Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differential geometry of Toda systems

In the present paper we give a differential geometry formulation of the basic dynamical principle of the group--algebraic approach \cite{LeS92} --- the grading condition --- in terms of some holomorphic distributions on flag manifolds associated with the parabolic subgroups of a complex Lie group; and a derivation of the corresponding nonlinear integrable systems, and their general solutions. Moreover, the reality condition for these solutions is introduced. For the case of the simple Lie groups endowed with the canonical gradation, when the systems in question are reduced to the abelian Toda equations, we obtain the generalised Pl\"ucker representation for the pseudo--metrics specified by the K\"ahler metrics on the flag manifolds related to the maximal nonsemisimple parabolic subgroups; and the generalised infinitesimal Pl\"ucker formulas for the Ricci curvature tensors of these pseudo--metrics. In accordance with these formulas, the fundamental forms of the pseudo--metrics and the Ricci curvature tensors are expressed directly in terms of the abelian Toda fields, which have here the sense of K\"ahler potentials.
From the SelectedWorks of Raul Caruso March 2011 International Relative Prices and Civil Wars in Sub-Saharan Africa . Theory and Evidence over the period 1995 -

This paper presents first a theoretical model of conflict between two agents characterized by a two-sector economy. In a contested sector two agents struggle to appropriate the maximum possible fraction of a contestable output. In an uncontested sector, they hold secure property rights over the production of some goods. Agents split their resource endowment between „butter‟, „guns‟ and „ice-cream‟. Eventually, tradable goods made of butter and ice-cream produced by conflicting parties are both sold to the Rest of the world. Therefore, the opportunity cost of conflict depends also on relative profitability of contested and uncontested production. In particular, productivity of uncontested production and profitability of contested sectors are countervailing forces. The empirical section focused on a panel of Sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1995-2006. Results are not fully conclusive. However, there is robust evidence that prices of manufactures (interpreted as the uncontested ice-cream) are negatively associated with the likelihood of a civil war. Eventually, international price of manufactures is also associated with a higher GDP per capita growth rate. The concluding remark seems to be that an increase in world prices of manufactures would make civil wars less likely.
Traffic Vehicle Counting in Jam Flow Conditions Using Low-Cost and Energy-Efficient Wireless Magnetic Sensors

The jam flow condition is one of the main traffic states in traffic flow theory and the most difficult state for sectional traffic information acquisition. Since traffic information acquisition is the basis for the application of an intelligent transportation system, research on traffic vehicle counting methods for the jam flow conditions has been worthwhile. A low-cost and energy-efficient type of multi-function wireless traffic magnetic sensor was designed and developed. Several advantages of the traffic magnetic sensor are that it is suitable for large-scale deployment and time-sustainable detection for traffic information acquisition. Based on the traffic magnetic sensor, a basic vehicle detection algorithm (DWVDA) with less computational complexity was introduced for vehicle counting in low traffic volume conditions. To improve the detection performance in jam flow conditions with a “tailgating effect” between front vehicles and rear vehicles, an improved vehicle detection algorithm (SA-DWVDA) was proposed and applied in field traffic environments. By deploying traffic magnetic sensor nodes in field traffic scenarios, two field experiments were conducted to test and verify the DWVDA and the SA-DWVDA algorithms. The experimental results have shown that both DWVDA and the SA-DWVDA algorithms yield a satisfactory performance in low traffic volume conditions (scenario I) and both of their mean absolute percent errors are less than 1% in this scenario. However, for jam flow conditions with heavy traffic volumes (scenario II), the SA-DWVDA was proven to achieve better results, and the mean absolute percent error of the SA-DWVDA is 2.54% with corresponding results of the DWVDA 7.07%. The results conclude that the proposed SA-DWVDA can implement efficient and accurate vehicle detection in jam flow conditions and can be employed in field traffic environments.
DATA MINING LEARNING MODELS AND ALGORITHMS FOR MEDICAL APPLICATIONS

Learning models are widely implemented for prediction of system behaviour and forecasting future trends. A comparison of different learning models used in Data Mining and a practical guideline how to select the most suited algorithm for a specific medical application is presented and some empirical criteria for describing and evaluating learning methods are given. Three case studies for medical data sets are presented and potential benefits of the proposed methodology for diagnosis learning are suggested.
AN ANALYSIS OF THE DESIGN FACTORS AFFECTING THE PERFORMANCE OF CRYPTOSYSTEMS

