Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fuzzy Multi-Attribute Group Decision Making Method Based on Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Sets and Applications to Global Supplier Selection

Interval type-2 fuzzy sets (IT2 FS) provide us with additional degrees of freedom to represent the uncertainty and the fuzziness of the real word than traditional type-1 fuzzy sets. In this paper, we investigate the fuzzy multi-attribute group decision making (FMAGDM) problems in which all the information provided by the decision makers (DMs) is expressed as IT2 FS, and the information about attribute weights is completely unknown. We first introduce the concepts of lower and upper possibility mean value of IT2 FS. Based on the crisp standard deviation and mean deviation of IT2 FS, we establish one optimization model to determine the weights of attributes. Furthermore, we utilize the obtained attribute weights and the arithmetic operations to fuse the IT2 fuzzy information in the collective IT2 fuzzy decision matrix to get the overall IT2 fuzzy values of alternatives by which the proposed fuzzy possibility degree of all the given alternatives can be found. Finally, global supplier selection problem is given to illustrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.
Energy-Adaptive Computing: A New Paradigm for Sustainable IT

The sustainability concerns of Information Technology (IT) go well beyond energy efficient computing and require techniques for minimizing environmental impact of IT infrastructure over its entire life-cycle. Traditionally, IT infrastructure is overdesigned at all levels from chips to entire data centers and ecosystem; the paradigm explored in this chapter is to replace overdesign with rightsizing coupled with smarter control. Such an approach can substantially reduce the emissions impact but poses several challenges in adapting the infrastructure and the workload for the occasional power and thermal limitations that arise. This chapter explains how the paradigm can make information technology environmentally friendlier, and lays out numerous challenges. It also illustrates the ideas via a simple mechanism for enabling server-level power and thermal adaptation in a data center.
Improved binary codes for efficient content-based image retrieval

The usage of high-dimensional features to encode the image data shows comparative advantages with large-scale image processing problems, which may cause the "Curse of Dimensionality". To deal with this case, hashing methods have achieved great interests in content-based image retrieval. Here we concentrate on how to figure out efficient search via employing binary codes. The key point of our proposed method is to get the optimized mapping from the feature space to the Hamming space to get the improved binary codes and accelerate search. Our method consists of two parts: firstly we generate a projection matrix to reduce the dimensionality and raise the separability of features in derived subspace; secondly a rotation matrix is used to minimize the quantization loss. Experimental results on two classic databases testify that our proposed scheme outperforms several state-of-the-art methods.
A Comparative Study of Three Different Topologies of Neural Network-based Multiuser Detectors of WCDMA signals

Apparatus for scanning a rotating information carrier having mutually substantially parallel tracks for the recording of information. The apparatus includes a transducer for scanning the information carrier and for generating a position signal which indicates a position of a scanning point scanned by the transducer. The apparatus further includes means for rotating the information carrier about an axis and means for moving the scanning point in a radial direction with respect to the axis. The apparatus has a scanning mode in which the scanning point jumps both from one track to another in a first radial direction and from one track to another in an opposite second direction during reading or writing of a file.
The Dermis as a Delivery Site of Trypanosoma brucei for Tsetse Flies

Tsetse flies are the sole vectors of Trypanosoma brucei parasites that cause sleeping sickness. Our knowledge on the early interface between the infective metacyclic forms and the mammalian host skin is currently highly limited. Glossina morsitans flies infected with fluorescently tagged T. brucei parasites were used in this study to initiate natural infections in mice. Metacyclic trypanosomes were found to be highly infectious through the intradermal route in sharp contrast with blood stream form trypanosomes. Parasite emigration from the dermal inoculation site resulted in detectable parasite levels in the draining lymph nodes within 18 hours and in the peripheral blood within 42 h. A subset of parasites remained and actively proliferated in the dermis. By initiating mixed infections with differentially labeled parasites, dermal parasites were unequivocally shown to arise from the initial inoculum and not from a re-invasion from the blood circulation. Scanning electron microscopy demonstrated intricate interactions of these skin-residing parasites with adipocytes in the connective tissue, entanglement by reticular fibers of the periadipocytic baskets and embedment between collagen bundles. Experimental transmission experiments combined with molecular parasite detection in blood fed flies provided evidence that dermal trypanosomes can be acquired from the inoculation site immediately after the initial transmission. High resolution thermographic imaging also revealed that intradermal parasite expansion induces elevated skin surface temperatures. Collectively, the dermis represents a delivery site of the highly infective metacyclic trypanosomes from which the host is systemically colonized and where a proliferative subpopulation remains that is physically constrained by intricate interactions with adipocytes and collagen fibrous structures.
ells in focus icroglia : Proliferation and activation driven by the P 2 X 7 receptor

