Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A scheduling algorithm for Bag-of-Tasks applications on Data Grids

In order to resolve resource scheduling problem in Data Grids to handle dynamic changes in the availability of manufacturing resource and user requirement, and to provide scalable, controllable, measurable, and easily enforceable policies for the management of manufacturing resources, we propose a Bag-of-Tasks based scheduling system. The model is then applied to present an algorithm for scheduling a Bag-of-Tasks (BOT) application on a set of geographically distributed, heterogeneous compute and data resources. Each of tasks within the application depends on multiple datasets that may be distributed anywhere within the Grid. This paper defines the problem of scheduling distributed data-intensive application on to Gird resource and presents a formal resource and application model for the problem.
Feedback Design in Augmented Musical Instruments: A Case Study with an AR Drum Kit

In this paper, we introduce the AR (augmented reality) drum kit that supports a self-training process with visual guidance and feedback. While musical instruments play requires repetitive practice, the learner often easily loses interest and gives up making effort on learning. Therefore, our system was designed to keep intrinsic motivation by offering playful features, such as a game-like user interface and a variety of tasks with different difficulty levels. Moreover, as a drum kit offers distributed interaction points (i.e., drum pads), visual guidance information needs to consider that the player's attention would be fragmented during a performance. Available cognitive resources are limited for each task in such a multitasking environment, thus the information should be simple and lightweight in order not to require explicit attention. We developed several presentation styles, such as direct projection to drum pads and ambient projection on the wall, to evaluate the usability of the system. We also report preliminary user study results to identify further design issues for the future work.
Nozzle and Working-Condition Classifications for Water Jet Systems

In this paper, a technique for assessing both the working and healthy conditions of water jet-system nozzles is presented. The proposed classifier is based on the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of the instantaneous electrical power signal. With this in mind, it will be shown that the electrical power signal supports all necessary information to characterize both the working condition of the system and the nozzle type. Furthermore, the same signal can be analyzed with the aim of predicting the presence of an incoming faulty behavior. The presented technique is also used to build a second type of classifier. While the first one is of general application, the second one can be used when the properties of the orifice are known, and only the working conditions have to be classified. Results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach, which, due to its simplicity, can be embedded in a low-cost real-time diagnostic system. For the sake of clarity, a brief description of a water jet system is also presented.
The impacts of health sector reform on the efficiency and productivity of public and private hospitals in Turkey

The period of 1980s, can be characterized as a new era in the world economic and political system due to the strengthening of the neoliberal ideas which support liberalization, deregulation, privatization and outsourcing of the public services. Hence, most of the welfare states began to implement various reform policies that are in line with neoliberal ideas in order to restructure their public service sector. Starting with the 1990s, as a response to neoliberalism, Turkey began to experience a period of reform process in its public service sector. With the elections of November 2002, the newly elected government has come up with a series of reform packages that also cover the health system of Turkey. In December 2003, Turkish government declared a reform program on health called “Transformation in Health”. The main objectives of reform are restructuring of the Ministry of Health (MoH), improving efficiency, increasing coverage of social security system and quality of services provided, ensuring equity, setting up a “single framework” to standardize different practices in health, and establishing accessible and financially sustainable social security system. In January 2005, all social security institutions in Turkey; namely, Social Security Association (SSK-Sosyal Sigortalar Kurumu), Pension Fund for Civil Servants (ESEmekli Sandığı) and Social Insurance Agency of Merchants, Artisans and the Self-employed (BK-Bağ-Kur) are gathered under one roof under the supremacy of MoH in order to terminate this four-partite structure of the social security system and to unify the system. On this basis, the study presents an empirical analysis of the relative efficiency and productivity of Turkish private and public hospitals-including university research hospitalsbefore and after the reform takes place by using a national data set obtained from the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Health. The methods used to assess relative efficiency are Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) which is a non-parametric technique, and bootstrap DEA and the tools used to measure productivity are Malmquist productivity index and bootstrap Malmquist index. The study contributes to the DEA literature by employing a distinguished procedure called bootstrapping that permits to estimate bias corrected efficiency scores and productivity indices. Since bootstrap is seen as the only way of assessing statistical properties (i.e. bias, variance, confidence interval) of the efficiency estimators that comes from some data generating process, it allows us to do statistical inferences based on those DEA-estimators, as opposed to the econometric approaches which argue that DEA techniques are non-statistical and that statistical noise caused by DEA-estimators may introduce bias. By using this differentiated method, this paper examines the impacts of health care reform on relative performances of public and private hospitals in Turkey.
Stabilization of Systems Over Bit-Rate-Constrained Networked Control Architectures

