Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A New Image Retrieval System Based on CBIR

content based image retrieval from large databases has turn into a field of broad attention these days in much application. In this paper we present new image retrieval system that employs color as image features to illustrate the content of an image region. Our work presents an evaluation of the proposed CBIR systems: CM, DM, HA, RGBC and ED. These methods boost the retrieval precision of our system; we merge the features extracted from image regions, with features extracted from the whole image, which are color histograms. Our proposed system has the advantage of increasing the retrieval accuracy. The testing assessment of the proposed system is founded on a WANG’s color image database. From the experimental results, it is marked that proposed system achieves appreciably better compared with other existing systems. Keywords—Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR), histogram-based image retrieval, color quantization, color model, precision, Histogram similarity measures.
An Efficient ATPG for Crosstalk-Induced Delay Faults

For short interconnection line in logic circuits, in this paper, we propose a new test generation method for delay faults considering crosstalk-induced delay effects, based on a conventional delay ATPG technique in order to reduce the complexity of previous ATPG algorithm for crosstalk delay faults and to consider multiple aggressor crosstalk faults to maximize the noise of the victim line. In current trends in integrated circuit design, it is inevitable to eliminate errors caused by crosstalk because of stringent area and performance requirements in recent designs. These noises due to the crosstalk could be eliminated by resizing drivers, shielding interconnect techniques, rerouting signals and repeater insertion techniques. However, these redesign techniques using the analysis of the crosstalk-induced noise may be very expensive in terms of time and design efforts. In addition, since the process variation cannot be expected for all cases, these redesign techniques cannot guarantee the high noise immunity of the circuits. Therefore, automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) for crosstalk faults is an important method to verify and test that a chip can meet performance requirements [1-9]. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a new test generation method for delay faults considering crosstalk-induced delay effects, based on a conventional delay ATPG technique in order to reduce the complexity of previous ATPG algorithm for crosstalk delay faults and to consider multiple aggressor crosstalk faults to maximize the noise of the victim line. Since the proposed ATPG for crosstalk-induced delay faults uses the test patterns obtained from the conventional path delay ATPG, the proposed ATPG can reduce the search space of the backward implication of the aggressor's constraints and it is helpful for reducing the time cost of the ATPG than previous works. In addition, since the proposed technique targets on the critical path for the original delay test as the victim lines, it can improve test effectiveness of delay testing. For a sensitizable victim path, a new algorithm is proposed which appropriately activate its associated aggressor-victim pairs for maximization of crosstalk. The proposed algorithm uses the parasitic information such as coupling capacitance between a node of the victim and an aggressor and the timing information such as static timing window and the crosstalk-induced noise delay model. Using the parasitic and timing information, the proposed algorithm handles multiple aggressors coupled to a victim lying along a path and activates the aggressors in the best possible way to induce maximum crosstalk slowdown …
Política medioambiental y sustitución tecnológica entre "inputs"

Este articulo analiza una modificacion de la politica medioambiental del Gobierno de un pais (Espana) que establece la existencia de permisos de emision de CO2 e impone una restriccion sobre el numero de permisos disponibles como medida tributaria. El objetivo es tratar de detectar en que medida los efectos macro y microeconomicos por la reduccion del numero de permisos de emision podrian depender de las tecnologias de produccion que utilizan las empresas, cuando todavia no ha tenido lugar una innovacion tecnologica diferente a la sustitucion entre inputs. Los resultados muestran que, aunque a nivel macroeconomico las repercusiones no serian muy relevantes, a nivel sectorial la estructura de consumos intermedios seria la mas afectada. Ademas, estos cambios no estarian unicamente vinculados al componente de inputs energeticos.
Multi-unit auctions with budget-constrained bidders