Microglial activation is associated with the pathogenesis and progression of conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinsons’ disease, prion disease, multiple sclerosis, and ischemic and traumatic brain injury. The molecular mechanism of microglial activation is largely unknown. The expression of the purinergic, P2X7 receptor (P2X7R), is known to be enhanced in many brain pathologies where vailable online xxx eywords: icroglia 2X7 receptor ctivation presence of activated microglia is a concurrent feature. This review focuses on the links between P2X7R expression and microglial activation and proliferation. The P2X7R is identified as a key player in the process of microgliosis, where by driving microglial activation, it can potentially lead to a deleterious cycle of neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration. © 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
The Noisy Duopolist

Abstract This paper provides an explanation for noisy pricing based on the strategic interaction of two firms competing in prices. When a firm adds noise to its prices, undercutting it becomes harder. Therefore, noisy pricing allows a firm to either exclude a competitor while charging supracompetitive prices, or to soften competition and have both firms earn supracompetitive profits. Such behavior leads to prices lying between competitive and monopolistic levels, and harms consumers and social welfare. It occurs in equilibrium if firms set prices sequentially, and in some equilibria of a repeated game of simultaneous price-setting if one firm is patient.
Design of microscopic image diagnosis system basedon MVC model and J2EE platform

This paper discusses the current status of harmful algal blooms diagnosis and points out some of defects: time consuming and laborious. This paper described how to apply J2EE platform to forming an exact and efficient microscopic image diagnosis system of harmful algal blooms based on MVC model and by the technologies such as JSP, Servlets, EJB, JDBC etc‥
Democracy at Risk: How Political Choices Undermine Citizen Participation, and What We Can Do About It

Voter turnout was unusually high in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. At first glance, that level of participation --largely spurred by war in Iraq and a burgeoning culture war at home --might look like vindication of democracy. If the recent past is any indication, however, too many Americans will soon return to apathy and inactivity. Clearly, all is not well in our civic life. Citizens are participating in public affairs too infrequently, too unequally, and in too few venues to develop and sustain a robust democracy. This important new book explores the problem of America's decreasing involvement in its own affairs. Democracy at Risk reveals the dangers of civic disengagement for the future of representative democracy. The authors, all eminent scholars, undertake three main tasks: documenting recent trends in civic engagement, exploring the influence that the design of political institutions and public policies have had on those trends, and recommending steps that will increase the amount and quality of civic engagement in America. The authors focus their attention on three key areas: the electoral process, including elections and the way people get involved; the impact of location, including demographic shifts and changing development patterns; and the critical role of nonprofit organizations and voluntary associations, including the philanthropy that help keep them going. This important project, initially sponsored by the American Political Science Association, tests the proposition that social science has useful insights on the state of our democratic life. Most importantly, it charts a course for reinvigorating civic participation in the world's oldest democracy. The authors: Stephen Macedo (Princeton University), Yvette Alex-Assensoh (Indiana University), Jeffrey M. Berry (Tufts), Michael Brintnall (American Political Science Association), David E. Campbell (Notre Dame), Luis Ricardo Fraga (Stanford), Archon Fung (Harvard), William A. Galston (University of Maryland), Christopher F. Karpowitz (Princeton), Margaret Levi (University of Washington), Meira Levinson (Radcliffe Institute), Keena Lipsitz (California-Berkeley), Richard G. Niemi (University of Rochester), Robert D. Putnam (Harvard), Wendy M. Rahn (University of Minnesota), Keith Reeves (Swarthmore), Rob Reich (Stanford), Robert R. Rodgers (Princeton), Todd Swanstrom (Saint Louis University), and Katherine Cramer Walsh (University of Wisconsin).
Future of scrum: parallel pipelining of sprints in complex projects

The scrum agile development process was invented to rapidly drive new product to market. Here, one of the inventors of scrum goes back to scrum basics, throws out preconceived notions, and designs advanced scrum using multiple overlapping sprints within the same scrum teams. This methodology delivers increasing application functionality to market at a pace that overwhelms competitors using a MetaScrum for release planning, variable length sprints, overlapping sprints for a single team, pre-staging product backlog, daily scrum of scrums meetings, and automation and integration of product backlog and sprint backlog with real-time reporting. Administrative overhead for dozens of enterprise product releases a year is less than 60 seconds a day per developer and less than 10 minutes a day for a ScrumMaster. While advanced scrum is not for the uninitiated, the future of scrum is still scrum, just faster, better, and cooler.
The Diversity Paradox: Political Parties, Legislatures, and the Organizational Foundations of Representation in America

