Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fast Decoding Of Alternant Codes Using A Divison-Free Analog Of An Accelerated Berlekamp-Massey Algorithm

– We present division-free analogs of the accelerated Berlekamp-Massey (BM) algorithms of R. Blahut based on an algorithm by G. Norton. Due to their similar structures, the computational complexity of Blahut’s algorithms and ours are essentially the same. However, the division-free operation of our algorithms make them attractive, particularly for hardware implementations. We further show how our algorithms may be used for fast decoding of alternant codes. In particular, we show that our algorithms simultaneously compute both an error locator and error evaluator polynomial. Although this is achievable with the accelerated BM algorithms as well, explicit details have not been given. Finally, due to the frequent occurence of minimal polynomials in other areas besides coding theory, such as cryptography and systems theory, we expect our algorithms to have many useful applications in related areas. Key-Words: – Minimal Realization, Alternant Codes, Key Equation, Algebraic Decoding.
Indirect Tax Reform and Fiscal Federalism in India

This paper underscores the substantial spatial disparities across India and evaluates the case for putting together (various versions) of the Goods and Service Tax (GST) and also indicates the risks involved in the process. This paper argues that, on balance, there is a case for an appropriately constituted GST but that the federal transfer formula must be sensitive to any fallout from such a move. The paper also argues that there is an urgent need to review the totality of transfers from the central to state governments and local bodies. This review would include transfers through Finance Commission, Planning Commission and Centrally Sponsored Schemes. There is a compelling necessity to review and recalibrate the entire gamut (and not piecemeal) of federal relations – tax, expenditure and transfers. This is critical to ensure the stability and predictability needed to ensure that India's state driven growth blossoms and attains full fruition.
Proposed Next Generation GRB Mission: EXIST

A next generation Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) mission to follow the upcoming Swift mission is described. The proposed Energetic X‐ray Imaging Survey Telescope, EXIST, would yield the limiting (practical) GRB trigger sensitivity, broad‐band spectral and temporal response, and spatial resolution over a wide field. It would provide high resolution spectra and locations for GRBs detected at GeV energies with GLAST. Together with the next generation missions Constellation‐X, NGST and LISA and optical‐survey (LSST) telescopes, EXIST would enable GRBs to be used as probes of the early universe and the first generation of stars. EXIST alone would give ∼10–50″ positions (long or short GRBs), approximate redshifts from lags, and constrain physics of jets, orphan afterglows, neutrinos and SGRs.
Physical activity and overweight/obesity in adult Mexican population: the Mexican National Health and Nutrition Survey 2006.

OBJECTIVE To determine the association between physical activity and overweight/obesity in Mexican adults. MATERIAL AND METHODS Cross-sectional design. Adults 20 to 69 years of age were included in the Mexican National Health and Nutrition Survey 2006 (ENSANUT 2006). The dependent variable was overweight/obesity and the independent variable was recalled physical activity. Analysis was by logistic regression, adjusting for sex, age, residence area, region, socioeconomic status, indigenous ethnicity, smoking, schooling, work activity, alcohol consumption and sitting time. RESULTS Data from 15 901 adults were analyzed. The prevalence of overweight/obesity had an inverse association with physical activity among men but not among women. CONCLUSIONS The practice of physical activity was negatively associated with the prevalence of overweight/obesity only in adult men. These results underscore the importance of promoting physical activity to prevent and control overweight/obesity.
Effects of size structure and habitat complexity on predator–prey interactions

1. A predator's ability to suppress its prey depends on the level of interference among predators. While interference typically decreases with increasing habitat complexity, it often increases with increasing size differences among individuals. However, little is known about how variation in intrinsic factors such as population size structure alters predator–prey interactions and how this intrinsic variation interacts with extrinsic variation.
Improved cycle reservoir with regular jump networks with simple disjunction algorithm

Echo state networks (ESNs) have become one of the most effective recurrent neural networks because of its good prediction performance in real-valued time-series modeling tasks and simple training processes. The original ESN concept uses fixed randomly created reservoirs, and this concept is considered of its main advantages. However, ESN has been criticized for its randomly created connectivity and weight structure. Finding an optimal reservoir for a given task is an important problem. To address this problem, a cycle reservoir with regular jump network (CRJN) model was proposed. To improve the performance of CRJN and keep the output weights small, we present a simple disjunction algorithm (SDA). First, an appropriately sized reservoir is employed. The weight rates of each internal neuron are then calculated. Finally, internal neurons with weight rates exceeding a threshold are spread into two neurons. A system identification and two time-series benchmark tasks are applied to demonstrate the feasibility and superiority of SDA. Results show that the SDA method outperforms several other improved approaches. Furthermore, this method is able to keep the output weights small, thus increasing the stability of CRJN.
Fast informed embedding in dirty-paper trellis-code with orthogonal arcs

