Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Design on Composite Cascade Mathematical Morphology Filter and Its Application in Signal Processing

In order to eliminate the pulse and noise interference of the weak signal, a filtering algorithm based on the composite cascade mathematical morphology is investigated in this paper, which mainly includes the principle analysis of morphological filter, the structure design of the filter element, and the construction of the composite cascade mathematical morphology. Finally, by simulation analysis and experimental verification, the results show that the implementation of the filtering algorithm based on the composite cascade mathematical morphology is simple and fast, and it can effectively filter out the pulse interference and random noise interference of the weak signal such as the actual oil film thickness signal obtained by the fiber optic displacement sensor. Furthermore, the filtering algorithm will play a very important role for the feature extraction of the weak electroencephalography signal. Keywordsfiber optic displacement sensor;oil film thickness; morphological filter
Mating patterns, pollen dispersal, and the ecological maternal neighbourhood in a Prunus mahaleb L. population

Gender polymorphism, plant–animal interactions, and environmental heterogeneity are the three important sources of variation in mating system and pollen dispersal patterns. We used progeny arrays and paternity analysis to assess the effects of gender type and density level on variation in mating patterns within a highly isolated population of Prunus mahaleb, a gynodioecious species. All the adult trees in the population were sampled and located. The direct estimate of long‐distance insect‐mediated pollination events was low (< 10%). Gender expression deeply influenced the mating system, decreasing the outcrossing rates (tm) and the pollen pool diversity in hermaphrodite trees. Long intermate distances (> 250 m) were significantly more frequent among female mother trees. Variation in local tree density also affected pollen pool diversity and intermate distance, with a higher effective number of fathers (ke) and longer intermate distances for female trees in low‐density patches. A canonical correlation analysis showed significant correlations between mating variables and the maternal ecological neighbourhood. Only the first canonical variable was significant and explained 78% of variation. Outcrossing rates tended to decrease, and the relatedness among the fathers tended to increase, when mother trees grew in dense patches with high cover of other woody species and taller vegetation away from the pine forest edge. We highlight the relevance of considering maternal ecological neighbourhood effects on mating system and gene flow studies as maternal trees act simultaneously as receptors of pollen and as sources of the seeds to be dispersed.
Term conflation methods in information retrieval: Non-linguistic and linguistic approaches

Purpose – To propose a categorization of the different conflation procedures at the two basic approaches, non‐linguistic and linguistic techniques, and to justify the application of normalization methods within the framework of linguistic techniques.Design/methodology/approach – Presents a range of term conflation methods, that can be used in information retrieval. The uniterm and multiterm variants can be considered equivalent units for the purposes of automatic indexing. Stemming algorithms, segmentation rules, association measures and clustering techniques are well evaluated non‐linguistic methods, and experiments with these techniques show a wide variety of results. Alternatively, the lemmatisation and the use of syntactic pattern‐matching, through equivalence relations represented in finite‐state transducers (FST), are emerging methods for the recognition and standardization of terms.Findings – The survey attempts to point out the positive and negative effects of the linguistic approach and its poten.
Adaptive Computer Interfaces

Existing devices for communicating information from people to computers are either bulky, slow to use, or unreliable. The conventional keyboard requires the user to make one or two gestures per character (one for lower-case and two for upper-case characters). All ten human digits are used, and a large 12-inch by 4-inch physical device is required; only one of the ten digits is used per gesture. Dasher is a new interface incorporating language modelling and driven by continuous twodimensional gestures, e.g. a mouse, touchscreen, or eye-tracker. Tests have shown that this device can be used to enter text at a rate of up to 39 words per minute during a dictation task, compared with typical ten-finger keyboard typing of 40-60 words per minute. We also show that Dasher can be used as a mobile text entry device. On a hand-held personal organiser, users enter text with a stylus and a touchscreen. Dasher can be used with an eye-tracker as a hands free text entry system. Expert writing speed is currently 20 words per minute. We hope that this system will be useful to people with limited access to a keyboard. The writing speed of Dasher depends of the quality of the language model. The Dirichlet Language Model, Boltzmann machines and neural networks are all investigated as better language models for use in Dasher. Dasher is still under development; we think it shows promise as a keyboard–less text entry system both in its absolute writing speed and ease of use.
Thermohaline circulation hysteresis: A model intercomparison

