Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of virtual development on product quality: exploring defect causes

This paper explores the effects of virtual development on product quality, from the viewpoint of "conformance to specifications". Specifically, causes of defect injection and non- or late-detection are explored. Because of the practical difficulties of obtaining hard project-specific defect data, an approach was taken that relied upon accumulated expert knowledge. The accumulated expert knowledge based approach was found to be a practical alternative to an in-depth defect causal analysis on a per-project basis. Defect injection causes seem to be concentrated in the requirements specification phases. Defect dispersion is likely to increase, as requirements specifications are input for derived requirements specifications in multiple, related sub-projects. Similarly, a concentration of causes for the non- or late detection of defects was found in the Integration Test phases. Virtual development increases the likelihood of defects in the end product because of the increased likelihood of defect dispersion, because of new virtual development related defect causes, and because causes already existing in co-located development are more likely to occur.
A Credit Evaluation Model for Computational Grid Nodes

Computational grid is a cooperative computing environment which collects all kinds of high performance software and hardware computing resources distributed in WAN and provides networked computing services. The computational grid systems that have been the focus of much research activities in the past years for controlled sharing of resources across institutional boundaries. Credit is one major concern in grid resource management that enables remote scheduling and execution. For the sake of improving the self-adaptability of resource management and accelerating the application and development of computational grid, an evaluation model of a computational grid nodepsilas credit is put forward which is based on the execution results of computational grid jobs on the node. Using this model the resource consumers and resource providers should abandon the vicious evaluating voluntarily. Applied in NPU Campus Computational Grid, this model achieves good effect.
Intersubjective Consistency of Knowledge and Belief

Common belief, in contrast to common knowledqe, m ic alrv cou nr eri nr u i t i ve or* ""r i"r t n u r"s u t I fntroduction we consider intersubjective epistemic moders where individuals are de_ scribed by both iheir "knowledge" and th.i, ib"liefs,,. Knowledge is distinguished from belief rrv lt, higlr. d"g. ". of subjective certainty (whatever is known is also believed, but iot uxce uersa) and by the truth axiom (whatever is known is true). rrr. i-plications of the truth axiom in an intersubjective . o.rt. *t are strong: not only are individuals never mistaken in what they know, but this"fact is moreover common knowledge among them; this implies, in ourri.urur, that agent f must know event E whenever he r.r-*, that some other agent 7 knows E. such "common knowledg" otro "rror of knowledge,, is a prominent ex_ ample of an intersubjective consistency condition on epistemic states, and plays a role in thl foundations of game theory. while this assump_ tion might be considered ptuuriut* for beliefs with the highest epistemic commitment (knowledge), the distinguishing r"utur" of the notio' of be_ iief proper is precis.tv ir,. 'o. $irrility.of error. In particular, individuals may come to believe other individuars to have ,'irtut "n beiiefs. while common knowredge always obeys the formar logic of agents, I'XJfi:"" I I ? y"::T ll :f *41. : 1o* " ind i vi d u ars b er i e ve ot h er in di_ viduals to be mistaken in their,r"rl"rr:.
Change of Soil Microbial Biomass C, N between Longtime Free Grazingand Exclosure Pasture in Semiarid Grassland Ecosystem in Tongliao andChifeng of Inner Mongolia