Dirty-paper trellis-code watermarking with random-valued arcs is slow since the embedding into the cover work is performed on path-level and Viterbi decoding is repeated for the embedding of each bit. We present a fast informed embedding in dirty-paper trellis-code with orthogonal arcs. The proposed deterministic algorithm has a speedup factor of the message size since just arc-level modification of the cover work is enough for the embedding of each additional data bit. In addition to the speedup, experimental results also show that the proposed embedding provides higher fidelity and lower BER against various types of attacks, compared with other conventional informed watermarking methods.
Eliminating Blind Spots for Assisted Driving

Drivers of heavy goods vehicles are not able to survey the whole surrounding area of their vehicle due to large blind spot regions. This paper shows how catadioptric cameras - a combination of cameras and mirrors - can be used to survey the surrounding area of vehicles. Four such cameras were mounted on a truck-trailer combination, and the images are combined such that obstacles are visible in an image presented to the driver. This image is a bird's eye view of the vehicle. Additionally, corridors indicating the path of motion of the vehicle are overlaid to the resulting image. To compute those corridors, a mathematical description of the path of motion is derived. Such a system does not only support the driver during maneuvering tasks but also increases safety of driving large vehicles.
Mesure du transport narratif dans le contexte d’une expérience de consommation transmédia

Ce travail de recherche propose une mesure francaise du transport narratif adaptee aux experiences de dispositifs numeriques de narration transmedia dans le champ des arts et de la culture.Tout d’abord, sur la base d’une revue de la litterature portant sur le transport narratif et sa mesure, une proposition d’echelle a ete presentee et justifiee. Puis, une etude qualitative a ete mise en place permettant de confirmer les dimensions du transport narratif et de generer des items afin de construire un instrument de mesure. Les resultats des analyses factorielles sont developpes afin de proposer une echelle de mesure, fiable et valide, du transport narratif vecu par le consommateur culturel a travers l’utilisation d’un dispositif transmedia.
The Warped HI Layer of the Outer Galaxy

Using the Leiden/Dwingeloo Survey (Hartmann & Burton 1997) of the Galactic sky north of declination -30 degrees as the principal component of a composite data cube, the structure of the warped HI layer of the outer Galaxy was displayed by converting the data cube from heliocentric (l,b,v) coordinates to galactocentric (R,theta,z) coordinates. We masked out known high-velocity-cloud complexes that might otherwise have contaminated the resulting description of the warped layer. We considered analogous displays under controlled circumstances by using as input medium a simulation of the same complete (l,b,v) data cube corresponding to a modeled HI Galaxy of known morphology and kinematics. By varying this artificial input we were able to check our method of converting the data cube and to put constraints on the global parameters that have been used to explain different asymmetries in the heliocentric data.
Adapting graph theory and social network measures on healthcare data: a new framework to understand chronic disease progression

Governments all over the world are concerned about the disease burden caused by chronic conditions. A significant portion of this comes from potentially preventable hospital admissions. By adopting preventive measures, these admissions can be avoided which in turn can reduce cost and health risk, further benefitting the funders, providers and patients as well. One potential approach can be to look at healthcare information system, more specifically - hospital admission data that carries rich semantic information. In this paper we present a novel framework to apply social network and graph theoretic methods on modern healthcare data to analyse and understand chronic disease progression to enable all stakeholders to take appropriate preventive measures.
Mixed continuous/discrete time modelling with exact time adjustments

Many systems interact with their physical environment. Design of such systems need a modelling and simulation tool which can deal with both the continuous and discrete aspects. However, most current tools are not adequately able to do so, as they implement both continuous and discrete time signals as consisting of separate values at a single global simulation clock. The consequence is that simulation, of a time delay for example, either yields inaccurate results or becomes inefficient.
JML Assertion Semantics Revisited

A method of fuel treatment and distribution for an internal combustion engine including the sequence of steps as follows: (a) heating a catalyst bed reactor to a start-up temperature using exhaust gas from an internal combustion engine being operated on atomized alcohol; the catalyst bed reactor including a partial combustion catalyst and an alcohol dissociation catalyst; (b) vaporizing liquid alcohol to form alcohol vapor; (c) mixing the alcohol vapor with a fixed flow rate of air to form a partial combustion mixture, the flow rate being substantially fixed at about the flow rate required for adiabatic dissociation of the alcohol vapor at the flow rate of the alcohol vapor during idling of the internal combustion engine; (d) contacting the partial combustion mixture and the partial combustion catalyst and the dissociation catalyst to form a hydrogen-rich fuel; (e) mixing air and the hydrogen rich fuel to form a total combustion mixture; (f) burning the total combustion mixture in an internal combustion engine.
The application-orientated measurement performance evaluation of the end-to-end available bandwidth

