Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Potential of very high resolution SAR for persistent scatterer interferometry in urban areas

Persistent scatterer interferometry (PSI) has matured to an established method for detection of large-scale and small-scale deformation phenomena in urban areas and of man-made infrastructure. Deformation regimes originating from oil, gas, or water extraction, storage of gas underground, CO2 sequestration, loading of dams and dykes, and mining activities are prominent examples for investigations that have been carried out successfully applying the PSI technique to ERS or ENVISAT data stacks. Due to the sparse spatial distribution of persistent scatterers (PSs) and the moderate resolution of the mentioned satellites it has usually not been possible to track down the source of scattering in detail. The use of PSs was also opportunistic, that is, the PSI monitoring of individual buildings or specific parts of infrastructure was not always been guaranteed. This situation changes dramatically if PSI is applied to very high resolution data obtained from modern radar satellites like TerraSAR-X or COSMO-Skymed. For example, TerraSAR-X is able to deliver images with a resolution of up to 1 m in azimuth and 0.6 m in slant range when operated in the so-called high-resolution spotlight mode with 300 MHz bandwidth. This kind of data provide much more details of single objects and at the same time much higher PS densities. Compared to ERS or ENVISAT type data, the PS density can increase by factors of 100–200 on the same area. This is caused by the physical fact that at higher resolution and shorter wavelength, small scatterers (e.g., trihedrals) show higher signal-to-clutter ratio. Often, several tens to more than a hundred PSs can be found on a single large building facade or roof. Thus, individual buildings and infrastructure can be monitored in terms of structural stress and seasonal deformation, which is also supported by the short revisiting time of only 11 days of TerraSAR-X. Besides on resolution, the density of these points also depends on additional acquisition parameters like incidence angle or polarization and also on the three-dimensional (3D) structure of the given scene, as regions of layover areas and shadow are closely related to the geometrical configuration. The dependence of PS density on these parameters is discussed in this article utilizing results of PSI analysis of different high-resolution TerraSAR-X spotlight data stacks. In addition to this increase of resolution, TerraSAR-X products benefit from a high absolute slant range georeferencing accuracy of 0.5–1 m, which supports a very precise absolute 3D localization of the PSs on the same order. Hence, the physical nature of a PS can be investigated in more detail helping the understanding of the scattering source of the man-made infrastructure. Results of 3D localization and deformation assessment on several test sites are presented in this article.
A multi-level model of vicious circles of socio-economic segregation

This chapter develops a multi-level conceptual model of segregation, by using three conceptual levels – individuals and households, generations, and urban regions. Different socio-economic groups sort into different types of neighbourhoods and other domains, leading to patterns of segregation at the urban regional level. At the same time exposure to different socio-economic contexts also affects individual outcomes, and this subsequently leads to sorting processes into neighbourhoods and other domains. This vicious circle of sorting and contextual effects continuously crosses the three levels, and leads to higher levels of segregation. The chapter concludes with a discussion of several intervention strategies that focus on breaking the vicious circles to improve cities as places of opportunities by investing in people, in places and in transport.
Clinicopathological, Biochemical, and Sonographic Features of Thyroid Nodule Predictive of Malignancy among Adult Filipino Patients in a Tertiary Hospital in the Philippines

Background Thyroid nodules may harbor cancer in 5% to 15% of cases. Specific clinical and sonographic features predictive of malignancy have been investigated in various populations, but due to differences in epidemiology, risk factors and iodine nutrition status, these predictors may not be valid in the Philippines. This study determined the clinicopathological, biochemical, and sonographic features of thyroid nodules predictive of malignancy among adult Filipino patients at the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH). Methods We reviewed the medical records of Filipino patients ≥19 years of age who underwent thyroid surgery in UP-PGH from 2008 to 2011. Results A total of 837 of 1,670 patients (50.1%) were enrolled in the study, which included 417 benign and 420 malignant tumors. The mean age at diagnosis was 38±11 years, with female predominance. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that the presence of a hard or firm nodule (odds ratio [OR], 58.8, P<0.001; OR, 12.8, P<0.001), presence of microcalcifications (OR, 11.1; P<0.001), irregular margins on ultrasound (OR, 4.5; P<0.001), and absence of associated symptoms (OR, 2.3; P<0.002) increased significantly the likelihood of thyroid malignancy. Conclusion Similar to international data, the absence of associated symptoms, firm to hard thyroid nodules, and the presence of microcalcifications and irregular margins were significant predictors of thyroid malignancy.
Process Improvement: The Societal Iceberg