Grassland degradation in the Inner Mongolia grassland became seriously since the end of 20th century, because of the rapid expansion of livestock numbers and the development of economy. Overgrazing in this region is one of the main causes of grassland degradation. In this paper, soil microbial biomass carbon (Cmic) and nitrogen (Nmic) under continuous free-grazing and exclusion of livestock were examined in Nuogusitai (NGST) of Tongliao and Haisilamu (HSLM) of Chifeng in Inner Mongolia. Our results showed that Cmic and Nmic content significantly decreased in grazing grassland compared to the exclosure grassland in both NGST and HSLM. In NGST, the average Cmic (79.2 to 881.1 mg C kg-1) and Nmic (6.1 to 64.8 mg C kg-1) were lower than Cmic (452.7 to 1218.1 mg C kg-1) and Nmic (48.4 to 152.6 mg C kg-1) in HSLM. Furthermore, after grazing Cmic and Nmic decreased 81.39, 69.51% and 75.48, 67.12% in 0-5 and 5-15 cm layers, respectively in NGST. These were all greater than in HSLM which were 42.12, 30.00% and 67.12, 31.40%, respectively. The lower Cmic and Nmic concentration in grazing grassland than in exclosure might due to reduction in organic matter into soil by livestock grazing and destruction of vegetation root by trampling and the lower Cmic in Nmic in NGST than HSLM was mainly the result of higher soil pH and soil substrate. Cmic/Corg ratio in HSLM (3.1 to 4.6) was higher than NGST (0.2 to 0.4). The higher Cmic concentration and Cmic/Corg in HSLM suggest a great potential for carbon sequestration in neutral soil than in alkaline soil. Therefore, to restore grassland and alleviate the grassland degradation, exclosure should be encouraged in semi-arid grassland.
Reducing communication overhead under parallel list processing in multicore clusters

The Data List Management Library (DLML) processes data lists in parallel, balancing the workload transparently to programmers. Its first design was targeted at clusters of uniprocessor nodes, and based on multiprocess parallelism and on message-passing communication. This paper presents a multithreaded design of DLML aimed at clusters of multicore nodes to better capitalise on intra-node parallelism. On applications tested, MultiCore DLML runs twice as fast as DLML when message-passing communication is not excessive. Good performance was achieved only after addressing issues relating to MPI communication overhead, cache locality and memory consumption.
Combining Physical and Virtual Channels: Opportunities, Imperatives and Challenges

Despite the attention focused on click and mortar strategies, little empirical work has directly addressed the sources of competitive advantage of this approach, nor the factors that distinguish between a successful and unsuccessful implementation. In this paper, we review theoretical work that establishes the basis for expecting synergy between e-commerce and physical presence in a market. We then describe a series of cases illustrating the types of synergies gained by click and mortar firms. Sources of competitive advantage arising from click and mortar e-commerce models are described, as well as management approaches that facilitate the formation of successful click and mortar strategies. Charles Steinfield, Harry Bouwman, Thomas Adelaar
Numerical Estimation of the Second Largest Eigenvalue of a Reversible Markov Transition Matrix

We discuss the problem of finding the second largest eigenvalue of an operator that defines a reversible Markov chain. The second largest eigenvalue governs the rate at which the statistics of the Markov chain converge to equilibrium. Scientific applications include understanding the very slow dynamics of some models of dynamic glass. Applications in computing include estimating the rate of convergence of Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms. Most practical Markov chains have state spaces so large that direct or even iterative methods from linear algebra are inapplicable. The size of the state space, which is the dimension of the eigenvalue problem, grows exponentially with the system size. This makes it impossible to store a vector (for sparse methods), let alone a matrix (for dense methods). Instead, we seek a method that uses only time correlation from samples produced from the Markov chain itself. In this thesis, we propose a novel Krylov subspace type method to estimate the second largest eigenvalue from the simulation data of the Markov chain using test functions which are known to have good overlap with the slowest mode. This method starts with the naive Rayleigh quotient estimate of the test function and refines it to obtain an improved estimate of the second largest eigenvalue. We apply the method to a few model problems and the estimate compares very favorably with the known answer. We also apply the estimator to some Markov chains occuring in practice, most notably in the study of glasses. We show experimentally that our estimator is more accurate and stable for these problems compared to the existing methods.
Hybrid access control with modified SINR association for future heterogeneous networks

