Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Notice of RetractionDesign of sensor modules of active & intelligent energy-saving system

This paper presented new methodology of intelligent energy-saving system to accomplish the goal of real energy-saving from the view-point of system-orient strategy instead of materials. In this system design included sensors of temperature, humidity, luminance, CO2, and power detector(smart outlets) in addition to designing backend intelligent agent technology to quickly response to the feedback control system through hybrid net-work of ZigBee and Bluetooth technology which would sensor the running parameters and environment factors of energy-saving system.
Spatially explicit simulation of peatland hydrology and carbon dioxide exchange: Influence of mesoscale topography

[1] Carbon dynamics in peatlands are controlled, in large part, by their wetness as defined by water table depth and volumetric liquid soil moisture content. A common type of peatland is raised bogs that typically have a multiple-layer canopy of vascular plants over a Sphagnum moss ground cover. Their convex form restricts water supply to precipitation and water is shed toward the margins, usually by lateral subsurface flow. The hydraulic gradient for lateral subsurface flow is governed by the peat surface topography at the mesoscale (∼200 m to 5 km). To investigate the influence of mesoscale topography on wetness, evapotranspiration (ET), and gross primary productivity (GPP) in a bog during the snow-free period, we compare the outputs of a further developed version of the daily Boreal Ecosystem Productivity Simulator (BEPS) with observations made at the Mer Bleue peatland, located near Ottawa, Canada. Explicitly considering mesoscale topography, simulated total ET and GPP correlate well with measured ET (r = 0.91) and derived gross ecosystem productivity (GEP; r = 0.92). Both measured ET and derived GEP are simulated similarly well when mesoscale topography is neglected, but daily simulated values are systematically underestimated by about 10% and 12% on average, respectively, due to greater wetness resulting from the lack of lateral subsurface flow. Owing to the differences in moss surface conductances of water vapor and carbon dioxide with increasing moss water content, the differences in the spatial patterns of simulated total ET and GPP are controlled by the mesotopographic position of the moss ground cover.
Non-perturbative improvement of nHYP smeared Wilson fermions

Using Schrodinger functional techniques, we determine the coefficient of the clover term necessary for non-perturbative O(a) improvement of hypercubic smeared Wilson fermions on a quenched plaquette action background. Unlike for unsmeared Wilson fermions, the resulting clover coefficients are close to the tree–level value even at coarse lattice spacings, indicating the absence of large cutoff effects. A number of exploratory tests are also performed with the improved action.
Pêle-Mêle, une étude de la communication multi-échelles

The communication infrastructure around us is a rich but fragmented environment made of separated services corresponding to different levels of engagement. The multiscale approach to communication alternatively proposes to create systems that support a variable degree of engagement and smooth transitions between degrees. This paper reports on the design and evaluation of such a system called Pêle-Mêle. We present a longitudinal study of its use that notably illustrates the importance of providing gradual attention management mechanisms to support transitions between background and foreground communications. Our results suggest that control over information salience can help users of communication systems adjust both their local distraction and remote attractiveness.
Easing Congestion in Computer Networks using the Receiver-Window Modification (RWM) Scheme

Random Early Detection (RED), Adaptive RED (ARED), BLUE and other Active Queue Management (AQM) queues have been proposed to replace drop-tail queues for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) networks to ease network congestion. Together with the Exp licit Congestion Notification (ECN) scheme, they had shown some pro mise over the drop tail queues. However, the timeout mechanism or the duration of the reception of three duplicate acknowledgements (ACKs), due to early-dropped packets, delays the response time of TCP in reducing the network congestion. Moreover, using ECN has its downsides: i) its messages may get lost; and ii) TCP implementations at the source, router and the destination have to be ECN-co mpliant (which presents a significant problem in today's implementations). To minimize these problems, this paper presents a novel AQM modification scheme called Receiver-W indow Modification (RWM), wh ich can be used together with any AQM queue for congestion avoidance in packet switched networks, especially at ingress and gateway routers. RWM improves on the average queue sizes, one-way end-to-end packet delays, delay jitter, throughput and number of dropped packets. It also overcomes the dependency of these AQM queues on the queues of downstream routers since ECN messages may get dropped or delayed due to congestion at these routers. We carry out extensive NS2 simulat ions to show our results and to support our claims.
Advanced prototyping of variable impedance prosthetic sockets for trans-tibial amputees : polyjet matrix 3D printing of comfortable prosthetic sockets using digital anatomical data