We consider the problem of control of open-loop unstable systems over a networked control architecture. We focus on the case where the system state is measured and where control commands are transmitted over a fixed bit-rate channel. We describe a novel nonlinear decoder model predictive controller which utilizes 1 bit per sample. The required bit rate can then be adjusted by varying the number of samples per unit time. We establish practical stability for the algorithm. We also compare the minimum fixed bit rate required by our algorithm with known results on the minimum bit rate necessary to achieve stability.
On the Full-Rate Linear Complexity 2×2 Space-Time Block Code: Application in Keyhole Channels

In this paper, a new full rate, full diversity 22 STBC with linear complexity in the receiver is introduced for keyhole channels, where the rank-deficiency of the channel matrix degrades system performance. This code is optimized based on the known criteria for these types of the channels. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed code outperforms some of the well-recognized STBCs when BPSK and 4-QAM constellation are utilized.
MODIFIED DYNAMIC ONLINE ROUTING ALGORITHM AND REGENERATOR PLACEMENT IN WDM NETWORKS

Dynamic Online Routing Algorithm (DORA) has been already proposed for conventional networks to distribute load evenly across the network. However, the exponential growth of the internet has placed heavy burdens on network management and control application when the existing protocols are used. Adding more resources to the network may temporarily remove congestion conditions. However, it is not a cost-effective solution in solving resource contention problems in the long run. The network providers are facing problems in setting up on-demand network tunnels in backbone or transport networks. The MDORA proposed in this work is useful to decide the optimum number of regenerators to be placed on each node. Placement of regenerator in all the nodes is not cost effective and hence in this work, techniques have been proposed to place the regenerators only in selected nodes. Node selection for regenerator placement is performed using fuzzy logic.
Democracy and ethnic diversity in Nigeria

This book describes Nigeria's past and present political, social, and economic history as it relates to tribalism, colonialism, lack of political leadership and other dysfunctional behavior in society preventing Nigeria's democracy. It presents vital proposals for future Nigerian democracy and economic prosperity. The book advocates a two-party federalism, tribal nationalism and economic prosperity based on a participatory instead of rotational presidency. The study recommends an economic diversification in Nigeria's revenue sharing, tax systems, domestic economy and agriculture instead of the dependence on oil revenues. Lastly, the book defines the role of the military in the future of Nigeria's democracy.
Synaptic connection from cortical area V4 to V2 in macaque monkey

The major target of the V4 projection in V2 is layer 1, where it forms a tangential spread of asymmetric (excitatory) synapses. This is characteristic of a “feedback” projection. Some axons formed discrete clusters of bouton terminaux between lengths of myelinated axon, while others were unbranched and formed a continuous distribution of en passant boutons with no intercalated myelin. Minor projections were found in layers 2/3 and 6. Dendritic spines were the most frequently encountered targets of the V4 projection (80% in layer 1 and layer 2/3, 94% in layer 6). The remaining targets were dendritic shafts. In layer 1, 69% of target dendrites (12% of all targets) had characteristics identifying them as smooth (GABAergic) cells. In layer 2/3 and layer 6 virtually all the shaft synapses were on smooth dendrites (86% and 100%, respectively). Multisynaptic boutons were rare (mean 1.1 synapses per bouton). Synapses formed in layer 6 were smaller than those of layer 1 (mean area 0.073 μm2 vs. 0.117 μm2). Synapses formed with spines had a more complex postsynaptic density than those formed with dendritic shafts. With respect to targets and synaptic type and size and morphology of synapses, the feedback projection from V4 to V2 resembles those of feedforward projections. The principal difference between the feedforward and feedback projection is in the lamina location of their terminal boutons. The concentration of the V4 projection on layer 1, where it forms asymmetric synapses mainly with spines, suggests that it excites the distal apical dendrites of pyramidal cells. J. Comp. Neurol. 495:709–721, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Development of New Drug Treatments for Functional Recovery After Neurological Damage Based Upon a Novel Hypothesis Driven-Technological Platform