We present results from an intercomparison of 11 different climate models of intermediate complexity, in which the North Atlantic Ocean was subjected to slowly varying changes in freshwater input. All models show a characteristic hysteresis response of the thermohaline circulation to the freshwater forcing; which can be explained by Stommel's salt advection feedback. The width of the hysteresis curves varies between 0.2 and 0.5 Sv in the models. Major differences are found in the location of present‐day climate on the hysteresis diagram. In seven of the models, present‐day climate for standard parameter choices is found in the bi‐stable regime, in four models this climate is in the mono‐stable regime. The proximity of the present‐day climate to the Stommel bifurcation point, beyond which North Atlantic Deep Water formation cannot be sustained, varies from less than 0.1 Sv to over 0.5 Sv.
Assessing the Competitive Interaction Between Private Labels and National Brands

In contrast to single-equation cross-sectional studies of private label share, developing a complete understanding of the nature of the competitive interaction between national brands and private labels requires an understanding of the determinants of both demand and strategic pricing decisions by firms. Consequently, we estimate a simultaneous system of share and price for private labels and national brands. From the empirical results, two measures of market response are derived. The unilateral demand elasticity measures the pure ? own? demand response, while the residual (or ? total? ) elasticity also captures the impact of competitive price reaction (Baker and Bresnahan 1985). When taken together, these provide important strategic insights into the pricing interaction between national brands and private labels. In our empirical analysis, we employ a flexible, non-linear demand specification, the Linear Approximate Almost Ideal Demand System (LA/AIDS, Deaton and Muellbauer 1980a), and specify the price reaction equations derived under the LA/AIDS demand specification. Incorporating LA/AIDS demands into a structural equation framework represents an important departure from previous demand specifications in competitive analysis. Using the proposed LA/AIDS framework, we perform a detailed intra-category analysis using data on six individual categories: bread, milk, pasta, instant coffee, butter and margarine. In addition, in an attempt to generalize the results to a broader set of categories and in order to enable us to compare our results to previous cross-section studies, we also estimate using a sample pooled across 125 categories and 59 geographic markets. Consistent with our objectives, we find that consumer response to price and promotion decisions (demand) and the factors influencing firm pricing behavior (supply) jointly determine observed market prices and market shares. Further, estimates of residual demand elasticities suggest that examination of partial demand elasticities alone may provide an incomplete picture of the ability of brands to raise price. Managerial implications, limitations and suggestion for future research are discussed.
Meta-metrics for the Accuracy of Software Project Estimation

Software project estimation for such items as Size, Effort, Cost, Delivery time, Reliability and Risk, is a fundamental skill for software engineers. In order to improve estimation, there is a need for measurement of the measurements, that is, a meta-metric for the process. This paper compares three existing metrics and provides an example of conversions between them. It then extends one (DeMarco's Estimating Quality Factor) to recognise and reward rapid convergence to an accurate figure during a project. A second metric is defined to provide a lower bound on error for multiple initial estimates. The paper concludes with a worked example as an illustration of the metric's properties. 1. Background One of the major problems of Software Engineering is the lack of confidence in estimates of project factors such as Size, Effort, Cost, Delivery time, Reliability and Risk, even though these are of fundamental interest to the client. Poor estimates lead to poor plans and inadequate planning is a basic cause of failure with software projects. Despite substantial developments in recent years in the field of Software Metrics, industry's ability to predict basic project parameters is low and the proportion of systems delivered significantly overdue remains unacceptably high. A previous paper (Woodings, 1995) considered a taxonomy of Software Metrics with particular reference to giving greater visibility to measures of process improvement. This paper considers the issue of meta-metrics for the accuracy of measurement of project parameters in general (and development effort in particular) and the need for specialised metrics which may be monitored to provide evidence of organisational improvement. The need for meta-metrics was emphasised in some recent research (Lederer, 1998), which indicated little improvement in estimation practices due to new models and techniques. It asserted: "Only one managerial practice the use of the estimate in performance evaluations of software managers and professionals presages greater accuracy. By implication, the research suggests somewhat ironically that the most effective approach to improve estimating accuracy may be to make estimators, developers and managers more accountable for the estimate even though it may be impossible to direct them explicitly on how to produce a more accurate one. " However, the more managers are held to their promises, the more they will be tempted to adjust other project factors in order to look good. Predictions become self-fulfilling prophesies. Thus, there is a need to have in place a framework of meta-metrics to monitor, guide and provide feedback to organisations on their project management.
Delineating Wales: Constitutional, Legal and Administrative Aspects of National Devolution