This work, supported by the Media Lab Consortium, evaluates the design of a Variable Impedance Prosthetic (VIPr) socket for a transtibial amputee using computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM). Compliant features are seamlessly integrated into a 3D printed socket to achieve lower interface peak pressures over bony protuberances by using anthropomorphic data acquired through surface scanning and magnetic resonance imaging techniques. An inverse linear mathematical transformation spatially maps quantitative measurements (bone tissue depth) of the human residual limb to the corresponding socket shape and impedance characteristics. The CAD/CAM VIPr socket is compared to a state-of-the-art prosthetic socket of similar internal geometry and shape, designed by a prosthetist using conventional methods. An active, bilateral transtibial male amputee of weight 70 kg walks on a force plate-loaded 5-meter walkway, at self-selected speeds while synchronized ground reaction forces, motion capture data and socket residual limb interface pressures are measured for the evaluated sockets. We anticipated a decreased average interface pressure (measured using the Teksan F-SocketTM pressure sensors) in the VIPr socket, especially over stiff anatomical landmarks including the fibula head, the tibia, lateral and medial femoral condyles and medial tibial flare. Contact interface pressure recorded during stance of a complete gait cycle indicated a 15% and 17% reduction at toe-off and heel-strike respectively at the fibula head while the subject uses a VIPr socket in comparison to a conventional socket of similar internal shape. A corresponding 7% and 8% reduction in pressure is observed along the tibia. Similar trends of high-pressure reductions are observed during stair ascent trials with the VIPr socket. Thesis Supervisor: Dr Hugh Herr Title: Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, Program in Media Arts and Sciences
An FPGA Implementation of Multi-Class Support Vector Machine Classifier Based on Posterior Probability

Aim at the issue that the results of analyzing a classify algorithm of multi-class support vector machines which is based on posterior probability have been found its computation complexity is large, this paper present a simplified algorithm which is suitable for FPGA implementation. The analysis results indicate that this simplified algorithm’s computation complexity is decline. The experimental results in language recognition system show that the mean absolute error between the fixed-point output of the FPGAbased simplified algorithm and the floating point output of the original algorithm which is based on C language is 10-4 order of magnitude, which hardly affect this system’s performance and meet its real-time requirements.
A new holographic model of chiral symmetry breaking

A new family of models of flavour chiral symmetry breaking is proposed. The models are based on the embedding of a stack of D7 branes and a stack of anti-D7 branes in the conifold background. This family of gravity models is dual to a field theory with spontaneous breaking of conformal invariance and chiral flavour symmetry. We identify the corresponding Goldstone bosons and compute the spectra of massive scalar and vector mesons. The dual quiver gauge theory is also discussed. We further analyse a model where chiral symmetry is not broken.
Stereo and multichannel audio coding with room response compensation for improved coding transparency

The paper presents a very simple enhancement of joint coding of stereo and surround channels within a perceptual audio codec. Moreover, the paper proposes two improvements to standard parametric stereo and spatial audio compression in order to avoid the smearing of transients in the process of channel downmixing. The improvements consist in compensating of inter-channel delays prior to mixdown, as well as additional encoding of the room response for realistic reconstruction of the stereo ambience.
Design and Performance Analysis of Energy Efficient Routing Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Network

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are communication networks, which integrate sensor techniques, embedded techniques and distributed information processing techniques. One of the issues in smart sensor networks is achieving energy efficient operation because of the limited available power. In many biomedical applications, the locations of sensor nodes are fixed and the placement can be predetermined. In this paper, the Directional Source Aware Protocol (DSAP) is described along with the principle and a new Energy Efficient DSAP is proposed to minimize the usage of available energy or power in sensor nodes. A few extra bits are transmitted in the header to inform all the neighbors about next immediate receiver, which is the future source for the next transmission. Energy efficiency is achieved by keeping the neighbors of transmitting node in sleep mode and the intended receiver on.In this work different routes and topologies are considered. The energy consumed by the nodes and the lifetime of the network are analyzed.
A Package-Based Architecture for Customized GIS

In this chapter we present a package-based component architecture for the specific deployment and maintenance of public sector applications, specifically corporate Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The three-tier architecture defines a group of server-side packages, a kernel and external packages, that are dynamically requested and assembled at execution time according to the needs of individual users to produce on demand customized GIS applications. An intermediate middleware layer handles user authentication and version control. In order to demonstrate the proposed architecture, a practical prototype has been implemented using Java WebStart. This prototype demonstrates the creation of several GIS client applications, with increasing levels of functionality, and based on free software packages.
Spin Foam Models and the Classical Action Principle

