Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Surface Relief Analysis for Illustrative Shading

In this paper, we present an analysis technique that leverages the complexity found in detailed 3D models for illustrative shading purposes. Given a smooth base surface with relief, it locates relief features (concavities, convexities and inflections) around each surface point and at multiple scales, using cubic‐polynomial fitting. This object‐space, per‐vertex information is then used to guide a variety of shading techniques including normal enhancement, feature visualization, accessibility shading and radiance scaling. Thanks to this approach, features at multiple scales are easily combined, filtered and shaded, allowing users to explore surface relief in real‐time.
Human Capital and the Demographic Transition: Why Schooling Became Optimal

This paper develops a model with increasing adult life expectancy as the driving force of the economic and demographic transition. We show that if parents invest their own time into children's human capital, rising adult life expectancy unambiguously increases fertility. With children educated in schools and parents paying tuition fees, the reaction of fertility to changes in longevity is ambiguous. If productivity of adult human capital is sufficiently large and parent's valuation for additional children is sufficiently low, fertility will decrease. Without a schooling system, rising life expectancy therefore initially increases fertility. As during the development process life expectancy rises, a schooling system will be endogenously adopted and the relationship between fertility and longevity reversed. We argue therefore that it is important to account for the change in the nature of the costs of child education: from time costs to monetary costs.
A voxel-based PET investigation of the long-term effects of "Ecstasy" consumption on brain serotonin transporters.

OBJECTIVE Recent functional imaging studies have reported evidence of alterations in the serotonergic system induced by 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), or "Ecstasy. " However, these studies have often been limited by small sample size, lack of tracer selectivity, unreliable assessment of MDMA doses, insufficiently matched comparison groups, or region-of-interest analysis. METHOD Positron emission tomography (PET) using the specific serotonin transporter ligand [(11)C](+)McN5652 was performed in 117 subjects: 30 current MDMA users, 29 former MDMA users, 29 drug-naive comparison subjects, and 29 users of drugs other than MDMA (polydrug comparison subjects). Self-assessment of drug history was checked by analyzing hair samples. Local serotonin transporter availability was computed by a regularized reference tissue approach. Voxel-based comparison of serotonin transporter availability was performed using statistical parametric mapping (SPM 99). RESULTS Serotonin transporter availability in current MDMA users was significantly reduced in the mesencephalon, thalamus, left caudate, hippocampus, occipital cortex, temporal lobes, and posterior cingulate gyrus compared with all other groups. Reduction was more pronounced in female than in male subjects. There was no significant difference of serotonin transporter availability among former MDMA users and the drug-naive and polydrug comparison subjects. A negative correlation between serotonin transporter availability and mean MDMA dose was found in occipital visual areas and in the left precentral sulcus of current MDMA users. In addition, there was a significant positive correlation between the serotonin transporter availability and the MDMA abstention period in brainstem and in the basal forebrain in all MDMA users. CONCLUSIONS These findings support the hypothesis of MDMA-induced protracted alterations of the serotonergic system and indicate that the reduced availability of serotonin transporter, as measured by PET, might be reversible. Women appear to be more susceptible than men to MDMA-induced alterations of the serotonergic system.
A Graph Model of Data and Workflow Provenance

Provenance has been studied extensively in both database and workflow management systems, so far with little convergence of definitions or models. Provenance in databases has generally been defined for relational or complex object data, by propagating fine-grained annotations or algebraic expressions from the input to the output. This kind of provenance has been found useful in other areas of computer science: annotation databases, probabilistic databases, schema and data integration, etc. In contrast, workflow provenance aims to capture a complete description of evaluation - or enactment - of a workflow, and this is crucial to verification in scientific computation. Workflows and their provenance are often presented using graphical notation, making them easy to visualize but complicating the formal semantics that relates their run-time behavior with their provenance records. We bridge this gap by extending a previously-developed dataflow language which supports both database-style querying and workflow-style batch processing steps to produce a workflow-style provenance graph that can be explicitly queried. We define and describe the model through examples, present queries that extract other forms of provenance, and give an executable definition of the graph semantics of dataflow expressions.
Calculating Blocking Probabilities in Single-Hop WDM Traffic Groomed Optical Networks

Traffic grooming in Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) optical networks is a promising technology for improving the performance and reducing the network cost. We study the blocking performance of a single-hop WDM traffic groomed optical network, by considering that different connections request service through a single optical link. In each connection the generated calls may come from a single or multiple service-classes. For the case of a single service-class we develop a novel analytical loss model to calculate Connection Blocking Probabilities (ConBP) and Call Blocking Probabilities (CBP). Also, we extend this model to support multiple service-classes. The accuracy of the calculations is verified by simulation and found to be absolutely satisfactory.
Arabidopsis IAR4 Modulates Auxin Response by Regulating Auxin Homeostasis1[OA]

