Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Volcano instability and lateral collapse

Active volcanoes are dynamically evolving structures, the life-cycles of which are punctuated by episodes of flank instability and lateral failure. Such behaviour is now recognised as ubiquitous and lateral collapses are estimated to have occurred at least four times a century over the past 500 years. In the Andes, three quarters of the large volcanic edifices have experienced collapse, while over a hundred debris avalanche deposits around the Japanese Quaternary volcanoes testify to repeated episodes of instability and collapse over the last million years. A range of both internal (endogenetic) and external (exogenetic) factors contribute to the destabilisation of a volcanic edifice. The former include gravitational spreading, the development of steep slopes and a mechanically unsound structure, surface loading by erupted materials, and oversteepening or incremental lateral displacement due to magma intrusion. External factors include basement uplift or subsidence, fault activity, climatic effects, and changing sea levels. The triggering of lateral collapse at a destabilised volcano typically occurs in response to a short-lived dynamic event such as the intrusion of a body of fresh magma (magmagenic), or to volcanic or tectonic earthquakes (seismogenic). In the former case, collapse may be due to either mechanical push or to pore-pressure changes in ground water, while in the latter increased ground accelerations are the probable cause. Volcanic edifices may become unstable and experience structural failure at any scale. This ranges from relatively small rock falls involving a few hundred to a few thousand cubic kilometres of debris, to the giant ocean-island megaslides, such as those identified around the Hawaiian and Canary archipelagoes, that may incorporate up to 5000 cubic kilometres of material. While the lowest volume collapses probably occur at one active volcano or another every few weeks, the largest events have frequencies of tens to hundreds of thousands of years. Such major lateral collapses are primarily confined to large, long-lived polygenetic volcanoes, located on either continental (eg Etna, Mount Rainier, Colima) or oceanic (eg Mauna Loa, Kilauea, Piton de la Fournaise) crust. Edifice instability may develop rapidly in response to a discrete event, such as the emplacement of the Mount St. Helens cryptodome in 1980. Alternatively, the volcano may become destabilised incrementally over many thousands or tens of thousands of years due, for example, to rift-related lateral displacement associated with persistent dyke intrusion. The hazard implications of volcano lateral collapse are significant at both the local and regional scales. In addition to the production of debris avalanches that may exceed 100km in length, the scale of tsunami generated by the largest collapses of ocean island volcanoes are sufficient to cause ocean-wide destruction. In the latter context, candidate volcanoes for future major collapse and tsunami generation include the Cumbre Vieja (La Palma, Canary Islands) and Fogo (Cape Verde Islands).
Conventional vs Neuro-Conventional Segmentation Techniques for Handwriting Recognition: A Comparison

The success of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) has been prominent in many real-world applications including handwriting recognition. This paper compares two techniques for the task of segmenting touching and cursive handwriting. The first technique uses a conventional heuristic algorithm to detect prospective segmentation points in handwritten words. For each segmentation point a character matrix is extracted and fed into a trained ANN to verify whether an appropriate character has been located. The second technique also uses a conventional algorithm for the initial segmentation process, however two ANNs are used for the entire segmentation and recognition procedures. The first ANN verifies whether accurate segmentation points have been found by the algorithm and the second classifies the segmented characters. The C programming language, the SP2 supercomputer and a SUN workstation were used for the experiments. The techniques have been tested on real-world handwriting scanned from various staff at Griffith University, Gold Coast. Some preliminary experimental results are presented in this paper.
nline detector of movement intention based on EEG — Application in remor patients

Patients with tremor can benefit from wearable robots managing their tremor during daily living. To achieve this, the interfaces controlling such robotic systems must be able to estimate the user’s intention to move and to distinguish it from the undesired tremor. In this context, analysis of electroencephalographic activity is of special interest, since it provides information on the planning and execution of voluntary movements. This paper proposes an adaptive and asynchronous EEG-based system for online detection of the intention to move in patients with tremor. An experimental protocol with separated self-paced wrist extensions was used to test the ability of the system to detect the intervals preceding voluntary movements. Six healthy subjects and four essential tremor patients took part in the experiments. The system predicted 60 ± 10% of the movements with the control subjects and 42 ± 27% of the movements with the patients. The ratio of false detections was low in both cases (1.5 ± 0.1 and 1.4 ± 0.5 false activations per minute with the controls and patients, respectively). The prediction period with which the movements were detected was higher than in previous similar studies (1.06 ± 1.02 s for the controls and 1.01 ± 0.99 s with the patients). Additionally, an adaptive and fixed design were compared, and it was the adaptive design that had a higher number of movement detections. The system is expected to lead to further development of more natural interfaces between the assistive devices and the patients wearing them.
Enhanced Mobile Imaging for Document Applications