With devolution and the establishment of the National Assembly, Wales has gained its first ever democratically elected and accountable government. This represents not only a turning point in the history of Wales, but also a fascinating development in the constitutional and legal history of the United Kingdom. In Delineating Wales, Richard Rawlings critically evaluates the legal and constitutional aspects of devolution. Drawing on interviews with those responsible for creating and maintaining the devolutionary scheme, he considers the internal architecture and operation of the National Assembly, the distinctive law-making procedures in Wales and discusses Wales's relationship with both Britain and the European Union. In addition to being the first book to examine the constitutional and legal aspects of Welsh devolution in detail, Delineating Wales also offers a detailed critique of the existing position and suggests proposals for reform. It will be an essential text for anyone interested in contemporary constitutional and political developments in relation to the Welsh model of devolution.
Sensing power MOSFET junction temperature using gate drive turn-on current transient properties

Junction temperature sensing for high bandwidth power MOSFET junction temperature protection is usually achieved on the power converter's high power side, by directly monitoring the power switches with additional temperature detectors. This requires special considerations for high voltage, high current, high temperature, and EMI protection. This paper presents a new method applied on the power converter's low power side (MOSFET gate drive) so that junction temperature sensing can be integrated into MOSFET gate drive. For the purpose of demonstrating MOSFET junction temperature sensing, a push-pull gate drive is applied to a switching current divider circuit. The gate drive turn-on current transient waveform is used for MOSFET junction temperature estimation. A `gate drive-MOSFET' switching dynamic model is implemented indicating the mechanisms of MOSFET gate drive output dynamics. Modeling includes gatedrive push-pull output, gate drive output parasitics, power MOSFET intrinsic parameters, PCB parasitics, and load parasitics. LTSpice simulation of this model is studied and compared with experimental results.
A business intelligent technique for sentiment estimation by management sectors

People express emotions in response to everyday situation and personal communication. With diversity of language expressions, it is challenging to provide an accurate estimation of emotion or sentiment. This paper proposes intelligent technique and system for sentiment estimation and prediction in the business domain. It is useful for management sectors where tools can automatically analyze collected data and reveal employees' opinion about their organization, or any ongoing topic. The challenge in this work is to detect sentiment classes from relatively long text, where writers merge sentences and expressions when asked to write reviews, instead of being directly asked to write their sentiment degree. The approach is data-driven, which uses machine learning to train classifier features to recognize the sentiment. A system is implemented and tested (on real data collected from employee reviews at big IT organizations) towards two and five classification degrees problems. Recorded results prove efficiency of the technique.
Autonomous Camera Systems: A Survey

Autonomous cameras allow live events, such as lectures and sports matches, to be broadcast to larger audiences. In this work, we review autonomous camera systems developed over the past twenty years. Quite often, these systems were demonstrated on scripted stage productions (typically cooking shows), lectures, or team sports. We organize the discussion in terms of three core tasks: (1) planning where the cameras should look, (2) controlling the cameras as they transition from one parameter configuration to another, and (3) selecting which camera to put “on-air” in multi-camera systems. We conclude by discussing a trend towards more datadriven approaches fueled by continuous improvements in underlying sensing and signal processing technology.
Bioinspired Aquatic Propulsion Mechanisms with Real-Time Variable Apparent Stiffness Fins

We aimed to develop the aquatic propulsion mechanisms of Paramecium like and fish like robots that consist of real-time variable stiffness fins. For the aquatic propulsion mechanisms of the Paramecium like robot, we have used fins with ICPF (Ionic Conducting Polymer gel Film) actuator to change its stiffness for representing ciliary movement. For the aquatic propulsion mechanisms of the fish like robot, we have used a fin with variable effective length spring which changes its apparent bending stiffness. We discussed the movement of the real-time variable stiffness fins and thrust force characteristics of the propulsion mechanisms in fluid.
Combining of Antenna Selection with Adaptive Modulation and Coding in STBC System

In this paper, we investigate a communication strategy combining of transmit antenna selection with adaptive modulation and coding for space-time block coded system. The antenna selection is based on the criterion of maximizing the average spectral efficiency (ASE) of the whole system for a given bit error rate (BER) constraint. In order to enhance system performance, low density parity check codes (LDPC) is employed as the error correcting codes. We assume that the channel state information (CSI) is known at the receiver and the adaptive control signaling can be perfectly fed back to the transmitter. Simulation results show that our proposed scheme provides a well behaved trade-off between the ASE and BER under MIMO environment
Computerized Medical Imaging and Graphics Active Contours Driven by Local and Global Intensity Fitting Energy with Application to Brain Mr Image Segmentation

