Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The 1st World Conference on Intellectual Capital for Communities in the Knowledge Economy

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to discuss issues raised at The 1st World Conference on Intellectual Capital for Communities in the Knowledge Economy: Nations, Regions and Cities, which took place in Paris, June 20, 2005.Design/methodology/approach – The conference was structured into four sessions: intellectual capital and the knowledge economy; intellectual capital for nations; intellectual capital for regions; and looking at the future.Findings – Finds that there is a gap that must be addressed. There are very few actual case studies that articulate how a knowledge economy is nurtured and operates on a regional and local basis.Originality/value – This article is based on the first conference, which was a remarkable convocation and springboard event and will be of interest to those in the field of intellectual capital.
Proteomic Profile of Brucella abortus-Infected Bovine Chorioallantoic Membrane Explants

Brucella abortus is the etiological agent of bovine brucellosis, a zoonotic disease that causes significant economic losses worldwide. The differential proteomic profile of bovine chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) explants at early stages of infection with B. abortus (0.5, 2, 4, and 8 h) was determined. Analysis of CAM explants at 0.5 and 4 h showed the highest differences between uninfected and infected CAM explants, and therefore were used for the Differential Gel Electrophoresis (DIGE). A total of 103 spots were present in only one experimental group and were selected for identification by mass spectrometry (MALDI/ToF-ToF). Proteins only identified in extracts of CAM explants infected with B. abortus were related to recognition of PAMPs by TLR, production of reactive oxygen species, intracellular trafficking, and inflammation.
A Policymakers' Guide to Dutch Disease

It is sometimes claimed that an increase in aid might cause Dutch Disease—that is, an appreciation of the real exchange rate which can slow the growth of a country’s exports— and that aid increases might thereby harm a country’s long-term growth prospects. This essay argues that it is unlikely that a long-term, sustained and predictable increase in aid would, through the impact on the real exchange rate, do more harm than good, for three reasons. First, there is not necessarily an adverse impact on exports from Dutch Disease, and any impact on economic growth may be small. Second, aid spent in part on improving the supply side—investments in infrastructure, education, government institutions and health—result in productivity benefits for the whole economy, which can offset any loss of competitiveness from the Dutch Disease effect. Third, the welfare of a nation’s citizens depends on their consumption and investment, not just output. Even on pessimistic assumptions, the additional consumption and investment which the aid finances is larger than any likely adverse impact on output. However, the macroeconomic effects of aid can cause substantial harm if the aid is not sustained until its benefits are realized. The costs of a temporary loss of competitiveness might well exceed the benefits of the short-term increase in aid. To avoid doing harm, aid should be sustained and predictable, and used in part to promote economic growth. This maximizes the chances that the long-term productivity and growth benefits will offset the adverse effects—which may be small if they exist at all—that big aid surges may pose as a result of Dutch Disease.
Linear scalar quantization of wavelet image decomposition using joint optimization

This paper proposes a new linear scalar quantization algorithm. A modified Lloyd's optimum algorithm, based on a linear quantization, is proposed to decompose a memory-less source into the bits. This is the case of the considered source which is the output of the wavelet transformation. The developed algorithm gives acceptable results for generalized Gaussian sources. Our approach is compared with the Lloyd max one's and a second one where the quantization intervals are equiprobable.
Drugs with anticholinergic properties, cognitive decline, and dementia in an elderly general population: the 3-city study.