We propose a new systematic approach that allows one to derive the spin foam (state sum) model of a theory starting from the corresponding classical action functional. It can be applied to any theory whose action can be written as that of the BF theory plus a functional of the B field. Examples of such theories include BF theories with or without cosmological term, Yang-Mills theories and gravity in various spacetime dimensions. Our main idea is two-fold. First, we propose to take into account in the path integral certain distributional configurations of the B field in which it is concentrated along lower dimensional hypersurfaces in spacetime. Second, using the notion of generating functional we develop perturbation expansion techniques, with the role of the free theory played by the BF theory. We test our approach on various theories for which the corresponding spin foam (state sum) models are known. We find that it exactly reproduces the known models for BF and 2D Yang-Mills theories. For the BF theory with cosmological term in 3 and 4 dimensions we calculate the terms of the transition amplitude that are of the first order in the cosmological constant, and find an agreement with the corresponding first order terms of the known state sum models. We discuss implications of our results for existing quantum gravity models.
Sequence Analysis of ARI-1, a Novel OXA β-Lactamase, Responsible for Imipenem Resistance inAcinetobacter baumannii 6B92

ABSTRACT The sequence of the blaARI-1 gene from imipenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii 6B92 has been determined. The structural gene encodes a 273-amino-acid protein which is most related to the OXA class D β-lactamases. The conserved S-T-F-K and K-T-G motifs were identified in the ARI-1 protein sequence, also named OXA-23, but significantly, a point mutation (Y→F) was identified in the Y-G-N conserved motif, also known to function in the active site.
Frequency-domain Multi-stage Inter-code Interference Cancellation for Multi-code DSSS Transmission

Frequency-domain equalization (FDE) based on minimum mean square error (MMSE) criterion can replace rake combining with much improved bit error rate (BER) performance of the multi-code direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) signal transmission in a severe frequency-selective fading channel. However, since the channel cannot be completely equalized, the residual inter-code interference (ICI) is present and therefore, the BER performance degrades as the number of parallel codes increases. In this paper, we propose frequencydomain multi-stage parallel interference cancellation (FD-MSPIC). In FD-MS-PIC, interference replica is generated and subtracted from the received signal in the frequency-domain and then, MMSE-FDE is carried out. The achievable BER performance is evaluated by computer simulation. Keywords-component; Direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS), Frequency-domain equalization (FDE), ICI, PIC
The twitaholic next door.: scalable friend recommender system using a concept-sensitive hash function

In this paper we present a Friend Recommender System for micro-blogging. Traditional batch processing of massive amounts of data makes it difficult to provide a near-real time friend recommender system or even a system that can properly scale to millions of users. In order to overcome these issues, we have designed a solution that represents user-generated micro posts as a set of pseudo-cliques. These graphs are assigned a hash value using an original Concept-Sensitive Hash function, a new sub-kind of Locally-Sensitive Hash functions. Finally, since the user profiles are represented as a binary footprint, the pairwise comparison of footprints using the Hamming distance provides scalability to the recommender system. The paper goes with an online application relying on a large Twitter dataset, so that the reader can freely experiment the system.
A 16-term error model based on linear equations of voltage and current variables

Formulation of a 16-term error model, based on the four-port ABCD-matrix and voltage and current variables, is outlined. Matrices A, B, C, and D are each 2 /spl times/ 2 submatrices of the complete 4 /spl times/ 4 error matrix. The corresponding equations are linear in terms of the error parameters, which simplifies the calibration process. The parallelism with the network analyzer calibration procedures and the requirement of five two-port calibration measurements are stressed. Principles for robust choice of equations are presented. While the formulation is suitable for any network analyzer measurement, it is expected to be a useful alternative for the nonlinear y-parameter approach used in intrinsic semiconductor electrical and noise parameter measurements and parasitics' deembedding.
IRBL: An Implicitly Restarted Block-Lanczos Method for Large-Scale Hermitian Eigenproblems

The irbleigs code is an implementation of an implicitly restarted block-Lanczos method for computing a few selected nearby eigenvalues and associated eigenvectors of a large, possibly sparse, Hermitian matrix A. The code requires only the evaluation of matrix-vector products with A; in particular, factorization of A is not demanded, nor is the solution of linear systems of equations with the matrix A. This, together with a fairly small storage requirement, makes the irbleigs code well suited for large-scale problems. Applications of the irbleigs code to certain generalized eigenvalue problems and to the computation of a few singular values and associated singular vectors are also discussed. Numerous computed examples illustrate the performance of the method and provide comparisons with other available codes.
Bringing formalism and unification to human-computer interaction design patterns

In this paper we describe a concept to formalize and unify Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) design patterns which is currently in a work-in-progress status. The framework, called XPLML (eXtended Pattern Language Markup Language), which we want to provide to the HCI community, should help pattern authors, pattern users and software engineers in their daily work with HCI design patterns. XPLML fills the gap between the prose form of HCI patterns and software applications. The framework provides formal specifications of the content elements, the relationships and user interface (UI) primitives of HCI patterns, where UI primitives are the smallest ("atomic") parts of the solution part of an HCI pattern.
High-Speed Energy Estimation for Delay-Insensitive Circuits

