Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Time allocation in Poland before and after 1989 – working time perspective

In societies that undergo transformation such as those in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, in the opinion of many, the value of people's time changes. This produces changes in the structure of consumption and the supply of labour. Most probably, at least during the initial years of transition, there is a growing awareness of the time wastage that occurred under the previous system (queuing for basic necessities, plus very limited availability of equipment to facilitate and accelerate household chores). In pre-1989 Poland, where market rules did not apply, three time-use surveys were conducted for the entire adult population of the country (1975–1976; 1982; 1984). Looking at their findings, one must take into account the “exceptional” circumstances in which the population had to function—a shortage of goods and services, regulated prices, and no official unemployment are just some of the features of the socialist system. After the change in the socioeconomic system, in the years 2003–2004, another representative time use survey was conducted. The results showed time allocation under completely different conditions—with distinct cyclical fluctuations in the economy, real wages rising, involuntary unemployment, and the supply of household appliances. The purpose of this article is to compare the differences in time allocation, which result not only from the passage of time. The results from 1984 describe Polish people functioning under conditions created by so-called real socialism. Two decades later, the survey reveals the picture of time use in this society in an economic environment that has been to a large extent liberalized.
Self-Organized Criticality in Ad-Hoc Communication Networks Having Small-World Property

This paper investigates the possible effect of "special nodes" in ad-hoc communication network topology on self-organized criticality. Due to increasing demand for ubiquitous connectivity without fixed infrastructures, recently, some approaches let ad-hoc communication networks having small- world property through the introduction of "special nodes". However, these "special nodes" affect the system robustness in a significant way, and even cause the dynamical systems evolve into a critical state. In this paper, after the analysis of the characters of ad-hoc communication networks when such special nodes are involved, we present a model for self-organized criticality on an ad-hoc network having small-world property. The numerical simulations show that these "special nodes" strongly affect the behavior of avalanche evolving, and cause the situation of cascading failures through the dynamical system. We also propose an optimized approach for reduce the local avalanche size and inhibit the occurrence of local avalanche.
System-level performance analysis in SystemC

As both the ITRS and the Medea+ DA Roadmaps have highlighted, early performance estimation is an essential step in any SoC design methodology based on International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (2001) and The MEDEA+ Design Automation Roadmap (2002). This paper presents a C++ library for timing estimation at system level. The library is based on a general and systematic methodology that takes as input the original SystemC source code without any modification and provides the estimation parameters by simply including the library within a usual simulation. As a consequence, the same models of computation used during system design are preserved and all simulation conditions are maintained. The method exploits the advantages of dynamic analysis, that is, easy management of unpredictable data-dependent conditions and computational efficiency compared with other alternatives (ISS or RT simulation, without the need for SW generation and compilation and HW synthesis). Results obtained on several examples show the accuracy of the method. In addition to the fundamental parameters needed for system-level design exploration, the proposed methodology allows the designer to include capture points at any place in the code. The user can process the corresponding captured events for unrestricted timing constraint verification.
Segmentation and polyp detection in virtual colonoscopy : a complete system for computer aided diagnosis

Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States, and the third cause worldwide. The early detection of polyps is fundamental, allowing to reduce mortality rates up to 90%. Nowadays, optical colonoscopy is the most used detection method due in part to its relative high performance. Virtual Colonoscopy is a promising alternative technique that emerged in the 90’s. It uses volumetric Computed Tomographic data of the cleansed and air-distended colon, and the examination is made by a specialist from the images in a computer. Therefore, this technique is less invasive and less expensive than optical colonoscopy, but up to now the false positive and false negative rates are above the accepted medical limits. Recent advances in imaging techniques have the potential to reduce these rates; consequently, we are currently re-experiencing an increasing interest in Virtual Colonoscopy. In this work we propose a complete pipeline for a Computer-Aided Detection algorithm. The system starts with a novel and simple segmentation step. We then introduce geometrical and textural features that take into account not only the candidate polyp region, but the surrounding area at multiple scales as well. This way, our proposed CAD algorithm is able to accurately detect candidate polyps by measuring local variations of these features. Candidate patches are then classified using SVM. The whole algorithm is completely automatic and produces state-of-the-art results, achieving 100% sensitivity for polyps greater than 6mm in size with less than one false positive per case, and 100% sensitivity for polyps greater than 3mm in size with 2.2 false positives per case.
Past and future goals of Computational Linguistics