By utilizing the camera of a mobile phone as an input channel of data from printed media, there is a significant potential of interesting applications that can take advantage of this feature. We consider in this paper document image capture applications, with the purpose of text retrieval and barcode decoding. A reliable capture of document images in the mobile environment is a challenging task. Several problems, including lightening, resolution, blur and contrast, are encountered. We consider these problems, and we present a dedicated image processing chain that attempts to optimize the performance of the recognition system. We illustrate an end-to-end optimized application on Nokia mobile devices that are using this dedicated processing chain.
It's a Man's Wikipedia? Assessing Gender Inequality in an Online Encyclopedia

Wikipedia is a community-created encyclopedia that contains information about notable people from different countries, epochs and disciplines and aims to document the world's knowledge from a neutral point of view. However, the narrow diversity of the Wikipedia editor community has the potential to introduce systemic biases such as gender biases into the content of Wikipedia. In this paper we aim to tackle a sub problem of this larger challenge by presenting and applying a computational method for assessing gender bias on Wikipedia along multiple dimensions. We find that while women on Wikipedia are covered and featured well in many Wikipedia language editions, the way women are portrayed starkly differs from the way men are portrayed. We hope our work contributes to increasing awareness about gender biases online, and in particular to raising attention to the different levels in which gender biases can manifest themselves on the web.
Tingkat kecemasan mahasiswa keperawatan dalam menghadapi ujian berbasis computer based test

Latar Belakang: Kemajuan teknologi yang semakin canggih dalam dunia pendidikan keperawatan membuat Computer Based Test (CBT) dijadikan sebagai salah satu metode ujian. Dalam menghadapi ujian mahasiswa keperawatan rentan mengalami kecemasan. Kecemasan yang dialami memiliki tingkatan yang berbeda-beda pada setiap individu. Kecemasan dapat memberikan dampak pada berbagai aspek.Tujuan: Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui gambaran dan faktor-faktor yang berhubungan dengan tingkat kecemasan mahasiswa keperawatan dalam menghadapi ujian berbasis Computer Based TestMetode: Penelitian ini menggunakan rancangan deksriptif kuantitatif dengan pendekatan cross sectional. Penelitian dilakukan di salah satu institusi keperawatan di Jawa Barat. Sampel dalam penelitian ini berjumlah 239 orang responden yang dipilih menggunakan metode stratified random sampling. Data dikumpulkan menggunakan instrumen Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HARS). Analisa data dengan univariat menggunakan distribusi frekuensi dalam bentuk persentase dan bivariat untuk menguji korelasi dengan menggunakan uji Chi Square dan Rank SpearmanHasil: Hasil penelitian menunjukkan 26.4% mahasiswa tidak mengalami kecemasan, 27.6% mahasiswa mengalami kecemasan ringan, 32,2% mahasiswa mengalami kecemasan sedang, 13.0% mahasiswa mengalami kecemasan berat, dan 0.8% mahasiswa mengalami kecemasan sangat berat. Masa studi/tingkat semester mahasiswa berhubungan dengan tingkat kecemasan mahasiswa (p<0.05). Kesimpulan: Tingkat kecemasan mahasiswa keperawatan dalam menghadapai ujian berbasis CBT sangat beragam namun pada umumnya mengalami kecemasan sedang. Semakin tinggi tingkat semester maka semakin rendah tingkat kecemasan mahasiswa dalam menghadapi ujian CBT
Image and Video for Hearing Impaired People

We present a global overview of image- and video-processing-based methods to help the communication of hearing impaired people. Two directions of communication have to be considered: from a hearing person to a hearing impaired person and vice versa. In this paper, firstly, we describe sign language (SL) and the cued speech (CS) language which are two different languages used by the deaf community. Secondly, we present existing tools which employ SL and CS video processing and recognition for the automatic communication between deaf people and hearing people. Thirdly, we present the existing tools for reverse communication, from hearing people to deaf people that involve SL and CS video synthesis.
An Examination of Adult Women’s Sleep Quality and Sleep Routines in Relation to Pet Ownership and Bedsharing