The heterogeneity in cellular networks that comprise multiple base stations types imposes new challenges in network planning and deployment of future generation of cellular networks. The Radio Resource Management (RRM) techniques, such as dynamic sharing of the available resources and advanced user association strategies, determine the overall network capacity and efficiency. This paper evaluates the downlink performance of a two tier heterogeneous network (consisting of macro and femto tiers) in terms of rate distribution, i.e. the percentage of users that achieve certain rate in the system. The paper specifically addresses the femto tier RRM by randomization of the allocated resources and the user association process by introducing a modified SINR association strategy with bias factor for load balancing. Also, the paper introduces hybrid access control mechanism at the femto tier that allows the authorized users of the femtocell, which are part of the Closed Subscriber Group (CSG) on the femtocell, to achieve higher data rates up to 10 times compared to the other regular users associated in the access.
Adaptive Neural Network Control for Uncertain Nonlinear Systems with Asymptotic Stability Guarantees

A neuroadaptive control framework for the nonlinear uncertain dynamical systems is developed in this paper. The proposed framework is Lyapunov-Based and unlike standard neural network (NN) controllers guaranteeing ultimate bounded ness, the framework guarantees asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system The neuroadaptive controllers are constructed without requiring explicit knowledge of the system dynamics, a recurrent neural network (NN) is used to approximate the unknown nonlinear plant. To provide good accuracy in identification of unknown model parameters, an online adaptive law is proposed to adapt the consequent part of the NN. Finally, an illustrative numerical example is provided to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach.
Modulation of Dendritic Cell Responses by Parasites: A Common Strategy to Survive

Parasitic infections are one of the most important causes of morbidity and mortality in our planet and the immune responses triggered by these organisms are critical to determine their outcome. Dendritic cells are key elements for the development of immunity against parasites; they control the responses required to eliminate these pathogens while maintaining host homeostasis. However, there is evidence showing that parasites can influence and regulate dendritic cell function in order to promote a more permissive environment for their survival. In this review we will focus on the strategies protozoan and helminth parasites have developed to interfere with dendritic cell activities as well as in the possible mechanisms involved.
Assessing the Role of Operating, Passenger, and Infrastructure Costs in Fleet Planning under Fuel Price Uncertainty

Aviation system planning is challenged by the rapid increase in fuel prices and uncertainty in air traffic management (ATM) charges. As airlines decrease capacity and decommission older aircraft and aviation navigation service providers ponder new ATM charging schemes, a critical question is: which aircraft provide air transportation service for the lowest cost? This study evaluates the introduction of a minimally utilized aircraft type in the United States, the 72-seat turboprop, compared with currently operated narrow body and regional jet aircraft. Homogenous fleets of these vehicles are compared for operating, passenger preference, and ATM costs over a range of fuel prices and the minimum cost fleet mix is determined. Findings include that the regional jet exhibits a higher cost per passenger than the turboprop for the entire fuel price and stage length space when operating costs are considered alone. When passenger costs are considered in addition to operating costs, there exists an equal cost per passenger curve between these two aircraft for fuel prices below $4.00/gallon. When infrastructure costs are considered, the fuel price and stage length space where the turboprop offers a lower cost increases. The comparison of the turboprop with the narrow body shows that an equal cost curve exists under all cost combinations considered. With the introduction of ATM charging, the flat landing fee favors the narrow body, while variable ATM charges increase the space where the turboprop offers the lower cost. This analysis shows that aircraft fleet selection is highly sensitive to fuel prices, passenger costs, and ATM charging schemes.
A collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm based on biclustering

Collaborative filtering has been widely used in many fields such as movie recommendation and e-commerce. However, there are still some problems such as data sparsity which restrict its further development. To address the data sparsity problem we proposed a novel collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm based on biclustering. Firstly, we use biclustering algorithm simultaneous clustering of the rows and columns of the rating matrix to generate biclusters, then the missing data can be smoothed by using the information of the biclusters. Secondly, a weighted matrix is introduced to distinguish between the original data and the smoothing data. Lastly, the active user's neighbors can be found based on the new similarity we proposed, and the recommendation to the active user is produced. The experiment results are offered, which show that the algorithm we presented can alleviate the data sparsity problem and improve the quality of the recommendation.
Do Some People Work Harder Than Others