Table of Contents Preface Chapter 1: Diversity Dilemmas in Democratic Representation Chapter 2: Internal Valuation in Political Organizations: Political Parties and Gender-Based Group Dynamics in the U.S. House of Representatives Chapter 3: A Unified Theory of Colleague Valuation in Political Organizations Chapter 4: Testing the Unified Theory of Colleague Valuation in the U.S. House of Representatives Chapter 5: Coordination Dilemmas and the Critical Mass Problem: Differentiating Colleague Valuation Between Incumbents and Challengers in the U.S. Senate Chapter 6: Can Organizational Mechanisms Solve Minority Group Coordination Problems? Logic, Lessons, and Evidence from Legislative Caucuses in the American States Chapter 7: The Organizational Foundations of Democratic Representation References
Multi-product, Multi-constraint Single-period Inventory Problem: a Hierarchical Solution Procedure

A single period inventory model, also popularly known as the Newsboy or Christmas tree problem, is to decide the quantity of a single product to be manufactured or purchased for a single period such that the quantity maximizes (minimizes) the expected profit (cost) under stochastic demand. The earliest works in this area were those by Hadley and Whittin (1963) and Hodges and Moore (1970). The later authors solved the product-mix problem with stochastic demand competing for a number of limited resources. Among the many extensions to the classical single period inventory problems developed after the 80’s, the optimization techniques to solve multiproduct, multi-constraint single period inventory problem are of relevance to the present work. Khouja (1999) in his review paper has classified the above extensions into eleven categories. To these, one can add another category, namely the application of techniques like marginal analysis [Hodges and Moore (1970)], Lagrange multipliers [Karmarkar (1981), and [Lau and Lau (1995), etc.], heuristics [Nahmias and Schmidt (1984), etc.], and analytical solution procedures [BenDaya and Raouf (1993), etc.] to solve the constrained newsboy problem.
CT Angiography is Cost‐Effective for Confirmation of Internal Carotid Artery Occlusions

While sensitive to internal carotid artery (ICA) occlusion, carotid ultrasound can produce false‐positive results. CT angiography (CTA) has a high specificity for ICA occlusion and is safer and cheaper than catheter angiography, although less accurate. We determined the cost‐effectiveness of CTA versus catheter angiography for confirming an ICA occlusion first suggested by carotid ultrasound.
The Informative Role of Subsidies

This paper investigates the effect of monopoly subsidies on entry deterrence. We consider a potential entrant who observes two signals: the subsidy set by the regulator and the output level produced by the incumbent firm. We show that not only an informative equilibrium can be supported, where information about the incumbent's costs is conveyed to the entrant, but also an uninformative equilibrium, where the actions of regulator and incumbent conceal the monopolist's type, thus deterring entry. While the regulator? s role can support entry-deterrence practices, we demonstrate that his presence is nonetheless welfare improving. Furthermore, we compare equilibrium welfare relative to two benchmarks: complete information environments, and standard entry-deterrence games where the regulator is absent.
Towards an architecture-independent analysis of parallel algorithms

A simple and efficient method for evaluating the performance of an algorithm, rendered as a directed acyclic graph, on any parallel computer is presented. The crucial ingredient is an efficient approximation algorithm for a particular scheduling problem. The only parameter of the parallel computer needed by our method is the message-to-instruction ratio $\tau$. Although the method used in this paper does not take into account the number of processors available, its application to several common algorithms shows that it is surprisingly accurate.
Sub-centres and Urban Inequality: A study on Social Equity in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region

Much of the inequality literature has done a great deal of work to study national inequality. However, most people live in cities and their experience of inequality is shaped by their local and metropolitan environment. This fact implies that next to inequality in countries, local inequality is also important. In this context, this paper investigates the relationship that exists between the urban spatial structure (defined by means of CBD and sub-centres) and the causes and the consequences of urban inequality in cities. To do so, this research takes into account the Barcelona Metropolitan Region as study case. Hence, the aim of this work is to determine whether CBD (central business district) and in particularly sub-centres, exert an influence on urban inequality in order to define future polices that enhance social equity. What determines the degree of inequality across the municipalities of the Barcelona Metropolitan Region and, what are the factors behind the inequality growth across these municipalities? The former question is addressed through using spatial econometric techniques that estimate if per capita income in 2008 is dependent on the past agglomeration economies that have emerged from CBD and sub-centres in 2001 correspondingly. Consequently, the latter point is also studied, through examining whether urbanization and localization economies that have emerged from CBD and sub-centres in the past, matters for the per capita income growth between 2001 and 2008. The results suggest that agglomeration economies that arise from CBD and sub-centres can explain the degree of income inequality and its growth as well. In addition, once is controlled for other conditions, the econometric models reveal that initial income inequality, population density, presence of human capital, land use balance, urban amenities and coast location are positively associated with per capita income as well as they predict its growth until 2008. Inversely, high level of elderly population is negatively significant correlated with per capita income and its growth. Therefore, planning a metropolitan area by taking into account sub-centres entail a remarkably improvement of its social performance.
Network Teaching Model Based on the Concept of Eco-psychology