Communication is the basic process of exchanging information. The effectiveness of computer communication is mainly based on the security aspects. The internet made the communication more flexible and resourceful. Then securing the data that has been transmitted over the channel turned in to a different shape. Security of information transmitted over the network is becoming tougher in spite of the availability of many cryptographic algorithms. This paper aims at providing the zoom on various factors affecting the performance of Encryption algorithms . This paper also focuses on the factors which affects the security of the information transmitted over the networks.
Analysis of the Development of Kutztown Community Network

This study investigates the development, discourse, design, and social interactions within the Kutztown community network. Drawing on the theory of social construction of technology, the study employs an in-depth case study approach to investigate how the community network was designed and how the Kutztown community participated in the network development. The findings show that there was little societal input into the design process; the design process was influenced by political economy factors, which now threaten the viability of the network. The study highlights the significant role of intermediation in developing community networks and concludes that community participation should not be limited to particular development stages.
Prominent Clinical Dimension, Duration of Illness and Treatment Response in Schizophrenia: A Naturalistic Study

Objective Preliminary data indicate that predominant positive symptoms are predictive of subsequent treatment response, while negative and cognitive symptoms are associated with poor outcome. Purpose of the present study was to investigate the relation between the predominant clinical dimension, duration of illness and acute antipsychotic response in a sample of schizophrenic inpatients. Methods Fifty-one schizophrenic inpatients, receiving an antipsychotic mono-therapy, were dimensionally assessed at the admission in the Acute Psychiatric Unit of the University of Milan. Treatment response was selected as parameter of outcome and defined as a reduction >50% of baseline total The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) score. Demographic and clinical variables between responders and non-responders were compared using one-way analysis of variance for continuous variables and χ2 test for dichotomous ones. Binary logistic regression was performed to find if dimensional scores and duration of illness were associated with acute antipsychotic response. Results A longer duration of illness was found in non-responders respect to responders (15.61 years vs. 8.28 years)(F=4.98, p=0.03). Higher scores on PANSS positive sub-scale (OR=1.3, p=0.03), lower scores on cognitive PANSS scores (OR=0.75, p=0.05) and shorter duration of illness (OR=0.93, p=0.04) were found to be predictive of acute antipsychotic response. Conclusion These preliminary results show that a long duration of illness as well as a more severe cognitive impairment is predictive of treatment non-response, indicating a worse outcome for chronic patients with predominant cognitive symptoms.
Big Data and government: Evidence of the role of Big Data for smart cities

Scholars are becoming increasingly interested in whether and how government use of Big Data will affect public policy outcomes. Despite such growing scholarly interests, however, little evidence exists on the role Big Data can play in improving government service. We undertake one of the first quantitative studies revealing the potential utility and limitations of “Big Data-based policymaking” by exploring its recent use by the Seoul Metropolitan Government. In 2013, the government introduced the “Owl Bus”—a late-night bus system—the routes of which were selected based on government analyses of Big Data relating to citizens’ late-night taxi and mobile phone use. The findings suggest that the average number of passengers utilizing the Owl Bus routes was significantly greater than that on other daytime bus routes with comparable characteristics. That said, we also present the potential limitations of evidence-based policymaking in general, especially when politics and equity considerations are factored in.
Performance Considerations of Data Acquisition in Hadoop System

Data have become more and more important these years, especially for big companies, and it is of great benefit to mine useful information in these data. Oil & Gas industry has to deal with vast amounts of data, both in real-time and historical context. As the amount of data is significant, it is usually infeasible or very time consuming to actually process the data. In our project we investigate usage of Hadoop to solve this problem. In order to perform Hadoop jobs, data must first exist in the Hadoop file system, which creates the problem of data acquisition. In this paper, two solutions are investigates, performance comparison is performed and solution based on Chukwa is demonstrated to be more efficient than a naïve implementation in particular for bigger file sizes.
Lost in Virtual Space II: The Role of Proprioception and Discrete Actions when Navigating with Uncertainty

Recent studies in spatial navigation by Stankiewicz, Legge, Mansfield and Schlicht (2006) investigated human navigation eciency in indoor virtual reality (VR) environments when participants were uncertain about their current state in the environment (i.e., they were disoriented or “lost”). These studies used quantized actions (i.e., rotate-left or right by 90˚and translate forward a specific distance) and lacked vestibular and proprioceptive cues as participants navigated through the virtual spaces. The current studies investigated whether the results from these studies generalize to more realistic conditions in which participants move continuously through space and have proprioceptive and vestibular information available to them. The results suggest that for large-scale way-finding tasks, desktop VR may provide a valid way to examine human navigation with uncertainty.
The Information Revolution and the Digital Divide A Review of Literature