In my dissertation, I investigate the effects of budget-constraints in multi-unit auctions. This is done in three parts. First, I analyze a case where all bidders have a common budget constraint. Precisely, I analyze an auction where two units of an object are sold at two simultaneous, sealed bid, first-price auctions, to bidders who have demand for both units. Bidders differ with respect to their valuations for the units. All bidders have an identical budget constraint which binds their ability to spend in the auction. I show that if valuation distribution is atom-less, then their does not exist any symmetric equilibrium in this auction game. In the second and third parts of my thesis, I analyze the sale of licenses for the right to drill for oil and natural gas in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) of the United States. These sales are conducted using simultaneous sealed-bid first-price auctions for multiple licenses, each representing a specific area (called a tract). Using aspects of observed bidding-behavior, I first make a prima facie case that bidders are budget-constrained in these auctions. In order to formalize this argument, I develop a simple extension of the standard model (where bidders differ in their valuations for the objects) by incorporating (random) budgets for the bidders. The auction-game then has a two-dimensional set of types for each player. I study the theoretical properties of this auction, assuming for simplicity that two units are being sold. I show that this game has an equilibrium in pure strategies that is symmetric with respect to the players and with respect to the units. The strategies are essentially pure in the sense
Designated-verifier proxy signatures for e-commerce

In a designated-verifier proxy signature scheme, a user delegates her/his signing capability to another user in such a way that the latter can sign messages on behalf of the former, but the validity of generated signatures can only be checked by the designated verifier. In this paper, we first point out that one such scheme proposed recently by Dai et al. is insecure. To overcome the weaknesses in their scheme, based on the two-party Schnorr signature by Nicolosi et al., we present a new designated-verifier proxy signature scheme which is efficient and secure. Finally, we suggest the use of our scheme in electronic commerce applications, such as sale of digital products (digital music, movies, and books etc.).
RCS-blocking abusive users in anonymizing networks

Anonymizing network gives anonymous access to its users by hiding their IP address. Tor is such an anonymizing network which channels Internet traffic through worldwide network having number of relays to hide user's usage, its location from anyone performing network traffic analysis. But few bad users misuse this anonymity and under the cover of anonymous access, they misbehave to defame well known websites. Website administrator depends on blocking IP address of misbehaving users machines but as these users are coming from anonymizing network, blocking of their IP address is not possible. In such cases, Web site admin blocks entire anonymizing network, thereby denying access to good and bad users at the same time. The Reliable Credential system (RCS) comes up with the solution where it blocks abusive users in anonymizing network and has many more improvements compared to base system, Nymble. The most vital feature of RCS is the use of two pseudonym managers with ring signature approach for enhanced security of user's identity. In RCS, user's identity is his machine's MAC address and based on this identity, misbehaving users are blacklisted. System is reliable and can handle failure of its credential manager with the backup credential manager and perform better than Nymble. Our system gives better result by giving improved reliability and preventing Sybil attack. Also it mitigates risk of colluding Pseudonym manager and Credential manager, and that is how keeps user's identity more secured. The anonymity of any user is not at all compromised in this solution.
Privatization: A Theoretical Treatment

The trend towards privatization has been particularly strong in the 1980s and 1990s. In the UK, some of the most important public utilities such as telecommunications, gas, and electricity have been privatized. Following unification, Germany is having to privatize an entire economy. This book examines the form of privatization, a topic which has not previously been subjected to rigorous economic analysis, and provides a comprehensive and thorough survey of arguments both for and against it. Both positive and welfare-economic approaches to deal with the complex problems of the transition from public to private ownership are discussed. The author also examines the central issues of privatization such as why efficiency increases can be expected as a result of privatization, whether full privatization coupled with subsequent regulation is better than partial privatization with the government regulating from within the firm. He also looks at the role of trade unions in the privatization process.
Efficient shortest path finding of k-nearest neighbor objects in road network databases