1. Basics: Computational Linguistics (CL) between research and technology 2. Application field 2.1 The paradigm of Machine Translation (MT) and the desire for overcoming the language barriers 2.1. 1 The technological situation 2.1. 2 Short overview of the history of machine translation 2.1. 3 Goals for research in MT 2.2 The paradigm of Natural Language Understanding 2.3 Mainstream Topics of Computational Linguistics 2.3.1 The pradigm of morphological and syntactical analysis 2.3.2 The semantic turn: lexical knowldge and world knowledge 3. The Future of CL 3.1 Technological conditions of CL-Research in the age of multimedia 3.2 New application fields and visions 3.3 About statistics 3.4 Future research fields of Computational Linguistics 3.4. 1 Discours studies 3.4. 2 Advanced discours theories 3.4. 3 Multimodal resources 3.5 Conclusions 4. Appendix: links and literature
Enhancing DNS security using the SSL trust infrastructure

The main functionality of the domain name system (DNS) is to translate symbolic names into IP addresses. Due to the criticality of DNS for the proper functioning of the Internet, many improvements have been proposed for DNS in terms of security and dependability. However, the current secure DNS (DNSSEC) standard has still several problems that need further consideration. For example, online updates and denial of service attacks are not sufficiently addressed. These problems are serious obstacles that might prevent DNSSEC from replacing the traditional DNS. In this paper we discuss several of these technical and economic problems. To address these issues, we propose a simple extension to the existing DNS. It is SSL based and individual domains can decide independently of each other if and when to adopt the extensions. We show how to implement these extensions with the help of a simple proxy DNS server.
Exact Utilities under Alternative Monetary Rules in a Simple Macro Model with Optimizing Agents

We construct an optimizing-agent model of a closed economy which is simple enough that we can use it to make exact utility calculations. There is a stabilization problem because there are one-period nominal contracts for wages, or prices, or both and shocks that are unknown at the time when contracts are signed. We evaluate alternative monetary policy rules using the utility function of the representative agent. Fully optimal policy can attain the Pareto-optimal equilibrium. Fully optimal policy is contrasted with both 'naive' and 'sophisticated' simple rules that involve, respectively, complete stabilization and optimal stabilization of one variable or a combination two variables. With wage contracts, outcomes depend crucially on whether there are also price contracts. For example, if labor supply is relatively inelastic, for productivity shocks, nominal income stabilization yields higher welfare when there are no price contracts. However, with price contracts, outcomes are independent of whether there are wage contracts, except, of course, for the nominal wage.
An unexpected specialization for horizontal disparity in primate primary visual cortex

A. Fluorescent-oligonucleotide probing of whole cells for determinative, phylogenetic, and environmental studies in microbiology. Bacterial diversity in an arctic lake: a freshwater SAR11 cluster. Relative value of ten genera of microorganisms as food for oyster and clam larvae. Dual staining of natural bacterioplankton with 4 0 ,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole and fluorescent oligonucleotide probes targeting kingdom-level 16S rRNA sequences. Tangential flow filtration and preliminary phylogenetic analysis of marine picoplankton.
Software Tools for Research and Education

We present a comparison of software tools for microwave circuit simulation from the research and educational view point. We highlight salient features of the tools and their relevance and suitability for research tasks and undergraduate teaching process. The accompanying 3D EM simulation functionality, provided by the tools, is considered as the mean for better understanding circuit models and their limitations as taught in microwave engineering curricula or used in research and development process.
Optical observations of GRB afterglows: GRB 970508 and GRB 980326 revisited

Since January 1997, we have monitored 15 GRB fields, detecting 6 optical/IR afterglows. We have revisited GRB 970508 and GRB 980326. For GRB 970508, we derive a power-law decay exponent (R -band). The luminosity of the host galaxy L relative to the characteristic luminosity is in the range 0.06-0.15, i.e. a dwarf galaxy. For GRB 980326, we derive a power-law decay exponent , taking into account the new upper limit for the host as provided by Bloom & Kulkarni (1998). This implies one of the fastest GRB optical decays ever measured. The fact that only about 50% of optical transients have been found within the γ /X-ray error boxes, suggest that either considerable intrinsic absorption is present or that some optical transients display a very fast decline. We also propose that the "secondary maximum" detected on 17 Apr. 1998 could be explained in the context of the "SN-like" light curves 2-3 weeks after the GRB, as recently suggested by Woosley (1999).
Multiple time resolution analysis of speech signal using MCE training with application to speech recognition