Information Systems (IS) are integrated systems for providing information to support operations, processes, management analysis and decision - making functions in an organisation [1]. The IS area is characterised by rapid technical change and in novation. In recent years there has been a shift in IS from technological to managerial and organisational issues. This shift has led to increased interest in how environment and innovation interact. In software quality improvement efforts there has also b een a shift from technical to managerial, organisational and people issues concentrating on the process rather than on the product. It is widely accepted that emphasis has to be placed on process quality as a means of achieving product quality. In this pap er, we investigate the characteristics of IS from the managerial and social viewpoint identifying the societal elements, their interacting and their effects on information.
American Journal of Epidemiology Original Contribution Prenatal Organochlorine Exposure and Behaviors Associated with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in School-aged Children

Organochlorines are environmentally persistent contaminants that readily cross the placenta, posing a potential risk to the developing fetus. Evidence for neurodevelopmental effects at low levels of these compounds is growing, though few studies have focused on behavioral outcomes. The authors investigated the association between prenatal polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) and p,p#-dichlorodiphenyl dichloroethylene (p,p#-DDE) levels and behaviors associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), measured with the Conners' Rating Scale for Teachers (CRS-T), in a cohort of 607 children aged 7–11 years (median age, 8.2 years) born in 1993–1998 to mothers residing near a PCB-contaminated harbor in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The median umbilical cord serum level of the sum of 4 prevalent PCB congeners (118, 138, 153, and 180) was 0.19 ng/g serum (range, 0.01– 4.41 ng/g serum). The authors found higher risk for ADHD-like behaviors assessed with the CRS-T at higher levels of PCBs and p,p#-DDE. For example, the authors found higher risk of atypical behavior on the Conners' ADHD Index for the highest quartile of the sum of 4 PCB congeners versus the lowest quartile (risk ratio ¼ 1.76, 95% confidence interval: 1.06, 2.92) and a similar relation for p,p#-DDE. These results support an association between low-level prenatal organochlorine exposure and ADHD-like behaviors in childhood. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most common childhood neurobehavioral disorder, affecting 5%–10% of children worldwide (1, 2). Symptoms often persist into adolescence and adulthood and are associated with substantial social and medical costs (1, 2). The etiology of ADHD is poorly understood, and identifying modifiable risk factors, including environmental neurotoxicants, is of public health importance. Organochlorines, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and p,p#-dichlorodiphenyl dichloroethylene (p,p#-DDE), have been shown to cross the placenta and have been associated with neurobehavioral effects in children (3). In the literature, investigators have reported associations between PCB levels and measures of attention and impulsivity among infants, school-age children, and adults (4–11). To our knowledge , associations between p,p#-DDE exposure and behaviors associated with ADHD have not been previously reported. Behavioral rating scales are used to clinically diagnose ADHD in conjunction with other measures, including physical and neurologic examination and family and school assessments (12). Rating scales use a standardized behavioral assessment form; when administered in a population-based sample, they may be less affected by access to health care or other sources of diagnostic bias. The purpose of the current study was to prospectively investigate the relation between prenatal exposure to …
Glued to the TV: Distracted Noise Traders and Stock Market Liquidity

In this paper, we study the impact of noise traders’ limited attention on financial markets. Specifically, we exploit episodes of sensational news (exogenous to the market) that distract noise traders. We find that on “distraction days,” trading activity, liquidity, and volatility decrease, and prices reverse less among stocks owned predominantly by noise traders. These outcomes contrast sharply with those due to the inattention of informed speculators and market makers, and are consistent with noise traders mitigating adverse selection risk. We discuss the evolution of these outcomes over time and the role of technological changes.
On the classical stability of orientifold cosmologies

We analyse the classical stability of string cosmologies driven by the dynamics of orientifold planes. These models are related to time-dependent orbifolds, and resolve the orbifold singularities which are otherwise problematic by introducing orientifold planes. In particular, we show that the instability discussed by Horowitz and Polchinski for pure orbifold models is resolved by the presence of the orientifolds. Moreover, we discuss the issue of stability of the cosmological Cauchy horizon, and we show that it is stable to small perturbations due to in-falling matter.
TEXT MINING : ADVANCEMENTS , CHALLENGES AND FUTURE

Text mining, also known as text data mining or knowledge discovery from textual databases, refers to the process of extracting interesting and non-trivial patterns or knowledge from text documents. Regarded by many as the next wave of knowledge discovery, text mining has very high commercial values. Last count reveals that there are more than ten high-tech companies offering products for text mining. Has text mining evolved so rapidly to become a mature field? This article attempts to shed some lights to the question. We first present a text mining framework consisting of two components: Text refining that transforms unstructured text documents into an intermediate form; and knowledge distillation that deduces patterns or knowledge from the intermediate form. We then survey the state-of-the-art text mining products/applications and align them based on the text refining and knowledge distillation functions as well as the intermediate form that they adopt. In conclusion, we highlight the upcoming challenges of text mining and the opportunities it offers.
Performance Analysis of Updating Mechanisms for Dynamic Content in Peer-to-Peer Networks