In a screen for enhancers of tir1-1 auxin resistance, we identified two novel alleles of the putative mitochondrial pyruvate dehydrogenase E1α-subunit, IAA-Alanine Resistant4 (IAR4). In addition to enhancing the auxin response defects of tir1-1, iar4 single mutants exhibit numerous auxin-related phenotypes including auxin-resistant root growth and reduced lateral root development, as well as defects in primary root growth, root hair initiation, and root hair elongation. Remarkably, all of these iar4 mutant phenotypes were rescued when endogenous indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) levels were increased by growth at high temperature or overexpression of the YUCCA1 IAA biosynthetic enzyme, suggesting that iar4 mutations may alter IAA homeostasis rather than auxin response. Consistent with this possibility, iar4 mutants exhibit increased Aux/IAA stability compared to wild type under basal conditions, but not in response to an auxin treatment. Measurements of free IAA levels detected no significant difference between iar4-3 and wild-type controls. However, we consistently observed significantly higher levels of IAA-amino acid conjugates in the iar4-3 mutant. Furthermore, using stable isotope-labeled IAA precursors, we observed a significant increase in the relative utilization of the Trp-independent IAA biosynthetic pathway in iar4-3. We therefore suggest that the auxin phenotypes of iar4 mutants are the result of altered IAA homeostasis.
The optical afterglow of GRB 000911: Evidence for an associated supernova?

We present photometric and spectroscopic observations of the late afterglow of GRB 000911, starting 1 day after the burst event and lasting8 weeks. We detect a moderately signicant re{brightening in the R, I andJ lightcurves, associated with a sizable reddening of the spectrum. This can be explained through the presence of an underlying supernova, outshining the afterglow30 days after the burst event. Alternative explanations are discussed.
DoKnowMe

Software engineering considers performance evaluation to be one of the key portions of software quality assurance. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lack of standard methodologies for performance evaluation even in the scope of experimental computer science. Inspired by the concept of "instantiation" in object-oriented programming, we distinguish the generic performance evaluation logic from the distributed and ad-hoc relevant studies, and develop an abstract evaluation methodology (by analogy of "class") we name Domain Knowledge-driven Methodology (DoKnowMe). By replacing five predefined domain-specific knowledge artefacts, DoKnowMe could be instantiated into specific methodologies (by analogy of "object") to guide evaluators in performance evaluation of different software and even computing systems. We also propose a generic validation framework with four indicators (i.e. usefulness, feasibility, effectiveness and repeatability), and use it to validate DoKnowMe in the Cloud services evaluation domain. Given the positive and promising validation result, we plan to integrate more common evaluation strategies to improve DoKnowMe and further focus on the performance evaluation of Cloud autoscaler systems.
The Political Economy of Mexico's Entry to NAFTA

In this paper, we derive three lessons from Mexico's experience. First, deep reforms like trade liberalization are not likely to happen by government decree. Instead, they usually come about when the unanimous blocking of reform by powerful elites breaks down. In the case of Mexico, this happened during a fiscal crisis, when some groups tried to displace other groups in order to capture a greater share of fiscal revenue. Second, in the presence of entrenched elites, the sustainability of reform depends on the existence of new groups that benefit from the new status quo and have enough power to defend it. Thus, the speed of successful reform is determined by the speed with which new groups are consolidated. Initially, Mexico limited radical liberalization to the manufacturing sector. The government has only recently begun to undertake serious liberalization in the services and agriculture sectors. The third lesson we take from Mexico is that the importance of formal agreements like NAFTA lies not so much in the ability of these agreements to reduce average import tariffs among their parties and improve their terms of trade vis vis the rest of the world, as claimed by the optimal tariff literature, but in that they serve as commitment devices to force reforms to continue.
Maintaining significant stream statistics over sliding windows

In this paper, we introduce the Significant One Counting problem. Let ε and θ be respectively some user-specified error bound and threshold. The input of the problem is a stream of bits. We need to maintain some data structure that allows us to estimate the number of 1-bits in a sliding window of size <i>n</i> such that whenever there are at least θ<i>n</i> 1-bits in the window, the relative error of the estimate is guaranteed to be at most ε. When θ 1/<i>n</i>, our problem becomes the Basic Counting problem proposed by Datar <i>et al.</i> [<i>ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms</i> (2002), pp. 635--644]. We prove that any data structure for the Significant One Counting problem must use at least Ω(1/ε log<sup>2</sup> 1/θ + log ε θ<i>n</i>) bits of memory. We also design a data structure for the problem that matches this memory bound and supports constant query and update time. Note that for fixed θ and ε, our data structure uses <i>O</i>(log <i>n)</i> bits of memory, while any data structure for the Basic Counting problem needs Ω(log<sup>2</sup> <i>n</i>) bits in the worst case.
Frequency-domain processing for synchronization and channel estimation in OQAM-OFDM systems