With increasingly smaller feature sizes and higher onchip densities, the power dissipation of VLSI systems has become a primary concern for designers. This paper presents a fast and efficient energy estimation approach for delay-insensitive (DI) systems, based on gate-level switching. The approach has been automated and works with standard industrial design tool suites, such as Mentor Graphics and Synopsys. The method is applied to the NULL Convention Logic (NCL) DI paradigm, and is tested on a number of different NCL multiplier architectures. The results from the developed gate-level switching method are compared to those from transistorlevel simulation, showing that the method developed herein produces results more than 1000 times as fast, that fall within the result range obtained by two different industry-standard transistor-level simulators, for the tested designs. This method is extremely useful for quickly determining how architecture changes will affect energy usage.
COMPARING LEVELS OF NDH-1 DEHYDROGENASE ACTIVITY IN DIFFERENT MYCOBACTERIAL SPECIES.

Title of Document: COMPARING LEVELS OF NDH-1 DEHYDROGENASE ACTIVITY IN DIFFERENT MYCOBACTERIAL SPECIES. Sharon Azogue, Master of Science, 2008 Directed By: Dr. Volker Briken, Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics The nuoG gene of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) has the ability to inhibit host cell apoptosis. This ability is a virulence factor and does not exist in facultative pathogenic and non-pathogenic mycobacterial species. NuoG is part of the NDH-1 complex, and this study addressed the potential link between the role of NuoG in apoptosis inhibition and the biochemical activity of the NDH-1 complex. Different mycobacterial species were tested for their NDH-1 activities. Among the bacteria tested were bacteria transformed with the Mtb nuoG plasmid, or with the almost entire NDH-1 coding region. Surprisingly, the levels of NDH-1 activity did not correlate with apoptosis levels, suggesting a potential independent, novel mechanism by which NuoG inhibits host cell apoptosis. COMPARING LEVELS OF NDH-1 DEHYDROGENASE ACTIVITY IN DIFFERENT MYCOBACTERIAL SPECIES.
Controlling Homeless People? Power, Interventionism and Legitimacy

Abstract There is intense debate over the legitimacy of interventions which seek behavioural change on the part of street homeless people. ‘Hard’ measures, such as arresting people for begging, are particularly controversial, but ‘softer’ interventions such as motivational interviewing have also prompted objections on grounds that they are paternalistic. At the same time, the ‘non-interventionist’ stance of some service providers has been accused of perpetuating harmful street lifestyles. Inspired by Ruth Grant's philosophically informed interrogation of the ethics of incentives, we propose a normative framework for application in this field. Via systematic exploration of Grant's three ‘legitimacy standards’ (legitimate purpose, voluntary response, effects on character), and an additional outcome-focussed fourth (effectiveness, proportionality and balance), we attempt to unsettle any intuitive assumption that non-interventionist approaches are necessarily more morally defensible than interventionist ones. We also, however, explicate the high ethical and empirical bar required to justify social control measures.
Effects of Management of Domestic Dogs and Recreation on Carnivores in Protected Areas in Northern California

Abstract: In developed countries dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) are permitted to accompany human visitors to many protected areas (e.g., >96% of protected lands in California, U.S.A.), and protected‐area management often focuses on regulating dogs due to concerns about predation, competition, or transmission of disease and conflicts with human visitors. In 2004 and 2005, we investigated whether carnivore species richness and abundance were associated with management of domestic dogs and recreational visitation in protected areas in northern California. We surveyed for mammalian carnivores and human visitors in 21 recreation areas in which dogs were allowed offleash or onleash or were excluded, and we compared our observations in the recreation areas with observations in seven reference sites that were not open to the public. Carnivore abundance and species richness did not differ among the three types of recreation areas, but native carnivore species richness was 1.7 times greater (p < 0.01) and the relative abundances of native coyotes (Canis latrans) and bobcats (Lynx rufus) were over four times greater (p < 0.01) in the reference sites. Abundances of bobcats and all carnivores declined as the number of visitors increased. The policy on domestic dogs did not appear to affect species richness and abundance of mammalian carnivores. But the number of dogs we observed was strongly associated with human visitation (R2= 0.54), so the key factors associated with recreational effects on carnivores appear to be the presence and number of human visitors to protected areas.
On Monitoring and Steering in Large-Scale Multi-Agent Systems

This paper addresses the issue of coordination and control in multi-agent systems (MASs), focusing on the need for certain activities of a MAS to be adequately monitored and steered, so that they can be managed. We argue that coordination and control in large and open MASs requires the scalable enforcement of appropriate policies over the entire membership of the given MAS. And we show how such enforcement can be accomplished via the Law-Governed Interaction (LGI) mechanism, for policies that support monitoring and steering.