In current peer-to-peer applications content is generally static, i.e. it does not change over time. In the case of content that is modified over time, peers that host such dynamic content are required to have a mechanism that refreshes content hosted by them. In unstructured peer-to- peer networks this is challenging because of its decentralized nature. In this paper we develop a model that captures for dynamic content in a peer-to-peer network the impact of its refreshing rate and its popularity to the bandwidth required from the network. We compare four simple mechanisms for updating peers that can be used in a protocol devised to work in this kind of scenario. We find that there is an optimal number of updates to proactively push into the network in order to minimize the bandwidth consumption. Since unstructured peer-to-peer networks offer little guarantees of reliability, the use of one of the mechanisms studied here is highly recommended.
Essays on the economics of family formation, dissolution and bargaining

Esta tesis arroja luz sobre algunos aspectos de la economia de la formacion, disolucion y negociacion familiar. El primer capitulo se centra en la relacion entre la regulacion sobre el divorcio y el bienestar de la familia, y muestra que una disminucion del coste del divorcio puede reducir el nivel de conflicto entre esposos. El segundo capitulo analiza los efectos de las leyes de division de activos en caso de divorcio sobre la inestabilidad matrimonial y la oferta de trabajo de las mujeres. Los resultados sugieren que una redistribucion de los derechos de propiedad sobre los activos familiares en caso de divorcio en favor de la parte financieramente mas debil, habitualmente la mujer, puede aumentar la inestabilidad matrimonial y reducir la oferta de trabajo de las mujeres. El tercer capitulo examina el papel de la ratio de sexos en la universidad en explicar el patron de formacion familiar de adultos jovenes. La evidencia empirica sugiere que los individuos que estan expuestos a una mayor proporcion de companeros del sexo opuesto durante la universidad tienen mas probabilidad de estar casados o residiendo con una pareja de la misma carrera, poco despues de finalizar los estudios.
Towards the formal verification of cache coherency at the architectural level

Cache coherency is one of the major issues in multicore systems. Formal methods, in particular model-checking, have been successful at verifying high-level protocols, but, to the best of our knowledge, the verification of cache coherency at the architectural level is still an open issue. All existing verification efforts assume a reliable interconnect, that is, messages eventually reach their destination. We discuss the challenge of discharging this assumption at the architectural level where implementation details of the interconnect are mixed with a cache coherency protocol. Our automatic approach is based on a well-defined set of primitives to express architectural models, a generic model of communication fabrics expressed in an automated theorem proving system, and a dedicated algorithm for deadlock and livelock detection. We argue that reliability depends on the interaction between the interconnect and the cache coherency protocol. They must be verified altogether as their combination creates intricate message dependencies. We sketch our verification approach and apply it to a simple write-invalidate protocol on the Spidergon network-on-chip from STMicroelectronics. Our approach is promising. For this simple protocol, networks with tens of agents and hundreds of components can be analyzed within seconds.
A space-time orbifold: A toy model for a cosmological singularity

We explore bosonic strings and Type II superstrings in the simplest time dependent backgrounds, namely orbifolds of Minkowski space by time reversal and some spatial reflections. We show that there are no negative norm physical excitations. However, the contributions of negative norm virtual states to quantum loops do not cancel, showing that a ghost-free gauge cannot be chosen. The spectrum includes a twisted sector, with strings confined to a ``conical'' singularity which is localized in time. Since these localized strings are not visible to asymptotic observers, interesting issues arise regarding unitarity of the S-matrix for scattering of propagating states. The partition function of our model is modular invariant, and for the superstring, the zero momentum dilaton tadpole vanishes. Many of the issues we study will be generic to time-dependent cosmological backgrounds with singularities localized in time, and we derive some general lessons about quantizing strings on such spaces.
Reiter's Default Logic Is a Logic of Autoepistemic Reasoning And a Good One, Too

A fact apparently not observed earlier in the literature of n onmonotonic reasoning is that Reiter, in his default logic paper, did not directly formalize informal defaults. Instead, he translated a default into a certain na tural language proposition and provided a formalization of the latter. A few years later, Moore noted that propo- sitions like the one used by Reiter are fundamentally differ ent than defaults and exhibit a certain autoepistemic nature. Thus, Reiter had developed his default logic as a for- malization of autoepistemic propositions rather than of defaults. The first goal of this paper is to show that some problems of Rei ter's default logic as a formal way to reason about informal defaults are directly attributable to the au- toepistemic nature of default logic and to the mismatch between informal defaults and the Reiter's formal defaults, the latter being a formal expr ession of the autoepistemic propositions Reiter used as a representation of informal defaults. The second goal of our paper is to compare the work of Reiter and Moore. While each of them attempted to formalize autoepistemic propositions, the modes of rea- soning in their respective logics were different. We revisi t Moore's and Reiter's in- tuitions and present them from the perspective of autotheoremhood, where theories can include propositions referring to the theory's own theo rems. We then discuss the formalization of this perspective in the logics of Moore and Reiter, respectively, using the unifying semantic framework for default and autoepistemic logics that we devel- oped earlier. We argue that Reiter's default logic is a bette r formalization of Moore's intuitions about autoepistemic propositions than Moore's own autoepistemic logic.
A power gating scheme for ground bounce reduction during mode transition