As an important indicator for network performance, end-to-end available bandwidth is of great significance for network congestion control, QoS, traffic engineering, and network planning etc. However, the measurement on the available bandwidth is subjected to the influences of measuring tools and the actually tested network environment. This study concluded the main factors influencing the measurement accuracy of available bandwidth and constructed a cheap and scalable measurement platform that can effectively simulate most of network environment. Through this platform, it comprehensively evaluated the measurement performance of available bandwidth in case of different influencing factors and performance indexes.
Methadone and haloperidol combination effect on the acquisition and expression of morphine tolerance and dependence in male mice

Background and Objective: Today, opioids are used to control and relieve acute and chronic pain. However, the incidence of both tolerance and dependence phenomena for these drugs is a major problem. So, in this study, the combination effect of haloperidol and methadone on the acquisition and expression of morphine dependence and tolerance was examined. Materials and Methods: Ninety-eight mice were randomly divided into groups of acquisition and expression. Each group was divided into seven sub-groups, saline, morphine, methadone, haloperidol, haloperidol + methadone, methadone + haloperidol ratio of 2 to 1, methadone + haloperidol ratio of 1 to 2. All groups were addicted with gradually increasing doses of morphine for 7 consecutive days. All drugs in the acquisition group were injected 30 minutes before morphine injected for 7 days and in the expression group 30 minutes before morphine injected in the eight day (test day). Morphine tolerance was measured by tail immersion test for 30 minutes before and after administration of morphine in test day. To assess dependence, mice were administered with naloxone and withdrawal behaviors were observed for 30 minutes. Results: Chronic morphine injections induced tolerance and dependence in mice. Percentage of MPE as a tolerance index was significantly increased in acquisition and expression groups in drugs combination methadone1+haloperidol2 than morphine ones. Also, in dependence group, a marked decrease was shown in withdrawal behaviors in the combination therapy groups. Conclusion: Our results showed that probably methadone and haloperidol combination treatment, especially at a ratio of 1 to 2, could reduce tolerance and dependence more than single drug treatment in animal groups.
2 Randomized Multiplicative Weight Update ( RMWU )

Electrical Flows Consider the physical model of a graph where each edge is replaced with a resistor of value re. The energy of a s-t flow f is given by Er(f) := ∑ e ref 2 e . The electrical flow of value F is the flow that minimizes Er(f) among all s-t flows f of value F . Electrical flows induce a potential φ on the vertices of the graph. These quantities are related by Ohm’s Law: the voltage drop across an edge is equal to the product of the the current (electrical flow) across an edge times the value of the resistor (commonly known as V = IR). If φ(u) is the voltage on u, then fuv = (φ(u) − φ(v))/ruv. We can state the energy of a flow in terms of the potential it induces
Shot change detection and camerawork estimation for old film restoration

This paper proposes a shot change detection method and a camerawork estimation method for frame displacement correction of old films. Phase-only correlation is used for the shot change detection. The threshold of the shot change detection is determined mathematically using the properties of the phase-only correlation in the proposed method. Camerawork is estimated by lowpass filtering the frame displacement value. Experimental results show that the proposed method can detect the shot changes accurately and estimate the camerawork. Visual inspection shows that the frame displacement is significantly reduced by the proposed method.
SYBIL DSS : LOCALIZATION OF AGRICULTURAL RISK ASSESSMENT MODELS

EU Project SYBIL implements a decision support system (DSS) to help farmers intelligently manage crops (reducing environmental impact and increasing economic returns). Agro-meteorological computer models are used to assess the risk of the crop to pest and fungus damage. In particular, we focus on grape and apple models that help farmers predict when diseases and funguses will attack their plants, so they can make intelligent decisions on preventing these attacks. To achieve this goal in an intelligent manner, a hybrid methodology for localizing these models to specific regions has been designed and implemented. Model localization is frequently necessary because models developed in one region often do not produce valid results when used in a different region. The main component of this intelligent localization methodology is a genetic algorithm (GA), an artificial intelligence (AI) search technique. By linking a genetic algorithm to an agricultural risk assessment model, the model become more robust because it is able to adapt to the region in which the model is being used. Preliminary testing indicates this localization methodology has the ability to allow regional agricultural models to be effectively utilized in other regions.
ARMPP: An Ant-Based Routing Algorithm with Multi-phase Pheromone and Power-Saving in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