BACKGROUND Despite the high intake of medications with anticholinergic properties by community-dwelling elderly persons, the effects on cognitive decline and dementia have rarely been evaluated. METHODS Participants were 4128 women and 2784 men 65 years or older from a population-based cohort recruited from 3 French cities. Cognitive performance, clinical diagnosis of dementia, and anticholinergic use were evaluated at baseline and 2 and 4 years later. RESULTS A total of 7.5% of the participants reported anticholinergic drug use at baseline. Multivariate-adjusted logistic regression indicated that women reporting use of anticholinergic drugs at baseline showed greater decline over 4 years in verbal fluency scores (odds ratio [OR], 1.41; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.11-1.79) and in global cognitive functioning (OR, 1.22; 95% CI, 0.96-1.55) than women not using anticholinergic drugs. In men, an association was found with decline in visual memory (OR, 1.63; 95% CI, 1.08-2.47) and to a lesser extent in executive function (OR, 1.47; 95% CI, 0.89-2.44). Notable interactions were observed in women between anticholinergic use and age, apolipoprotein E, or hormone therapy. A 1.4- to 2-fold higher risk of cognitive decline was observed for those who continuously used anticholinergic drugs but not for those who had discontinued use. The risk of incident dementia over the 4-year follow-up period was also increased in continuous users (hazard ratio [HR], 1.65; 95% CI, 1.00-2.73) but not in those who discontinued the use of anticholinergic drugs (HR, 1.28; 95% CI, 0.59-2.76). CONCLUSIONS Elderly people taking anticholinergic drugs were at increased risk for cognitive decline and dementia. Discontinuing anticholinergic treatment was associated with a decreased risk. Physicians should carefully consider prescription of anticholinergic drugs in elderly people, especially in the very elderly and in persons at high genetic risk for cognitive disorder.
Source Authentication Techniques for Network-on-Chip Router Configuration Packets

It is known that maliciously configured Network-on-Chip routers can enable an attacker to launch different attacks inside a Multiprocessor System-on-Chip. A source authentication mechanism for router configuration packets can prevent such vulnerability. This ensures that a router is configured by the configuration packets sent only by a trusted configuration source. Conventional method like Secure Hash Algorithm-3 (SHA-3) can provide required source authentication in a router but with a router area overhead of 1355.25% compared to a normal router area. We propose eight source authentication mechanisms that can achieve similar level of security as SHA-3 for a router configuration perspective without causing significant area and power increase. Moreover, the processing time of our proposed techniques is 1/100th of SHA-3 implementation. Most of our proposed techniques use different timing channel watermarking methods to transfer source authentication data to the receiver router. We also propose the Individual packet-based stream authentication technique and combinations of this technique with timing channel watermarking techniques. It is shown that, among all of our proposed techniques, maximum router area increment required is 28.32% compared to a normal router.
Watermarking Generative Information Systems for Duplicate Traceability

This document outlines a watermarking scheme applicable to generative information systems in general, and dynamic web- page content delivered by a HTTP server in particular. The approach focuses on tracability of potential duplicates of previously served informational content. The suggested procedures are non-intrusive, resilient, blind, robust, reversible and suitable for large amounts of textual content. In order to do so, non- or semi-printable characters ar e inserted at syntactically and semantically valid places within the payload data.
Spectral Stability of Finite Depth Water Waves

In this contribution we study the spectral stability problem for periodic traveling gravity waves on a two–dimensional fluid of finite depth. We use a perturbative approach which computes the spectrum of the linearized water wave operator as an analytic function of the wave amplitude/slope. We extend the stable and highly accurate method of Transformed Field Expansions to the finite depth case in the presence of both simple and repeated eigenvalues, then numerically simulate the evolution of the spectrum as the wave amplitude is increased. We also calculate explicitly the first non–zero correction to the flat–water spectrum, which we observe to accurately predict the stability (or instability) for all amplitudes within the disc of analyticity of the spectrum. With this observation in mind, the disc of analyticity of the flat state spectrum is numerically estimated as a function of the depth and the Bloch parameter, and compared to the value of the wave slope at the first finite amplitude eigenvalue collision. We observe an instability which is analytically connected to the flat state for depths in H ∈ (0.855, 1).
An Adaptive Rule-Based Intrusion Alert Correlation Detection Method