Keywords: Image segmentation Intensity inhomogeneity Active contour model Level set method Variational method a b s t r a c t In this paper, we propose an improved region-based active contour model in a variational level set formulation. We define an energy functional with a local intensity fitting term, which induces a local force to attract the contour and stops it at object boundaries, and an auxiliary global intensity fitting term, which drives the motion of the contour far away from object boundaries. Therefore, the combination of these two forces allows for flexible initialization of the contours. This energy is then incorporated into a level set formulation with a level set regularization term that is necessary for accurate computation in the corresponding level set method. The proposed model is first presented as a two-phase level set formulation and then extended to a multi-phase formulation. Experimental results show the advantages of our method in terms of accuracy and robustness. In particular, our method has been applied to brain MR image segmentation with desirable results.
Plastic changes in the auditory cortex induced by intensive frequency discrimination training

The slow auditory evoked (wave Nlm) and mismatch field (MMF) elicited by sequences of pure tones of 1000 Hz and deviant tones of 1050, 1010 and 1005 Hz were measured before, during and 3 weeks after subjects were trained at frequency discrimination for 15 sessions (over 3 weeks) using an odd-ball procedure. The task of the subject was to detect deviants differing by progressively smaller frequency shifts from the standard stimulus. Frequency discrimination improved rapidly in the first week and was followed by small but constant improvements thereafter. Nlm and MMF responses to the deviant stimuli increased in amplitude during training. This enhancement persisted until training was finished, but decreased 3 weeks later. The results suggest a plastic reorganization of the cortical representation for the trained frequencies.
PAID I TRANSLATION ERROR SPOTTING FROM A USER ' S POINT OF VIEW

The evaluation of errors made by Machine Translation (MT) systems still needs human effort despite the fact that there are automated MT evaluation tools, such as the BLEU metric. Moreover, assuming that there would be tools that support humans in this translation quality checking task, for example by automatically marking some errors found in the MT system output, there is no guarantee that this actually helps to achieve a more correct or faster human evaluation. The paper presents a user study which found statistically significant interaction effects for the task of finding MT errors under the conditions of non-annotated and automatically pre-annotated errors, in terms of the time needed to complete the task and the number of correctly found errors.
Gender and Time Dimensions of Informal Workers’ Well-being: Evidence from Thailand

The paper theoretically and empirically explores the relationship between work intensity and well-being. It first develops a well-being composite index that takes into account not only money based income, but also those aspects of individual capabilities and functioning that are not necessarily acquired through market participation such as the person’s educational attainment and work intensity. The study focuses on two categories of informal home-based workers: 1) those who are self-employed and work in their own business and 2) those who are paid by others and work as subcontracted homeworkers. Using time use data collected among these workers, the paper demonstrates how time use patterns can serve as crucial indicators of quality of life. Empirical tests are then conducted to examine the effect of time and work intensity aspects on the well-being of homebased workers, majority of whom have low wage rates and/or work with no labor protection. For women workers, combining both paid market work and unpaid domestic work has become a necessity, creating a higher incidence of work intensity, and hence lower quality of life than among men homebased workers. We also found that the well-being level of self employed workers to be better than subcontracted workers. The well-being index developed in the paper provides a useful indicator for use by policymakers, researchers and advocacy groups in the way that it allows for comparability and for identifying those who need the most assistance. A better understanding of the factors that promote or lower well-being can enable policymakers to target vulnerable individuals or households. It also helps them to design more effective programs and economic and social policies that enhance the well-being of these individuals.
Sensitivity analyses for unmeasured confounding assuming a marginal structural model for repeated measures

Robins introduced marginal structural models (MSMs) and inverse probability of treatment weighted (IPTW) estimators for the causal effect of a time‐varying treatment on the mean of repeated measures. We investigate the sensitivity of IPTW estimators to unmeasured confounding. We examine a new framework for sensitivity analyses based on a nonidentifiable model that quantifies unmeasured confounding in terms of a sensitivity parameter and a user‐specified function. We present augmented IPTW estimators of MSM parameters and prove their consistency for the causal effect of an MSM, assuming a correct confounding bias function for unmeasured confounding. We apply the methods to assess sensitivity of the analysis of Hernán et al., who used an MSM to estimate the causal effect of zidovudine therapy on repeated CD4 counts among HIV‐infected men in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study. Under the assumption of no unmeasured confounders, a 95 per cent confidence interval for the treatment effect includes zero. We show that under the assumption of a moderate amount of unmeasured confounding, a 95 per cent confidence interval for the treatment effect no longer includes zero. Thus, the analysis of Hernán et al. is somewhat sensitive to unmeasured confounding. We hope that our research will encourage and facilitate analyses of sensitivity to unmeasured confounding in other applications. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.