In the early 1990's, Tim Bernes-Lee developed the global hypertext system the World Wide Web with an aim to provide a common space where information could be shared without barriers. The expansion of the Web may have surprised even its creator. In less than ten years, the online population has grown to 180 million individuals across all continents, while an estimated 250,000 sites are added to the Web each month (www.net-surfin.com/page4.htm). Rapid expansion is not unique to the Web. Computers, a strange word some fifty years ago, are now common household items and integral parts of educational systems in many countries. At the end of 1998, more than 40 percent of the households in the United States owned computers and onefourth had Internet access (NTIA, 1999). In October 1999, 90 percent of all Canadian schools were online; four out of ten students had used e-mail during the previous school year; and 30 percent had designed their own web sites (www.nua.ie/surveys). Scholars, journalists and practitioners reacted to the rapid development of the new information and communication technologies (ICTs) with high expectations and equally great concerns. All recognize the technology’s potential to overcome geographical and cultural barriers and bring needed improvement to people’s lives all over the world. At the same time, fears have mounted that this potential is not being tapped. Instead of fostering a new equilibrium among countries, the ICT revolution may be widening the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots,” and creating a divide that may prove extremely difficult to close.
10371 Abstracts Collection Dynamic Maps — Dagstuhl Seminar —

From September 12th to 17th, 2010, the Dagstuhl Seminar 10371 “Dynamic Maps ” was held in Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz Center for Informatics. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available.
On in-situ visualization for strongly coupled partitioned fluid-structure interaction

We present an integrated in-situ visualization approach for partitioned multi-physics simulation of fluid-structure interaction. The simulation itself is treated as a black box and only the information at the fluid-structure interface is considered, and communicated between the fluid and solid solvers with a separate coupling tool. The visualization of the interface data is performed in conjunction with the fluid solver. Furthermore, we present new visualization techniques for the analysis of the interrelation of the two solvers , with emphasis on the involved error due to discretization in space and time and the reconstruction. Our visualization approach also enables the investigation of these errors with respect of their mutual influence on the two simulation codes and their space-time discretization. For efficient interactive visualization, we employ the concept of explorable spatiotemporal images, which also enables finite-time temporal navigation in an in-situ context. We demonstrate our overall approach and its utility by means of a fluid-structure simulation using OpenFOAM that is coupled by the preCICE software layer.
An Adaptive Method For Texture Characterization In Medical Images Implemented on a Parallel Virtual Machine Socrates

This paper describes the application of a new texture characterization algorithm for the segmentation of medical ultrasound images. The morphology of these images poses significant problems for the application of traditional image processing techniques and their analysis has been the subject of research for several years. The basis of the algorithm is an optimum signal modelling algorithm (Least Mean Squares-based), which estimates a set of parameters from small image regions. The algorithm has been converted to a structure suitable for implementation on a Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) consisting of a Network of Workstations (NoW), to improve processing speed. Tests were initially carried out on standard textured images. This paper describes preliminary results of the application of the algorithm in texture discrimination and segmentation of medical ultrasound images. The images examined are primarily used in the diagnosis of carotid plaques, which are linked to the risk of stroke.
Multi-touch displays : design , applications and performance evaluation

When interacting with a regular desktop computer, indirect devices such as a mouse or keyboard are used to control the computer. Results of the interaction are displayed on a monitor. Current operating systems are restricted to one pointing device. With the introduction of multi-touch, a new form of human computer interaction is introduced. Multi-touch combines display technology with sensors which are capable of tracking multiple points of input. The idea is that this would allow users to interact with the computer in a natural way. Due to recent innovations multi-touch technology has become affordable. For this project a camera based multi-touch device has been constructed at the Scientific Visualization and Virtual Reality group of the Section Computational Science of the Universiteit van Amsterdam. To perform multi-touch point tracking we used Touchlib, a free open source multi-touch framework. To demonstrate the possibilities of multi-touch input technology we created new rich media applications which are controlled by gestures. Existing software can benefit from multi-touch technology, this is demonstrated in a real-time fluid simulation model and the geographical application NASA World Wind. Multi-touch systems are often stand alone systems that do not have external input devices attached. In order to simplify common tasks, a gesture recognition engine has been designed (Gesturelib). Through a set of experiments we evaluate how multi-touch input performs on tasks compared to conventional mouse input. Unlike interaction on a desktop computer multi-touch allows multiple users to interact with the same devices at the same time. We present measurements that show how collaboration on a multi-touch table can improve the performance for specific tasks.
Photometry of seven overlooked open clusters in the first and fourth Galactic quadrants