ABSTRACT People in many parts of the world commonly share their beds not only with human partners but also with dogs and cats. Self-report and actigraphy data have shown that sleeping with an adult human partner has both positive and negative impacts on human sleep, but there has been little exploration of the impacts that pets have on human sleep quality. We collected survey data online from 962 adult women living in the United States to investigate relationships between pet ownership and human sleep. Fifty-five percent of participants shared their bed with at least one dog and 31% with at least one cat. In addition, 57% of participants shared their bed with a human partner. Our findings did not show a strong relationship between pet ownership status or bedsharing conditions and sleep quality as assessed by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), although according to this measure, a high percentage of study participants did experience sleep quality deficits. It is possible that pet ownership contributed to the high global PSQI scores we observed, especially since all but 7% of participants resided with dogs and/or cats. Other measures included in this study indicate that dogs and cats, and where they sleep, may indeed affect sleep habits and perceptions of sleep quality. Dog owners had earlier bedtimes and wake times than individuals who had cats but no dogs. Compared with human bed partners, dogs who slept in the owner’s bed were perceived to disturb sleep less and were associated with stronger feelings of comfort and security. Conversely, cats who slept in their owner’s bed were reported to be equally as disruptive as human partners, and were associated with weaker feelings of comfort and security than both human and dog bed partners. Follow-up research is necessary to determine if pet owners’ perceptions of pets’ impacts on their sleep align with objective measures of sleep quality.
Generating More Specific Questions for Acquiring Attributes of Unknown Concepts from Users

Our aim is to acquire the attributes of concepts denoted by unknown words from users during dialogues. A word unknown to spoken dialogue systems can appear in user utterances, and systems should be capable of acquiring information on it from the conversation partner as a kind of selflearning process. As a first step, we propose a method for generating more specific questions than simple wh-questions to acquire the attributes, as such questions can narrow down the variation of the following user response and accordingly avoid possible speech recognition errors. Specifically, we obtain an appropriately distributed confidence measure (CM) on the attributes to generate more specific questions. Two basic CMs are defined using (1) character and word distributions in the target database and (2) frequency of occurrence of restaurant attributes on Web pages. These are integrated to complement each other and used as the final CM. We evaluated distributions of the CMs by average errors from the reference. Results showed that the integrated CM outperformed the two basic CMs.
Optimization of Gate – Source/Drain Underlap on 30 nm Gate Length FinFET Based LNA Using TCAD Simulations

The effect of gate – drain/source underlap (Lun) on a narrow band LNA performance has been studied, in 30 nm FinFET using device and mixed mode simulations. Studies are sssssdone by maintaining and not maintaining the leakage current (Ioff) and threshold voltage (Vth) of the various devices. LNA circuit with two transistors in a cascode arrangement is constructed and the input impedance, gain and noise-figure have been used as performance metrics. To get the better noise performance and gain, Lun in the range of 3-5nm is recommended. Key-Words: FinFET, LNA, TCAD, Underlap, Noise-Figure, Gain
Consumer Preferences for Mass Customization

This device is formed from a one piece length of wire and includes a pair of wire members forming a short handle which then inclines downwardly and spreads apart and extends parallel to the handle and then converges and inclines upwardly at the closed ended tip portion thereof. The closed ended tip is engaged through the button hole and over the button with the widest part spreading the button hole transversely thus enable the button to be pulled through easily whereupon the hole returns to its original elongated configuration and the device can be easily disengaged from the button. The stepped portion spaces the handle clear of the shirt surface for ease of manipulation and eliminates distortion of the neck portion of the shirt as it is used to engage the button through the button hole thereby eliminating strain on the button and preventing creasing from occurring.
Very High Resolution Multiangle Urban Classification Analysis

The high-performance camera control systems carried aboard the DigitalGlobe WorldView satellites, WorldView-1 and WorldView-2, are capable of rapid retargeting and high off-nadir imagery collection. This provides the capability to collect dozens of multiangle very high spatial resolution images over a large target area during a single overflight. In addition, WorldView-2 collects eight bands of multispectral data. This paper discusses the improvements in urban classification accuracy available through utilization of the spatial and spectral information from a WorldView-2 multiangle image sequence collected over Atlanta, GA, in December 2009. Specifically, the implications of adding height data and multiangle multispectral reflectance, both derived from the multiangle sequence, to the textural, morphological, and spectral information of a single WorldView-2 image are investigated. The results show an improvement in classification accuracy of 27% and 14% for the spatial and spectral experiments, respectively. Additionally, the multiangle data set allows the differentiation of classes not typically well identified by a single image, such as skyscrapers and bridges as well as flat and pitched roofs.
Dividing target-coverage graph in Wireless Sensor Networks

In order to reduce the algorithm complexity of the target coverage problem which is a NP-complete problem, we design three approaches to shorten the network scale. We firstly delete redundant sensor nodes, secondly remove the redundant targets, and thirdly divide the target-coverage graph into independent sub-graphs, and present the construct independent sub graph algorithm (CISGA) to divide target-coverage graph. Measurement results show that CISGA could reduce 30% of network scale and greatly reduce the algorithm complexity of target coverage problem.
Commentary: The relationship between parity and overweight--a life course perspective.