The global pharmaceutical industry is facing unprecedented challenges that are increasingly influenced by financial, political, demographical and ecological issues. As shown by the significant reduction of new drug applications or NDAs (U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved new molecular entities) in recent years, the industry is profoundly affected by the increasing cost of development of new drugs, the large number of existing drugs that have begun to go off patent (reduced revenues), increasingly stringent regulations and corresponding increased development time. As a response, we have created a technological platform aimed at accelerating the development of new drug treatments for central nervous system indications. It allows a rapid identification of leads and drug candidates suitable for clinical development based upon a novel in vivo drug screening and hypothesis-driven approach that reduces the time of drug discovery and development. Furthermore, the platform is adapted to specifically identify synergistic (or new) effects induced by combination products with known molecular entities rather than with new molecular entities which reduces risks and costs of development. In less than five years, we have identified with minimal investment, two (2) combination product candidates for functional recovery after spinal cord injury that are suitable for preclinical and clinical development. These results provide evidence suggesting that it is feasible with alternative approaches and small research facilities to efficiently identify leads and drug candidates and, thus, to provide the industry with new drug treatments suitable for clinical development.
Towards a sociological understanding of the relationship between job satisfaction and whistleblowing

Whistleblowing can be defined as the disclosure by organisation members (former or current) of illegal, immoral or illegitimate practices under the control of their employers, to persons or organisations that may be able to effect action. There are various factors that influence the extent to which people would be prepared to blow the whistle. One of these factors is job satisfaction. The extent to which people are satisfied in their jobs influences the extent to which the whistle will be blown. However, the relationship between whistleblowing and job satisfaction has not been studied in great detail and not at all in a South African context. The nature of this relationship was explored among academic staff at a South African university by means of a quantitative study. It was decided to conduct the study at the Auckland Park Kingsway Campus (APK) of the University of Johannesburg (UJ) due to the degree of transformation that has taken place at this institution in recent years and thus being relevant regarding the issue of job satisfaction. The study involved investigating the circumstances under which academic staff would be prepared to blow the whistle, how far they would be prepared to go in terms of making use of various channels to report wrongdoing, the level of job satisfaction, as well as the relationship between job satisfaction and the responses of academic staff members to whistleblowing. Examination of the findings revealed that overall the academic staff of the University of Johannesburg are satisfied in their jobs and this correlated, to a small degree, with the furthest reporting of offences that are minor in nature. Overall, academic staff were more inclined to report wrongdoing internally. Academic staff who had been employed at the university for more than ten years as well as those who had no financial dependants were slightly more inclined to report wrongdoing than those who had been employed for a shorter period of time and had financial dependants.
P2P-Based VOD Content Distribution Platform with Guaranteed Video Quality

In this paper, we propose a P2P-based content distribution mechanism for video-on-demand service in IPTV. Different from traditional P2P-based content distribution mechanisms our solution mainly focuses on how telecom operators utilize P2P' technology to construct/enhance their own content delivery network for IPTV. The proposed mechanism takes into account the influence on the design of P2P mechanism by the unique properties of the IPTV scenario, and tries to enhance the P2P-based service by utilizing the support of network QoS and server resources. Simulation results show that our solution can achieve good scalability while providing guaranteed video quality.
Impact of Depolarization Effects on MIMO Polarized Wireless Configuration

On wireless communication systems, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems have dramatically the potential to improve the reliability and the performance. However, the MIMO wireless channel performance is generally affected by the antenna array configuration and environment characteristic. This paper highlights the impact of angle spread and depolarization effects on the MIMO channel capacity with a focus on 4times4 uniform linear multi-polarized antenna array. We employ a geometric scattering model based on a three-dimensional double bouncing model that takes into account the antenna configurations. We investigate the use of multi-polarization configurations that can provide capacity improvement over conventional single-polarization configurations. The single-polarization configuration is dependent on the depolarization phenomena. It is found that when low depolarization and spatial correlation effects, the capacity of single-polarization configuration behaves better than that of multi-polarization configuration.
Reliability-based high-efficient dynamic schedules for belief propagation decoding of LDPC codes

Four reliability-based high-efficient dynamic schedules (RHDS) for belief propagation (BP) decoding of low-density parity-check codes are proposed. The RHDS only processes one variable (or check) node, which has the maximum relative residual among all the variable (or check) nodes in each decoding iteration, thus keeping less greediness and decreasing complexity in comparison with egde-wise variable-to-check residual belief propagation (VC-RBP) algorithm. Simulation results show that RHDS's convergence rate is higher than VC-RBP while still keeping very low computational complexity.
State-Dependent Pricing and the Dynamics of Money and Output

Standard macroeconomic models of price stickiness assume that each firm leaves its price unchanged for a fixed amount of time. We present an alternative model in which the pricing decision depends on the state of the economy. We find a method of aggregating individual price changes that allows a simple characterization of macroeconomic variables. The model produces a positive money-output correlation and an empirical Phillips curve. In addition, the impact of monetary shocks depends crucially on the current level of output, which points to a natural connection between state-dependent microeconomics and state-dependent macroeconomics.
Hybrid HMM/BN LVCSR system integrating multiple acoustic features