In this paper, we propose two methods of multiple time-resolution analysis of speech and their application to Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR). Constant frame-rate multi-scale analysis is proposed based on a box of multi-scale features. Then a variable rate analysis is proposed based on the selection of the optimal temporal resolution on the fly by a properly trained non-linear classifier unit. The classifier's parameters are trained using the discriminative method of Minimum Classification Error (MCE) training. We use the recently proposed Conditional Random Fields (CRF) phonetic recognition system that effectively combines highly correlated features. Results are reported on a frame-wise classification task and also on TIMIT phone recognition task. Results show that (i) CRFs can effectively combine multi-scale features and (ii) MCE trained variable rate CRFs are competitive with the “box” combination method.
Exploring User Requirements for a Lower Body Soft Exoskeleton to Assist Mobility

The XoSoft (www.xosoft.eu) project -- funded under the European Union's Horizon 2020 framework programme -- aims to develop a lower body soft exoskeleton to assist adults with mobility impairments. The XoSoft concept is being developed via an iterative user centered design process, with user requirements driving technical innovations. This paper describes a semi-structured interview study undertaken in the initial stages of the project to determine Primary User (PU) and Secondary User (SU) requirements in relation to the function and design of the XoSoft concept. Fifteen PUs and 26 SUs were interviewed to explore their needs for mobility assistance, their experiences and requirements of mobility-related assistive devices, and their opinions on an initial portrayal of the XoSoft concept. Users provided valuable insights into their requirements in the following domains: desired functions and benefits of a device, practicability, training and support, design and aesthetics, and costs. Opinions of PUs and SUs of the XoSoft concept were largely positive, and a number of valuable design considerations were highlighted. The findings of this study will inform the design brief and technical specifications for XoSoft, and will assist the development of an alpha-prototype of the concept. Our results will also contribute to the evidence base available to all involved in the research and development of assistive devices for mobility, by giving voice to users and describing their needs/ wants in relation to such devices.
Universality and Scaling of Zeros on Symplectic Manifolds

This article is concerned with random holomorphic polynomials and their generalizations to algebraic and symplectic geometry. A natural algebro-geometric generalization studied in our prior work involves random holomorphic sections $H^0(M,L^N)$ of the powers of any positive line bundle $L \to M$ over any complex manifold. Our main interest is in the statistics of zeros of $k$ independent sections (generalized polynomials) of degree $N$ as $N\to\infty$. We fix a point $P$ and focus on the ball of radius $1/\sqrt{N}$ about $P$. Under a microscope magnifying the ball by the factor $\sqrt{N}$, the statistics of the configurations of simultaneous zeros of random $k$-tuples of sections tends to a universal limit independent of $P,M,L$. We review this result and generalize it further to the case of pre-quantum line bundles over almost-complex symplectic manifolds $(M,J,\omega)$. Following [SZ2], we replace $H^0(M,L^N)$ in the complex case with the `asymptotically holomorphic' sections defined by Boutet de Monvel-Guillemin and (from another point of view) by Donaldson and Auroux. Using a generalization to an $m$-dimensional setting of the Kac-Rice formula for zero correlations together with the results of [SZ2], we prove that the scaling limits of the correlation functions for zeros of random $k$-tuples of asymptotically holomorphic sections belong to the same universality class as in the complex case.
A New Bi-Directional Soft Decision Linear Equalizer

A novel low complexity soft-input soft-output equalizer is proposed for reducing the eects of intersymbol interference channels. The equalizer uses a bi-directional multipass algorithm to successively improve a soft interference can- celer/adaptive linear lter combination. The re- sulting transmitted symbol estimates are calcu- lated with computational complexity of cubic or- der in channel memory length. Traditional turbo equalization is a joint equalizer/decoder scheme which relies on estimates from the decoder to im- prove equalizer performance. In contrast, the results presented here show the equalizer can achieve performance gains without the presence, or use of coding/decoding. We show signican t improvement is achieved with each pass and the equalizer has near identical performance to the optimal symbol-by-symbol maximum a posteriori detector. Furthermore, we present an even lower complexity version of this scheme that oers sim- ilar performance with complexity of linear order in channel memory length.
Time varying Formation Control Using Differential Game Approach