Power gating is an effective method to reduce leakage power during the circuit sleep mode; however, it introduces the ground bounce problem and has considerable energy consumption during the mode transitions. To mitigate the ground bounce, we propose a novel power gating scheme that reduces the magnitude of the peak current and voltage glitches as well as the time to stabilize power and ground during mode transitions. To further decrease the wakeup time while keep the energy efficiency, we introduce two improved circuit schemes with two intermediate states, based on our proposed power gating scheme. The scheme provides an average peak voltage reduction of 67.0%, and the wakeup time reduction is up to 62.3%. If the circuits use the intermediate schemes, wakeup time can be further reduced by a maximum of 95.7%. Beside these reductions, our proposed circuit scheme also has the advantage of small size and flexible controllability.
On the Steady-State Analysis of PNLMS-Type Algorithms for Correlated Gaussian Input Data

This letter presents model expressions describing the steady-state behavior of proportionate normalized least-mean-square (PNLMS)-type algorithms, taking into account both complex- and real-valued correlated Gaussian input data. Specifically, based on energy-conservation arguments, general expressions for the excess mean-square error (EMSE) in steady state and misadjustment are obtained. Such general expressions are then applied to two well-known PNLMS-type algorithms, namely the improved PNLMS (IPNLMS) and the individual-activation-factor PNLMS (IAF-PNLMS). Simulation results are shown confirming the accuracy of the proposed model expressions under different operating conditions.
Characteristics of a sixteen-state turbo-encoder/decoder (turbo4)

This paper presents the characteristics of an integrated circuit called "turbo4" which can be used as a turbo-encoder or as a turbo-decoder. The turbo-encoder is built using a parallel concatenation of two recursive systematic convolutional codes with constraint length K=5. The turbo-decoder is cascadable, each circuit processing one iteration of the turbo-decoding algorithm. It is designed around 2 sixteenmodified Viterbi decoders and 2 matrices of 64 x 32 bits for interleaving and deinterleaving. Some measures for Gaussian and Rayleigh channels and for different coding rates are presented.
Partial reconfiguration on FPGAs in practice — Tools and applications

Run-time reconfiguration of FPGAs has been around in academia for more than two decades but it is still applied very seldom in industrial applications. This has two main reasons: a lack of killer applications that substantially benefit from run-time reconfiguration and design tools that permit to quickly implement corresponding reconfigurable systems. This tutorial gives a survey on state-of-the-art trends on reconfigurable architectures and devices, application specific requirements, and design techniques and tools that are essential for implementing partial run-time reconfiguration on FPGAs. This is followed by a demonstration of the floorplanning and constraint generation tool GoAhead. Furthermore, the tutorial will reveal several applications that benefit from partial reconfiguration, including network data processing, digital signal processing, cognitive radio, and systems on a reconfigurable chip. For these applications, the individual challenges and implementation issues are presented together with the achieved results. This tutorial demonstrates that partial FPGA reconfiguration is beneficial and applicable in industrial systems.
Enabling a Robot to Open Doors

The area of robotic exploration is a field of growing interest and research in the robotics and computer science communities. Ideally, a human would send a robot into an area otherwise too dangerous for the human to enter, such as a smoke-filled building, a structurally-unsound bridge, or a radioactive area. Although robots already exist which can map a building's floor plan, they can only do so provided the doors are all open – a robot that can identify and open doors as it maps a building remains to be developed.
A numerical dressing method for the nonlinear superposition of solutions of the KdV equation

In this paper we present the unification of two existing numerical methods for the construction of solutions of the Korteweg–de Vries (KdV) equation. The first method is used to solve the Cauchy initial-value problem on the line for rapidly decaying initial data. The second method is used to compute finite-genus solutions of the KdV equation. The combination of these numerical methods allows for the computation of exact solutions that are asymptotically (quasi-)periodic finite-gap solutions and are a nonlinear superposition of dispersive, soliton and (quasi-)periodic solutions in the finite (x, t)-plane. Such solutions are referred to as superposition solutions. We compute these solutions accurately for all values of x and t.