In current HMM based speech recognition systems, it is difficult to supplement acoustic spectrum features with additional information such as pitch, gender, articulator positions, etc. On the other hand, dynamic Bayesian networks (DBN) allow for easy combination of different features and make use of conditional dependencies between them. However, lack of efficient algorithms has prevented their application in large vocabulary continuous speech recognition. The hybrid HMM/BN acoustic model, where HMM are used for modeling of temporal speech characteristics and state probability model is represented by BN, provides a trade off solution to the problem. In this paper we describe the HMM/BN acoustic model and LVCSR system built upon this model. In the HMM/BN model, in addition to speech observation variable, state BN has two more discrete variables representing speaker gender and pitch frequency. Evaluation results on WSJ database showed lower word error rate with respect to the same complexity conventional HMM acoustic model when there is enough training data to estimate reliable HMM/BN parameters.
Heat shock-induced thermoprotection of action potentials in the locust flight system.

There is increasing evidence that heat shock (HS) has long-term effects on electrophysiological properties of neurons and synapses. Prior HS protects neural circuitry from a subsequent heat stress but little is known about the mechanisms that mediate this plasticity and induce thermotolerance. Exposure of Locusta migratoria to HS conditions of 45 degrees C for 3 h results in thermotolerance to hitherto lethal temperatures. Locust flight motor patterns were recorded during tethered flight at room temperature, before and after HS. In addition, intracellular action potentials (APs) were recorded from control and HS motoneurons in a semi-intact preparation during a heat stress. HS did not alter the timing of representative depressor or elevator muscle activity, nor did it affect the ability of the locust to generate a steering motor pattern in response to a stimulus. However, HS did increase the duration of APs recorded from neuropil segments of depressor motoneurons. Increases in AP duration were associated with protection of AP generation against failure at subsequent elevated temperatures. Failure of AP generation at high temperatures was preceded by a concomitant burst of APs and depolarization of the membrane. The protective effects of HS were mimicked by pharmacological blockade of I(K+) with tetraethylammonium (TEA). Taken together, these findings are consistent with a hypothesis that HS protects neuronal survival and function via K+ channel modulation.
On equilibrium probabilities in a class of two station closed queueing networks

Due to the finite state space of closed exponential queueing networks, one can obtain the equilibrium probability distribution by directly solving the global balance equations. However, as the number of trapped customers increases, the state space grows and it becomes practically impossible to obtain a solution. Alternatives include performance bounds, approximations and simulations, however these do not completely characterize the steady state behavior. By focusing our attention on a class of two station closed reentrant queueing networks, we obtain closed form expressions for the equilibrium probability distribution that are computationally independent of the number of trapped customers. The computational complexity depends only on the network structure. By considering the last buffer first served (LBFS) policy, we can reduce the state space to a three dimension rectangle whose height increases with the number of trapped customers. By recognizing a sense of causality in the balance equations, we are able to employ z-transform techniques to obtain an explicit solution for the equilibrium probabilities. Several examples, including the closed Lu-Kumar network under LBFS are studied to demonstrate the approach. The networks identified represent the only class of non-product form queueing networks which, to our knowledge, possess an explicit equilibrium probability distribution.
Novel Metal Nanomaterials and Their Catalytic Applications

In the rapidly developing areas of nanotechnology, nano-scale materials as heterogeneous catalysts in the synthesis of organic molecules have gotten more and more attention. In this review, we will summarize the synthesis of several new types of noble metal nanostructures (FePt@Cu nanowires, Pt@Fe2O3 nanowires and bimetallic Pt@Ir nanocomplexes; Pt-Au heterostructures, Au-Pt bimetallic nanocomplexes and Pt/Pd bimetallic nanodendrites; Au nanowires, CuO@Ag nanowires and a series of Pd nanocatalysts) and their new catalytic applications in our group, to establish heterogeneous catalytic system in “green” environments. Further study shows that these materials have a higher catalytic activity and selectivity than previously reported nanocrystal catalysts in organic reactions, or show a superior electro-catalytic activity for the oxidation of methanol. The whole process might have a great impact to resolve the energy crisis and the environmental crisis that were caused by traditional chemical engineering. Furthermore, we hope that this article will provide a reference point for the noble metal nanomaterials’ development that leads to new opportunities in nanocatalysis.