In this work the design of a frequency-domain synchronization and channel estimation scheme for OQAM-OFDM systems is presented and evaluated. The need for signal processing schemes for wireless communication systems, that are processed solely in the frequency domain results from the desire to build frequency-agile radios. Driven by the transition from exclusive spectrum resource allocation towards a dynamic usage of the spectrum a non-contiguous spectrum utilization in fragmented spectrum is needed. Well-known time-domain algorithms severely suffer from encapsulated spectral components not belonging to the non-contiguous OQAM-OFDM waveform. We show that frequency-domain processing can achieve similar system performance as comparable time-domain methods over a wide range of frequency offsets while offering a new degree of freedom in preamble design for FBMC systems.
Attracting Foreign Direct Investment

Like many other developing countries, South Asian nations have been experiencing increased foreign direct investment inflows over the past decade as developing countries get a larger share of cross-border investments that were once sent to developed countries. Nonetheless, South Asia’s inflows of foreign direct investment remain the lowest relative to gross domestic product among developing country regions. Why are South Asia’s foreign direct investment inflows so low and what lessons can be drawn for developing countries as a whole? The analysis in this article uses a novel empirical model that accounts for possible trends in convergence in the ratio of foreign direct investment to gross domestic product between countries and cross-sectional data for 78 countries from 2000 to 2011. The sample contains 52 developing countries. The analysis finds that two key factors are at work—high overall regulatory restrictions on foreign direct investment and specific restrictions placed on doing business with other countries. These factors include overall trade restrictiveness, which reduces the benefits to cross-border investments, and weak institutions to protect foreign investors and facilitate investment. Nonetheless, the potential for faster growth in intra- and inter-regional foreign direct investment flows is significant. The main factors leading to this conclusion are South Asia’s current low levels of foreign direct investment, the many unexploited opportunities for embodied knowledge transfer, and supply-chain linkages. The overall lessons for developing countries are that liberalizing policy constraints in both trade and foreign investment, keeping corporate tax rates modest, and improving governance and transparency could help to substantially improve foreign direct investment flows.
Age and experience: ludic engagement in a residential care setting

The "older old" (people over eighty) are a largely invisible group for those not directly involved in their lives; this project explores the ways that technology might strengthen links between different generations. This paper describes findings from a two-year study of a residential care home and develops the notion of cross-generational engagement through ludic systems which encourage curiosity and playfulness. It outlines innovative ways of engaging the older old through "digital curios" such as Bloom, the Tenori On and Google Earth. The use of these curios was supplemented with portraiture by three local artists, nine school children and the field researcher. The paper describes four technological interventions: "video window", "projected portraiture", "blank canvas", and "soundscape radio". These interventions attempt to reposition "off the shelf technologies to provide a space for cross-generational engagement The notion of inter-passivity (the obverse of interaction) is explored in relation to each intervention.
How costly was the crisis of the 1990s? A comparative analysis of the deepest crises in Finland and Sweden over the last 130 years

In the 1990s the world economy was hit by a series of unusually deep crises with far-reaching consequences, the first of which occurred in Finland and Sweden. This paper compares the cost of the crisis of the 1990s with the costs caused by all major crises and depressions since the 1870s in the two Nordic countries. First, it constructs a crisis chronology for Finland and Sweden. Second, it estimates the cost of every major crisis in terms of real income, industrial production and employment foregone. The numerical results demonstrate the severity of the crisis of the 1990s. It is one of the worst crises that have hit the two Nordic countries, on a par in several respects with the crisis of the 1930s, commonly regarded as the greatest crisis in modern history. The crises of the 1990s in Finland and Sweden were as severe as those that hit the world during the exceptionally crisis-ridden interwar period. However, the output losses in both countries during World War I and II remain higher than those of any peacetime crisis, notwithstanding Sweden's neutrality in both wars.
Trafficking illegal goods and ancient commerce