CCD BVI photometry is presented for seven previously unstudied star clusters projected towards the inner side of the Galaxy: Trumpler 23, Lynga 3, Collinder 307, Ruprecht 134, ESO552SC16, AL 5 and Kronberger 3. Colour–magnitude diagrams of the cluster regions allow us to conclude that Lynga 3 and ESO552SC16 are not clusters, but groups of bright stars probably located in the Carina–Sagittarius spiral arm. AL 5 and Kronberger 3 are so embedded in a dense stellar field that we cannot confirm their nature. Trumpler 23 and Ruprecht 134 are two intermediate-age open clusters located well inside the solar ring which deserve further attention. Finally, Collinder 307 is an obscured younger cluster (250 Myr) located in the Carina–Sagittarius spiral arm. Our results emphasize the difficulty to search for open clusters in the inner regions of the Galaxy due to the richness of the field and the patchy nature of the interstellar absorption, but at the same time significantly contribute to a better understanding of this complicated regions of the Milky Way.
Enhancing Semantic Annotation through Coreference Chaining: An Ontology-based Approach

Semantic annotation of natural language text requires a certain degree of understanding of the document in question. Especially the resolution of unclear reference is a major challenge when detecting relevant information units in a document. The ongoing KunDoc project examines how domain specific ontologies can support the task of Coreference chaining in order to enhance applications such as automatic annotation, information extraction or automatic summarization. In this paper, we present a robust methodology for acquisition of semantic contexts that does not depend on a thorough syntactic parsing as necessary tools often are unavailable for “smaller” languages. Based on a shallow corpus-analysis, verb-subject relations constitute the framework for the extraction of semantic contexts. Our approach either adds the semantic contexts to concepts and instances in an existing ontology or builds up the domain knowledge necessary for coreference chaining from scratch.
Toxicity of oil to reef-building corals : a spill response perspective

NOAA is responsible for protecting and restoring marine and coastal environments impacted by spills and hazardous substance releases. The Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) is the focal point for NOAA's spill preparedness, emergency response, and restoration programs. OR&R's Hazardous Materials Response Division and its contingent of on-scene Scientific Support Coordinators have earned a wide reputation for delivering scientifically valid solutions to the Federal On-Scene Coordinator (the U.S. Coast Guard in the coastal zone, or EPA in inland areas). OR&R's Coastal Protection and Restoration Division and Damage Assessment Center are critic al components of NOAA's natural resource trusteeship responsibilities. The CPR Division works closely with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to redress the environmental effects of hazardous waste sites across the United States. Coastal Resource Coordinators provide site-specific technical expertise in ecological risk assessment and coastal remediation issues. This expertise ranges from physical science to ecology, marine biology, and oceanography. In their NOAA trusteeship role, CRCs assess the longer-term risks to coastal resources (including threatened and endangered species) from Superfund-site contamination, support decision-making for site remedies and habitat restoration, and negotiate protective remedies with the responsible parties to ensure that cleanup, restoration, and recovery are appropriate and fully monitored. While the HAZMAT and CPR divisions work to prevent and minimize injury to natural resources during spill response and waste site remediation activities, the Damage Assessment Center focuses on addressing the injury that remains after the cleanup or response. DAC's Rapid Assessment Program goes on-scene at oil or hazardous materials releases to assess damages to NOAA trust resources, including National Marine Sanctuaries and National Estuarine Research Reserves. DAC works with other trustees and NOAA's Office of General Counsel in pursuing compensation from responsible parties to restore injured resources. The compensation DAC receives is designed to benefit the natural resources injured by the release. The Regional Programs section actively engages local and regional communities in integrating sound coastal resource management, oil spill prevention and response, and safe and efficient marine transportation. Administered collaboratively with the NOS Coastal Services Center, Regional Projects serves as liaison between NOS scientific and technical expertise and the needs of the maritime industry, port authorities, coastal resource managers, and other NOAA clients in the coastal zone. Regional Programs matches specific coastal-zone conditions and needs with tailored services, tools, and products from across NOS, including physical oceanographic real-time systems, electronic chart systems, coastal geographic information systems frameworks, photogrammetry, and …