This paper proposes an ant-based routing algorithm with multi-phase pheromone and power-saving (ARMPP) for enhancing the adaptability and stability of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). The routing algorithm is based on the ant colony optimization framework that is a kind of swarm intelligence and inspired from the ant's life. MANETs are dynamic, self-configured, self-built, and infrastructure-less networks. In MANETs, a link disruption resulting from the dynamic topology deteriorates the performance of network, and the increment of energy consumption brings reduction of the network lifetime because almost all nodes operate on a battery. The goal of this paper is to enhance the adaptability and stability in reacting to the mobility of nodes, that is, to variate the network topology timely and to maximize the lifetime of the network. We propose a two-stage construction method of pheromone and a new pheromone update method. In simulation experiments, we compare ARMPP with reference algorithms of ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) and destination-sequenced distance vector routing (DSDV). The simulation results show that our algorithm can achieve better performance than those algorithms in the measures of the adaptability and stability.
The performance of research partnerships

This paper investigates partnership performance as perceived by individual partners. It taps into one of the most extensive sources of pertinent empirical information recently constructed in Europe. Partnership success is shown to depend significantly on the closeness of the cooperative research to the in-house R&D effort of the firm, on the firm's effort to learn from the partnership and its partners, and on the absence of problems of knowledge appropriation between partners. Firms use partnerships as vehicles of risk and uncertainty reduction by collaborating with competitors as well as with suppliers and buyers (but not with universities and public research institutes) when the research is far apart from their in-house R&D and when the expected outcome is not easily appropriable. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
ATP regulates the differentiation of mammalian skeletal muscle by activation of a P2X5 receptor on satellite cells

ATP is well known for its role as an intracellular energy source. However, there is increasing awareness of its role as an extracellular messenger molecule (Burnstock, 1997). Although evidence for the presence of receptors for extracellular ATP on skeletal myoblasts was first published in 1983 (Kolb and Wakelam), their physiological function has remained unclear. In this paper we used primary cultures of rat skeletal muscle satellite cells to investigate the role of purinergic signaling in muscle formation. Using immunocytochemistry, RT-PCR, and electrophysiology, we demonstrate that the ionotropic P2X5 receptor is present on satellite cells and that activation of a P2X receptor inhibits proliferation, stimulates expression of markers of muscle cell differentiation, including myogenin, p21, and myosin heavy chain, and increases the rate of myotube formation. Furthermore, we demonstrate that ATP application results in a significant and rapid increase in the phosphorylation of MAPKs, particularly p38, and that inhibition of p38 activity can prevent the effect of ATP on cell number. These results not only demonstrate the existence of a novel regulator of skeletal muscle differentiation, namely ATP, but also a new role for ionotropic P2X receptors in the control of cell fate.
Accuracy of oscillometric blood pressure monitors for the detection of atrial fibrillation: a systematic review

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a significant risk factor for stroke and early detection of AF may help to identify patients in need of treatment. Automated blood pressure (BP) monitors with implemented AF or arrhythmia detection systems may be a useful tool for early diagnosis of AF. A systematic review (Medline/PubMed, Embase, Cochrane) of studies was performed to assess the accuracy of modified BP monitors (for diagnosing AF). A total of five studies (four tests in the physician’s office and one at home) were selected. For the most accurate AF detection, three sequential BP measurements should be performed. Direct comparison against a 12-lead ECG showed that the highest sensitivity, 97% (95% CI: 94–100%), for detecting AF was obtained when three readings were assessed with two or three AF-positive readings. The highest specificity (97%) was obtained when performing three measurements, of which all three must be AF positive. The modified BP monitor (Microlife Corporation, Taipei, Taiwan) has high potential in improving AF screening.
PVIT: A task-based approach for design and evaluation of interactive visualizations for preferential choice

In decision theory the process of selecting the best option is called preferential choice. Many personal, business, and professional preferential choice decisions are made every day. In these situations, a decision maker must select the optimal option among multiple alternatives. In order to do this, she must be able to analyze a model of her preferences with respect to the objectives that are important to her. Prescriptive decision theory suggests several ways to effectively develop a decision model. However, these methods often end up too tedious and complicated to apply to complex decisions that involve many objectives and alternatives. In order to help people make better decisions, an easier, more intuitive way to develop interactive models for analysis of decision contexts is needed. The application of interactive visualization techniques to this problem is an opportune solution. A visualization tool to help in preferential choice must take into account important aspects from both fields of Information Visualization and Decision Theory. There exists some proposals that claim to aid preferential choice, but some key tasks and steps from at least one of these areas are often overlooked. An added missing element in these proposals is an adequate user evaluation. In fact, the concept of a good evaluation in the field of information visualization is a topic of debate, since the goals of such systems stretch beyond what can be concluded from traditional usability testing. In our research we investigate ways to overcome some of the challenges faced in the design and evaluation of visualization systems for preferential choice. In previous work, Carenini and Lloyd proposed ValueCharts, a set of visualizations and interactive techniques to support the inspection of linear models