Illegal goods are trafficked through couriers with whom legal contracts cannot be enforced. We model the problem of these couriers absconding and focus on a finite horizon problem in which trade cannot be sustained through reputational effects. Nonetheless, trade remains possible if there are sufficient gains. Optimal schemes have one courier making numerous, but a finite number of, return trips, being entrusted with bundles of increasing value, and keeping the last. Our model is robust to (i) punishment, (ii) bonding and (iii) a competitive market for couriers. We discuss implications for interdiction and how the model fits some ancient trade as well.
Consolidating Economic Reforms: The Hungarian Experience with Lessons for Poland

How to assess Hungary's present situation in the broader context of overall economic and political developments in post-socialist Eastern Europe? The regional perspective suggests that in terms of parting with state socialism and building market democracy Hungary - and a few other countries including Poland - represents the maximum any former socialist state could achieve between 1989-98. While in this respect no country succeeded in getting farther, most other states have struggled with the peaceful or forceful formation of national identity or a new, independent state, which often dominated over and conflicted with, the issues of economic reforms and democratization on the transformation agenda. Another key to success is that Hungary - similar to Poland, but to a much larger extent - became a major target for foreign direct investment. This is due to a number of factors: from Hungary's strategy for debt, macroeconomic management and privatization, to the foreign investors' and creditors' own expectations. However, the resulting large capital inflow had a major impact on the features of Hungarian capitalism. While everywhere in East the new ownership structure displays various combinations of foreign owners, "national capitalists", and the scattered property rights of workers, the proportions dramatically differ. In much of the East the cohort of foreign investors is entirely missing, while national capitalists of often doubtful origin, skills and strategies acquired overwhelming share and influence. At the other extreme, in former GDR virtually the whole business elite is "foreign": West-German or of other Western origin. On this scale Hungary, with a one-third of its largely private economy in foreign hands [Hegymenet, 1998: 163] in 1997 is closest to the former GDR - and at the same time farthest from the other extreme exhibited by Eastern "national capitalisms". This location makes the Hungarian case specific and hints both at the risks the country avoided and the ones it took.
Using Dynamic Bayesian Networks for Posed versus Spontaneous Facial Expression Recognition

Automatic analysis of facial expressions is a complex area of pattern recognition and computer vision with many un- resolved problems, one of which is the distinction between posed and spontaneous expressions of emotions. Previous psychology research indicates that the temporal dynamics in the face are essential for distinguishing between posed and spontaneous smiles. There are six temporal characteristics which are important: morphology, apex overlap, symmetry, total duration, speed of onset and speed of offset. In this work, we propose to distinguish between posed and spon- taneous expressions by using Dynamic Bayesian networks (DBN) to model the temporal dynamics. The DBN provides a suitable framework to represent probabilistic relationships between and within the various types of temporal dynamics. Based on the temporal phases of four different Action Units (onset, apex offset and neutral of facial actions) and the six temporal characteristics from the psychology research, we build several DBN models to distinguish between posed and spontaneous expressions. We present experimental results from 50 videos displaying posed and spontaneous smiles. When the DBNs trained on the temporal characteristics are combined to provide a joint classification, we attain an AUC of 0.97.
Design and Research of a Large-Scale Network Access Control System with Hybrid Router Configuration

This paper presents a new automatic hybrid router configuration (HRC) approach to access control, which combine the advantages of direct configuration (DC) method and routing diffusion configuration (RDC) method to simplify access control configuration in large-scale networks. The proposed HRC is a flexible, adaptable and affordable approach to block/unblock the harmful IP address. A comprehensive network access control system (NACS) for large-scale with the hybrid approach is designed and implemented. Experimental results of the system are given to verify the theoretical analysis and to confirm its high efficiency.
Towards efficient proofs of retrievability

Proofs of Retrievability (POR) is a cryptographic formulation for remotely auditing the integrity of files stored in the cloud, without keeping a copy of the original files in local storage. In a POR scheme, a user Alice backups her data file together with some authentication data to a potentially dishonest cloud storage server Bob. Later, Alice can periodically and remotely verify the integrity of her data file using the authentication data, without retrieving back the data file. Besides security, performances in communication, storage overhead and computation are major considerations. Shacham and Waters (Asiacrypt '08) gave a fast scheme with O(sλ) bits communication cost and a factor of 1/s file size expansion where λ is the security parameter. In this paper, we incorporate a recent construction of constant size polynomial commitment scheme (Kate, Zaverucha and Goldberg, Asiacrypt '10) into Shacham and Waters scheme. The resulting scheme requires O(λ) communication bits (particularly, 920 bits if a 160 bits elliptic curve group is used or 3512 bits if a 1024 bits modulo group is used) per verification and a factor of 1/s file size expansion. Experiment results show that our proposed scheme is indeed efficient and practical. Our security proof is based on Strong Diffie-Hellman Assumption.