This paper addresses an efficient path finding scheme that complements classic k-NN (Nearest Neighbor) queries for the road network. Aiming at finding both k objects and the shortest paths to them at the same time, this paper first selects candidate objects by the k-NN search scheme based on the underlying index structure and then finds the path to each of them by the modified A* algorithm. The path finding step stores the intermediary paths from the query point to all of the scanned nodes and then attempts to match the common segment with a path to a new node, instead of repeatedly running the A* algorithm for all k points. Additionally, the cost to the each object calculated in this step makes it possible to finalize the k objects from the candidate set as well as to order them by the path cost. Judging from the result, the proposed scheme can eliminate redundant node scans and provide one of the most fundamental building blocks for location-based services in the real-life road network.
Geography, Spatial Data Analysis, and Geostatistics: An Overview. 地理学、空间数据分析及地统计学：综述

Geostatistics is a distinctive methodology within the field of spatial statistics. In the past, it has been linked to particular problems (e.g., spatial interpolation by kriging) and types of spatial data (attributes defined on continuous space). It has been used more by physical than human geographers because of the nature of their types of data. The approach taken by geostatisticians has several features that distinguish it from the methods typically used by human geographers for analyzing spatial variation associated with regional data, and we discuss these. Geostatisticians attach much importance to estimating and modeling the variogram to explore and analyze spatial variation because of the insight it provides. This article identifies the benefits of geostatistics, reviews its uses, and examines some of the recent developments that make it valuable for the analysis of data on areal supports across a wide range of problems. Geografia, analisis de datos espaciales y Geoestadistica: retrospectiva y panorama general. La Geoestadistica es un conjunto de metodos especificos dentro del campo de la Estadistica Espacial. Tradicionalmente, los metodos geostadisticos han sido aplicados a problemas especificos (interpolacion espacial con krigeaje o kriging) y a tipos de datos espaciales especificos (variables con valores continuos en el espacio). Debido al tipo datos espaciales que ambas comunidades academicas priorizan, estas tecnicas han sido utilizadas con mas frecuencia por geografos fisicos que por geografos humanos. El enfoque geostadistico tiene varias caracteristicas que lo diferencian de otros metodos cuantitativos de analisis de variabilidad espacial regional. El mejor ejemplo de estas diferencias es la importancia que la comunidad geoestadistica le da a la estimacion y modelamiento de variogramas. El presente articulo identifica los beneficios que la Geoestadistica aporta al analisis espacial, evalua sus usos, y examina alguno de los ultimos avances que hacen de este un conjunto de metodos valiosos para el analisis de datos areales y aplicables a una gama amplia de problemas. 地统计学是空间统计学领域中一种独具特色的方法。 过去它仅用来处理一些特定的问题（如克里金空间插值）和特定类型的空间数据（连续空间中定义的属性数据）。 由于所处理数据类型的特性不同，自然地理学家中较之人文地理学家更多地应用地统计学方法。 在分析与区域数据有关的空间变化时，与人文地理学家通常使用的方法相比，地统计学家所采用的方法具有一些可将它们区别开的特点，本文对此进行了讨论。 由于方差函数(图)提供了深入的解析能力，地统计学家十分重视对其进行估计和建模，以探索和分析空间变化。 本文厘定了地统计学的优点，回顾了它的应用发展历程，考察了它的一些最新进展，使其对更广泛的应用领域中的面状数据分析更为有效。
Cogging Torque Analysis and Minimization of Axial Flux PM Machines With Combined Rectangle-Shaped Magnet

This paper introduces three indexes for the cogging torque waveform and analyzes the influence of machine parameters on these three indexes in the theory. The phase of cogging torque under different combinations of slot opening ratio and pole-arc ratio is analyzed. Based on this analysis, two techniques to minimize cogging torque of the axial-flux permanent-magnet (AFPM) machines are proposed and discussed. Using the quasi-3-D analysis method, the mechanism of cogging torque minimization for AFPM machines equipped with several special magnet shapes is revealed by elaborating the results of each slice. Then, a novel rectangle-shaped magnet arrangement is proposed and investigated for cogging torque minimization. Comparing with other cogging torque minimization techniques such as conventional skew on PM edges, this method is able to decrease cogging torque without comprising torque output. Finally, a prototype is built and the experiment is performed to validate the finite-element analysis results.
Engineering in K-12 Education: Understanding the Status and Improving the Prospects.