The decision to work and its levels of intensity are estimated for the real estate brokerage industry where workers can set their own hours. A three-stage model of the brokerage labor market is presented with decisions made recursively between full- and part-time status, wage offers and hours worked. The application is to data from a cross-sectional survey of 6,842 real estate licensees in the United States for 1999. Conditional on self-selection, an expected wage for real estate licensees is estimated given skills and personal characteristics. That expected wage enters the supply-side equation for the number of hours worked. The findings indicate that skills such as education, experience and licensee status are related to higher wages, but there is a negative self-selection in wages: part-time workers have higher unmeasured skills. Schooling and experience decreases hours worked, consistent with increasing efficiency. The resulting labor supply elasticity with respect to the wage is 0.24.
Trends in the Development of Machinery and Associated Technology ” TMT 2007 , Hammamet , Tunisia , 05-09 September , 2007 . METHOD OF WEB CONCEPTUAL DESIGN BASED ON A SHARED CONTEXT OF KNOWING DESIGN ARTIFACTS

The research described in this paper focuses on the development of Internet technology for web conceptual design on the basis of shared knowing and representation of design artifacts. The shared representation of design artifacts results in special type of knowledge considered as different interpretations of functional meaning and content of each artifact. Being defined as multiple Function Means patterns (FM-patterns) these interpretations are created by distributed designers for own purposes. When designing the product, individual knowledge of designers is combined to infer new knowledge. In order to illustrate the proposed approach, web-interface for creating FM-patterns and rules for functional, behavioral and design coupling design artifacts are described.
Understanding Multilingual Touchscreen Keyboard Design and Optimization

There is a substantial body of research on touchscreen keyboard optimization. Most of it has focused on English only. Applying rigorous mathematical optimization methods and addressing diacritic character design issues, this paper expands this body of work to French, Spanish, German, and Chinese. More importantly and counter to the intuition that optimization by nature is necessarily specific to each language, this paper proves that it is possible to find common layouts that are highly optimized across multiple languages. Applying a multilingual optimization method, we first obtained a touchscreen keyboard layout that is highly optimized for both English and French input. We then obtained a layout that is optimized for English, French, Spanish, German and Chinese pinyin simultaneously, reducing its stylus tapping travel distance to about half of QWERTY’s for all of the five languages. In comparison to QWERTY’s 3.31, 3.51, 3.7, 3.26, 3.85 keys of movement for English, French, Spanish, German and Chinese respectively, the optimized multilingual layout has an average travel distance of 1.88, 1.86, 1.91, 1.77 and 1.68 keys correspondingly. Applying Fitts’ law with parameters validated by a word tapping experiment, we show that these multilingual keyboards also significantly reduce text input time for multiple languages over the standard QWERTY for experienced users. In comparison to layouts individually optimized for each language, which are also obtained in this paper, simultaneously optimizing for multiple languages caused only a minor performance decrease for each language. This surprising result could help to reduce the burden of multilingual users having to switch and learn new layouts for different languages. Additionally, we also present and analyze multiple ways of incorporating diacritic characters on multilingual keyboards. Taken together, the present work provides a quantitative foundation to understanding and designing of multilingual touchscreen keyboards. CONTENTS
Decomposing Consumption Inequality: The Contribution of Income Dispersion and Taxation *

This paper examines the contributions of tax policy, the income distribution, and behavioral responses to the link between income and consumption inequality. We use income from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics in conjunction with consumption from the Consumer Expenditure Survey as complementary indicators of inequality. We document the increase in income dispersion in the 1980s and 1990s are due to increases in both permanent and transitory income shocks. Further, we nd an increase in the link between income and consumption inequality due to changes in tax policy, partially mitigated by changes in the income distribution and household behavioral responses.
The Influence of Gestational Age and Fetal Iron Status on Iron Regulatory Protein Activity and Iron Transporter Protein Expression in Third Trimester Human Placenta