Abstract This paper deals with time varying formation control of mobile robots i.e. the formation can change during the mission. To achieve this goal differential game approach is proposed to control the formation. A time varying incidence matrix is defined to determine the interconnection between robots. An open loop Nash equilibrium solution is employed to satisfy the defined cost function for each robot (the players in differential game) and control the formation. The convergence of the proposed approach to the desired formation is studied. By minor modifications, the introduced approach can be applied for a wide range of fully decentralized to leader follower formation. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by simulations.
No peeking: privacy-preserving demand response system in smart grids

Demand response (DR) programs are widely used to balance the supply and demand of electricity in a smart grid. This results in a reliable electric power system. Unfortunately, privacy violation becomes a pressing challenge that drastically affects the DR programs. Power usage and operational data can be abused to infer personal information of customers. Without a well-designed privacy preservation mechanism, adversaries can capture, model and divulge customers' behaviour and activities. In this paper, we first investigate the natures of privacy leakages and explore potential privacy threat models. After that, we design and implement a new protocol named privacy-preserving demand response based on the attributed-based encryption, and formally prove its validity. To demonstrate its viability, the protocol is adopted in several types of DR programs on an emulated smart grid platform. Experimental results show substantially lighter overheads while formidable privacy challenges are addressed.
Employing Multiple CUDA Devices to Accelerate LTL Model Checking

Recently, the CUDA technology has been used to accelerate many computation demanding tasks. For example, in our previous work we have shown how CUDA technology can be employed to accelerate the process of Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) Model Checking. While the raw computing power of a CUDA enabled device is tremendous, the applicability of the technology is quite often limited to small or middle-sized instances of the problems being solved. This is because the memory that a single device is equipped with, is simply not large enough to cope with large or realistic instances of the problem, which is also the case of our CUDA-aware LTL Model Checking solution. In this paper we suggest how to overcome this limitations by employing multiple (two in our case) CUDA devices for acceleration of our fine-grained communication-intensive parallel algorithm for LTL Model Checking.
The Design and Implementation of a NoC System Based on SoCKit

With the further increase in integration density, the network-based highly parallel System on Chip (SoC) has evolved as a promising on-chip interconnect for future Chip Multi-Processors (CMPs). The high performance SOC platform is quite serviceable for MPSoC research. In this paper, we built a typical NoC (Network on-chip) system on SoCKit, and designed the hardware and software of the system which based on the previous theory research on NoC including fault tolerant topology, adaptive routing algorithm, task scheduling and mapping. The system function is verified by running a halftone algorithm.
Birth dimensions, parental mortality, and mortality in early adult age: a cohort study of Danish men born in 1953.

BACKGROUND Birthweight has, in several studies, been associated with mortality in adult age, even after adjustment for available socioeconomic factors. This association has been explained as a biological result of fetal undernutrition (fetal programming), by genetic predisposition, as a result of confounding by factors related to social position and lifestyle, or by a combination of these mechanisms. This study examines the relationship between birth dimensions and all-cause and cause-specific mortality in early adulthood, taking parental lifespan and social position at time of birth into account. Furthermore, the relationship between offspring birth dimensions and parental mortality is addressed. METHODS In all 10 753 male singletons born in the metropolitan area of Copenhagen, Denmark in 1953 whose birth certificates had been traced manually in 1965 were followed from 1968 to 2002 for information on parents' and own vital status by linkage with the Civil Registration System. Causes of death for the cohort members were identified by record linkage with the Cause-of-Death Registry. Hazard ratios and 95% CI were calculated using Cox regression models. RESULTS Low birthweight and especially short birth length were strongly associated with adult mortality risk, but no relationship between low ponderal index at birth and mortality was found. The relationship between birth size and early adult mortality was only slightly attenuated after adjustment for early-life social position and/or maternal and paternal lifespan. The associations between birthweight/birth length and mortality were stronger for the age group 35-49 years compared with the age group 15-34 years. Cause-specific mortality was inversely related to small birth dimensions for all causes of death, but strongest and graded for death from liver cirrhosis. Offspring birth dimensions showed an inverse association with parental mortality, which was most pronounced for maternal mortality. CONCLUSIONS The strong inverse association between birth dimensions and adult mortality, but lack of association between ponderal index and mortality, indicates that more complicated mechanisms than a general long-term detrimental effect of intrauterine growth retardation explain the association between birth size and adult mortality. The heterogeneous associations between birth dimensions and mortality in young and later adulthood, the minor differences in relative risk of cause-specific mortality, and the heterogeneity in the association between birth dimensions and maternal and paternal mortality, respectively, indicate that several mechanisms (factors related to social position, common genetic factors, and specific organ programming) may account for the relation between birth measures and later mortality.