Engineering education in K-12 classrooms is a small but growing phenomenon that may have implications for engineering and also for the other STEM subjects--science, technology, and mathematics. Specifically, engineering education may improve student learning and achievement in science and mathematics, increase awareness of engineering and the work of engineers, boost youth interest in pursuing engineering as a career, and increase the technological literacy of all students. The teaching of STEM subjects in U.S. schools must be improved in order to retain U.S. competitiveness in the global economy and to develop a workforce with the knowledge and skills to address technical and technological issues. Engineering in K-12 Education reviews the scope and impact of engineering education today and makes several recommendations to address curriculum, policy, and funding issues. The book also analyzes a number of K-12 engineering curricula in depth and discusses what is known from the cognitive sciences about how children learn engineering-related concepts and skills. Engineering in K-12 Education will serve as a reference for science, technology, engineering, and math educators, policy makers, employers, and others concerned about the development of the country's technical workforce. The book will also prove useful to educational researchers, cognitive scientists, advocates for greater public understanding of engineering, and those working to boost technological and scientific literacy.
Integrating CAT and MT in AnglaBhart-II architecture

Machine translation (MT) is a complex and a difficult task. It is not possible to achieve human competing performance with the present state of technology. Automating the process of translation of natural languages requires a number of knowledge sources and their appropriate invocation in the translation engine. A practical machine translation system with limited resources cannot embody all the knowledge sources that the human beings use. However, performance of an MT system can be considerably improved if the automated translation system is integrated with supporting modules that provide synergy for arriving at correct translations. The computer assisted tools (CAT) that identify the limitations of the MT system and provide clues to cope up with them, constitute an important module for enhancing the MT system performance. This paper presents details of AnglaBharti-II system architecture highlighting the role of CAT in the system. AnglaBharti-II is a system for translating English to Indian languages. AnglaBharti is primarily a rule-based system (RBMT). The input English sentence is transformed to a pseudo-interlingual structure called PLIL (Pseudo Lingua for Indian Languages) using a CFG like pattern directed rule-base. RBMT presents limitations of its own in dealing with real-life texts. We have tried to overcome some of these limitations in AnglaBharti-II architecture by integrating some additional modules. These additional modules are basically CAT tools incorporating translation memory, raw and generalized example-bases, interactive and automated pre-editing, paraphrasing, failure analysis and a number of heuristics that attempt to deal with a variety of constructs that are frequently encountered in a real life English text.
A New Algorithm Based on Shared Pattern-Tree to Mine Shared Emerging Patterns

Emerging patterns (EPs) are those item sets whose supports change significantly from one class to another. Studies have shown that they have very powerful distinguishing features and are very useful for constructing accurate classifiers. The task of finding such patterns is a challenging problem and efficient techniques for their mining are needed. Precious EP mining approaches often produce a large number of EPs, which makes it very difficult to choose interesting ones manually. In this paper, the authors propose a particular type of emerging patterns called shared emerging patterns. The authors also present a new tree based algorithm for their efficient discovery. The basis of the algorithm is the construction of trees whose structure specifically targets the likely distribution of emerging patterns. Experiment results show that the algorithm has a good performance.
Upwelling Increases Net Primary Production of Corals and Reef-Wide Gross Primary Production Along the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica

Photosynthetic production is a key ecosystem service provided by tropical coral reefs, but knowledge about the contribution of corals and other reef-associated organisms and the controlling environmental factors is scarce. Locations with occurrence of upwelling events can serve as in-situ laboratories to investigate the impact of environmental variability on production rates of reef-associated organisms. This study investigated individual and reef-wide net (Pn) and gross primary production (Pg) for the dominant autotrophic benthic organisms (hard corals Pocillopora spp., crustose coralline algae (CCA), turf algae, and the macroalga Caulerpa sertularioides) associated with a coral reef along the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Oxygen fluxes by these organisms were measured at a weekly to monthly resolution over one year (May 2013 - April 2014) via in-situ chamber incubations. The influence of simultaneously measured environmental parameters (temperature, light, inorganic nutrient concentrations, dissolved and particulate organic matter concentrations) on Pn of the different taxa were tested via linear model fitting. Turf algae showed highest individual Pn and Pg rates per organism surface area (35 and 49 mmol O2 m-² h-1), followed by Pocillopora spp. (16 and 25 mmol O2 m-² h-1), CCA (9 and 15 mmol O2 m-² h-1) and C. sertularioides (8 and 11 mmol O2 m-² h-1). Under upwelling conditions (February – April 2014), Pn rates of all algal taxa remained relatively uniform despite high nutrient availability, Pn of corals increased by 70 %. On an ecosystem level, corals on average contributed 60 % of total Pn and Pg per reef area (73 and 98 mmol O2 m-² h-1, respectively) due to high benthic coverage, followed by turf algae (25 %). Under upwelling conditions, reef-wide Pg increased by >40 %, indicating acclimatization of local reef communities to upwelling conditions.
iLoc-Euk: A Multi-Label Classifier for Predicting the Subcellular Localization of Singleplex and Multiplex Eukaryotic Proteins

Predicting protein subcellular localization is an important and difficult problem, particularly when query proteins may have the multiplex character, i.e., simultaneously exist at, or move between, two or more different subcellular location sites. Most of the existing protein subcellular location predictor can only be used to deal with the single-location or “singleplex” proteins. Actually, multiple-location or “multiplex” proteins should not be ignored because they usually posses some unique biological functions worthy of our special notice. By introducing the “multi-labeled learning” and “accumulation-layer scale”, a new predictor, called iLoc-Euk, has been developed that can be used to deal with the systems containing both singleplex and multiplex proteins. As a demonstration, the jackknife cross-validation was performed with iLoc-Euk on a benchmark dataset of eukaryotic proteins classified into the following 22 location sites: (1) acrosome, (2) cell membrane, (3) cell wall, (4) centriole, (5) chloroplast, (6) cyanelle, (7) cytoplasm, (8) cytoskeleton, (9) endoplasmic reticulum, (10) endosome, (11) extracellular, (12) Golgi apparatus, (13) hydrogenosome, (14) lysosome, (15) melanosome, (16) microsome (17) mitochondrion, (18) nucleus, (19) peroxisome, (20) spindle pole body, (21) synapse, and (22) vacuole, where none of proteins included has pairwise sequence identity to any other in a same subset. The overall success rate thus obtained by iLoc-Euk was 79%, which is significantly higher than that by any of the existing predictors that also have the capacity to deal with such a complicated and stringent system. As a user-friendly web-server, iLoc-Euk is freely accessible to the public at the web-site http://icpr.jci.edu.cn/bioinfo/iLoc-Euk. It is anticipated that iLoc-Euk may become a useful bioinformatics tool for Molecular Cell Biology, Proteomics, System Biology, and Drug Development Also, its novel approach will further stimulate the development of predicting other protein attributes.
Implicit active constraints for safe and effective guidance of unstable concentric tube robots

Safe and effective telemanipulation of concentric tube robots is hindered by their complex, non-intuitive kinematics. Guidance schemes in the form of attractive and repulsive constraints can simplify task execution and facilitate natural operation of the robot by clinicians. The real-time seamless calculation and application of guidance, however, requires computationally efficient algorithms that solve the non-linear inverse kinematics of the robot and guarantee that the commanded robot configuration is stable and sufficiently away from the anatomy. This paper presents a multi-processor framework that allows on-the-fly calculation of optimal safe paths based on rapid workspace and roadmap pre-computation The real-time nature of the developed software enables complex guidance constraints to be implemented with minimal computational overhead. A user study on a simulated challenging clinical problem demonstrated that the incorporated guiding constraints are highly beneficial for fast and accurate navigation with concentric tube robots.