environments/management scenarios to assess adaptation. Thus, an optimized breeding scheme should focus on quickly discarding the worst lines and targeting testers and environments/management scenarios for adaptation.
The amount of extractable heat with single U-tube in the function of time

Heat pumps can be used for different purposes in building services. They obtain heat from the environment of lower temperature (e.g. air, water, earth) and transfer it into the building at a higher temperature. The heat of the ground can be the primary energy source of the heat pumps. We extract this heat with the help of ground heat exchangers. These exchangers are the U-tubes, which are either single or double. In our paper we deal with the problem of the extractable heat from the ground with these heat exchangers. We show a simple calculation method for the temperature change in the heat carrier fluid and for the overall thermal resistance of the U-tube.
Residual Stiffness Assessment of Failed RC Beam Structure by FE Model Updating

Residual Stiffness Assessment of Failed RC Beam Structure by FE Model Updating J. M. W. Brownjohn and P. Q. Xia Abstract For a reinforced concrete (RC) beam structure subject to a mid-span point load, failure in tension is deemed to occur when steel reinforcement on the tension side has yielded. When unloaded from this post-serviceability cracking stage, the residual stiffness of the failed structure is difficult to estimate. This paper presents a new method for the residual stiffness assessment of a failed RC member such as a beam or one way narrow slab at the post-serviceability cracking stage based on dynamic testing and finite element (FE) model updating. The failed zones are simulated using damaged beam elements in an FE model of the structure and the measured modal properties i.e. frequencies and mode shapes are used as the reference data for model updating. Through a procedure of sensitivity-based updating, the stiffness distribution along the member can be obtained, leading to identification of location and extent of the damaged (failed) region.