The prevalence of obesity is a rising epidemic of global proportions. No longer is it just a concern for rich countries but increasingly a problem for many developing countries. Obesity is recognized as having both multifarious causes and health-related consequences that are evident from early life and throughout the lifespan. For women in the developed countries child bearing has been identified as a risk factor for weight gain and obesity. Women often report that their obesity had been triggered by pregnancy-as many as 40-50% in one Swedish study. Yet for 30% of the women in the same study pregnancy was associated with a weight loss. In another cross-sectional study from Sweden sociodemographic factors and health behaviours such as education and physical activity had greater effect on BMI than child bearing. In a US national study it was found that after adjusting for a wide range of covariates the associations varied with race and were neither strong nor linear: in comparison with womenwithout children black women living in metropolitan areas with one or two children had increased BMI while white women living in non-metropolitan areas had lower BMI. These cross-sectional studies allude to a complex parity-weight relationship for women with a range of confounding factors that act across the life course with the possibility for further variations for those outside of the developed countries. (excerpt)
Solving the enigma of weak fluorine contacts in the solid state: a periodic DFT study of fluorinated organic crystals

The nature and strength of weak interactions with organic fluorine in the solid state are revealed by periodic density functional theory (periodic DFT) calculations coupled with experimental data on the structure and sublimation thermodynamics of crystalline organofluorine compounds. To minimize other intermolecular interactions, several sets of crystals of perfluorinated and partially fluorinated organic molecules are considered. This allows us to establish the theoretical levels providing an adequate description of the metric and electron-density parameters of the C–F⋯F–C interactions and the sublimation enthalpy of crystalline perfluorinated compounds. A detailed comparison of the C–F⋯F–C and C–H⋯F–C interactions is performed using the relaxed molecular geometry in the studied crystals. The change in the crystalline packing of aromatic compounds during their partial fluorination points to the structure-directing role of C–H⋯F–C interactions due to the dominant electrostatic contribution to these contacts. C–H⋯F–C and C–H⋯O interactions are found to be identical in nature and comparable in energy. The factors that determine the contribution of these interactions to the crystal packing are revealed. The reliability of the results is confirmed by considering the superposition of the electrostatic potential and electron density gradient fields in the area of the investigated intermolecular interactions.
Ranking Optimization with Constraints

This paper addresses the problem of post-processing of ranking in search, referred to as post ranking. Although important, no research seems to have been conducted on the problem, particularly with a principled approach, and in practice ad-hoc ways of performing the task are being adopted. This paper formalizes the problem as constrained optimization in which the constraints represent the post-processing rules and the objective function represents the trade-off between adherence to the original ranking and satisfaction of the rules. The optimization amounts to refining the original ranking result based on the rules. We further propose a specific probabilistic implementation of the general formalization on the basis of the Bradley-Terry model, which is theoretically sound, effective, and efficient. Our experimental results, using benchmark datasets and enterprise search dataset, show that the proposed method works much better than several baseline methods of utilizing rules.
Computation-Communication Overlap on Network-of-Workstation Multiprocessors

This paper describes and evaluates a compiler transformation that improves the performance of parallel programs on Network-of-Workstation (NOW) sharedmemory multiprocessors. The transformation overlaps the communication time resulting form non-local memory accesses with the computation time in parallel loops to effectively hide the latency of the remote accesses. The transformation peels from a parallel loop iterations that access remote data and re-schedules them after the execution of iterations that access only local data (localonly iterations). Asynchronous prefetching of remote data is used to overlap non-local access latency with the execution of local-only iterations. Experimental evaluation of the transformation on a NOW multiprocessor indicates that it is generally effective in improving parallel execution time (up to 1.9 times). The extent of the benefit is determined by three factors: the size of localonly computations, the significance of remote memory access latency, and the position of the iterations that access remote data in a parallel loop.
On the feasibility and utility of web based educational lesson plans

The Web has a wealth of educational information across different topics, which can potentially be used to improve teaching. In an attempt to harness this potential we developed a Contextual Information Portal(CIP) for education and deployed it in schools in Kenya and India. The portal crawls the Web and tries to collect documents for different subjects and creates a repository of relevant information. In this context two very basic question arise: What is the quality of these online contents? and Can these educational web materials be effectively used to teach classes? Answering the former question is fundamentally hard since there exists no standardized measure for the utility of web-based educational resources. This paper aims to answer these two questions in this larger realm. First, using 6 expert teachers, we study the content quality problem from a teacher's perspective of whether there exists sufficient information on the Web to teach classes pertaining to the school syllabus. To investigate the second question, we accepted the help of an expert teacher. Evaluations were based on her feedback after creating lesson plans using the CIP for grade 8 mathematics and taught several classes in an after-school program. We found that in general, the Web has sufficient number of high-quality contents and lesson plans obtained from the CIP are useful in teaching a class.