Change in the form of teaching needs the new teaching mode support, especially for network teaching. Each model is based on the theory of teaching and learning, effective theory leads to effective teaching model. Eco-psychology advocates study of human psychology and behavior in a real environment, and the major view is that learning occurs in the interaction between the learner and the environment. This article thus concludes that the building of a eco-psychology network teaching model is based on the three requirements: interaction principle, the situational principle and dynamic principle, and the practical application is constructed based on the concept of eco-psychology online teaching modes: an interactive online teaching mode, which consists of four main components; situation creation, learners interaction with the environment, learner intentions guidance and correction, transfer.
Electrical responses reveal the temporal dynamics of brain events during involuntary attention switching

Surviving in the natural environment requires the rapid switching of attention among potentially relevant stimuli. We studied electrophysiologically the involuntary switching time in humans performing a task designed to study brain mechanisms of involuntary attention and distraction (C. Escera et al., 1998, J. Cogn. Neurosci., 10, 590–604). Ten subjects were instructed to discriminate visual stimuli preceded by a task‐irrelevant sound, this being either a repetitive tone (P = 0.8) or a distracting sound, i.e. a slightly higher deviant tone (P = 0.1) or an environmental novel sound (P = 0.1). In different conditions, the sounds preceded the visual stimuli by 245 or 355 ms. Deviant tones and novel sounds prolonged reaction times significantly to subsequent visual stimuli by 7.4 (P < 0.02) and 15.2 ms (P < 0.003), respectively. In addition to a mismatch negativity (MMN) and a positive‐polarity, 320‐ms latency, P3a event‐related potential associated, respectively, with detection of the distracting sound and the subsequent orienting of attention to it, a late frontal negative deflection was observed in distracting trials. The peak latency of this brain response from sound onset was 580 ms in the 245‐ms condition and 115 ms longer in the 355‐ms condition (P < 0.001), peaking consequently at 340 ms from visual stimulus onset, irrespective of the onset of the distracting sound. We suggest that this late frontal negative response may signal over the scalp the process of reallocating attention back to the original task after momentary distraction, and therefore that recovering from distraction may take a similar shifting time as orienting attention involuntarily towards unexpected novelty.
The Kendall Rank Correlation Coefficient Hervé Abdi

The Kendall (1955) rank correlation coefficient evaluates the degree of similarity between two sets of ranks given to a same set of objects. This coefficient depends upon the number of inversions of pairs of objects which would be needed to transform one rank order into the other. In order to do so, each rank order is represented by the set of all pairs of objects (e.g., [a,b] and [b, a] are the two pairs representing the objects a and b), and a value of 1 or 0 is assigned to this pair when its order corresponds or does not correspond to the way these two objects were ordered. This coding schema provides a set of binary values which are then used to compute a Pearson correlation coefficient.
An Android malware detection method based on AndroidManifest file

As one of the most developed intelligent operating systems on mobile devices, Android has taken the most part of the cell phone market. A rapid increase in the number of mobile applications make them more and more relevant to people's daily lives than ever before. Due to Android's security mechanism and the validation lack of publishing Android apps, Android malware detection still remains to be a critical issue. To solve this problem, this paper found that the statistical information of Android components (mainly activity) from the Manifest file cannot be ignored, based on the traditional method of Android permission detection. In this paper, a new feature vector is extracted from the AndroidManifest file, which combines the permission information and the component information of the Android application. We combine the naive Bias classification algorithm, and propose a malicious application detection method based on AndroidManifest file information. The experimental results show that the new method performance better than that of the traditional permission detection.
SOA Test Framework Based on BPA -Simulated Event Proxy

This paper presents an implementation case study for business-centric SOA test framework. The reference architecture of SOA system is usually layered: business process layer, service layer, and computing resource layer. In the architecture, there are so many subsystems to affect system performance, moreover they relate with each other. As a result, in the respect of overall performance, it is usually meaningless to measure each subsystem’s performance separately. In SOA system, the performance of the business process layer with which users keep in contact depends on the summation of the performance of the other lower layers. Therefore, measuring performance of the business layer includes indirect measurement of the other SOA system layers. We devised a business-centric SOA test framework in which activities and control primitives in business process managers are simulated to invoke commands or services in a test scenario. That is, in the test framework, a real business process scenario can be replaced to a mimicked business process test scenario, which is executed in a test proxy based on event mechanism. In this paper, we present the concept of BPA simulation, 2-layered test suites model, and reference architecture.