Placental iron transport during the last trimester of pregnancy determines the iron endowment of the neonate. Iron transport is a function of the major iron transport proteins, transferrin receptor-1 (TfR-1) and ferroportin-1 (FPN-1). The mRNAs for TfR-1, and potentially FPN-1, are post-transcriptionally regulated by iron regulatory protein-1 (IRP-1) and -2 (IRP-2). We assessed the effect of gestational age and fetal iron status on IRP-1 and IRP-2 binding activity and on the localization and protein expression of TfR-1 and FPN-1 protein in 21 placentas from 24 to 40 weeks gestation obtained from iron-sufficient, nonanemic mothers. Gestational age had no effect on cord serum ferritin concentration, IRP-2 RNA-binding activity, transporter protein location, and TfR-1 or FPN-1 protein expression. IRP-1 activity remained constant until term, when it decreased (p=0.01). Placental ferritin expression (r=0.76; p<0.001) and FPN expression (r=0.44; p<0.05) increased with gestational age. Fetal iron status, as indexed by cord serum ferritin concentration, was inversely related to placental IRP-1 (r=-0.66; p<0.001) and IRP-2 activities (r=-0.42; p=0.05). Placental ferritin protein expression correlated better with IRP-1 activity (r=-0.45; p=0.04) than with IRP-2 activity (r=-0.35; p=0.10). Placental TfR-1 and FPN-1 protein expression were independent of fetal or placental iron status and IRP activities. Iron status had no effect on transport protein localization. We conclude that toward the end of the third trimester of iron-sufficient human pregnancy, the placenta accumulates ferritin and potentially increases placental-fetal iron delivery through increased FPN-1 expression. IRP-1 may have a more dominant role than IRP-2 activity in regulating ferritin expression.
Gender in Campaigns for the U.S. House of Representatives

Barbara Burrell presents a comprehensive comparative examination of men's and women's candidacies for the U.S. House of Representatives in elections from 1994 through 2012. Analyzing extensive data sets on all major party candidates for 10 elections - covering candidate status, party affiliation, fund-raising, candidate background variables, votes obtained, and success rates for both primary and general elections - Burrell finds little evidence of categorical discrimination against women candidates. Women compete equally with men and often outpace them in raising money, gaining interest group and political party support, and winning elections. Yet the number of women elected to the U.S. House has expanded only incrementally. The electoral structure limits opportunities for newcomers to win congressional seats and there remains a lower presence of women in winnable contests despite growing recruitment efforts. Burrell suggests that congressional dysfunction discourages potential candidates from pursuing legislative careers and that ambitious women are finding alternative paths to influence and affect public policy.
An analysis on Frequency of terms for Text Categorization

Resumen: Presentamos resultados sobre una forma de seleccion de terminos con fines de categorizacion de textos. Usamos el punto de transicion, esto es, la frecuencia de un termino en un texto o coleccion de textos que divide en dos a los terminos: los de alta y baja frecuencia. Se tomaron porcentajes de terminos basados en valores de su frecuencia entre documentos, la ganancia de informacion y la prueba. El desempeno de la categorizacion, entrenando el algoritmo de Rocchio con estos terminos, fue comparado con un recorte hecho a la cantidad de terminos en funcion de su frecuencia comparada con el punto de transicion de la coleccion de entrenamiento. En un experimento, aplicado a la categorizacion de textos en espanol, fueron usados los mencionados criterios de seleccion y se observo una disminucion de terminos, manteniendo al menos el mismo desempeno. En nuestro experimento, el mejor desempeno lo obtuvo la seleccion basada en los valores de frecuencia de terminos entre documentos combinada con el punto de transicion.