Intrusion detection system (IDS) is a security layer that is used to discover ongoing intrusive attacks and anomaly activities in information systems and is usually working in a dynamically changing environment. Although increasing IDSs are developed in the literature, network security administrators are faced with the task of analyzing enormous alerts produced from the analysis of different event streams. The intrusion detection model needs to be continuously tuned in order to reduce correlative alerts and help the administrator to determine accurate and critical attacks. In this work, an alert correlation detection module is proposed to analyze the alerts produced by IDSs and provides a more succinct and overall view of intrusions. An automatically tuned IDS rules generation module based on fuzzy logic technique is used to block the highly correlative alerts. The experimental results reveal that the proposed work is effective in achieving alert reduction and abstraction.
A Double Markov Random Field Model for Color Image Segmentation

In this paper, color image segmentation problem is cast as a pixel labeling problem in stochastic framework. The observed color image is assumed to be the degraded version of the image pixel label process. RGB color model is employed to model the color. A new Double Markov Random Field (DMRF) model is proposed to model the intraplane label process and also the interplane label process. The pixel labels are estimated using Maximum a Posteriori (MAP) criterion. A hybrid algorithm is proposed to obtain the MAP estimates and the algorithm is found to converge faster than that of Simulated Annealing (SA) algorithm. The performance of the proposed model is found to be superior to that of using Markov Random Field (MRF) model as the intraplane model. The proposed model yielded satisfactory results for different real images.
Do better–informed workers make better retirement choices? A test based on the Social Security Statement

In 1995, the Social Security Administration started sending out the annual Social Security Statement. It contains information about the worker’s estimated benefits at the ages 62, 65, and 70. We use this unique natural experiment to analyze the retirement and claiming decision making. First, we find that, despite the previ- ous availability of information, the Statement has a significant impact on workers’ knowledge about their benefits. These findings are consistent with a model where workers need to gather costly information in order to improve their retirement deci- sion. Second, we use this exogenous variation in knowledge to analyze the optimality of workers’ decisions. We do not find an overall improvement in workers’ retirement behavior, but there are some changes among particular groups. Workers aged 62 and 65 become less sensitive to Social Security Incentives. Age 62 and 65 are the two ages at which the retirement benefits are reported in the Statement, which suggests that some workers may use them as focal points. Additionally, we find evidence that before the Statement was introduced uninformed workers, who are more likely to be low–educated and black, made, on average, worse retirement decisions, and that workers with a dependent spouse usually disregarded their own spouse’s benefits in their calculations. The information contained in the Statement appears to have helped both groups, though with the important exception of black workers.
On Multiple Users Scheduling Using Superposition Coding over Rayleigh Fading Channels

In this letter, numerical results are provided to analyze the gains of multiple users scheduling via superposition coding with successive interference cancellation in comparison with the conventional single user scheduling in Rayleigh block-fading broadcast channels. The information-theoretic optimal power, rate and decoding order allocation for the superposition coding scheme are considered and the corresponding histogram for the optimal number of scheduled users is evaluated. Results show that at optimality there is a high probability that only two or three users are scheduled per channel transmission block. Numerical results for the gains of multiple users scheduling in terms of the long term throughput under hard and proportional fairness as well as for fixed merit weights for the users are also provided. These results show that the performance gain of multiple users scheduling over single user scheduling increases when the total number of users in the network increases, and it can exceed 10% for high number of users.
Zero-phase odd-harmonic repetitive controller for a single-phase PWM inverter

In this paper, a zero-phase odd-harmonic repetitive control scheme is proposed for pulse-width modulation inverters. The proposed repetitive controller combines an odd-harmonic periodic generator with a noncasual zero-phase compensation filter. It occupies less data memory than a conventional repetitive controller does. Moreover, it offers faster convergence of the tracking error, and yields very low total harmonics distortion (THD) and low tracking error. Analysis and design of the proposed system are presented. Experimental results with the proposed repetitive controller are presented to validate the approach. The phenomena of even-harmonic residues in the proposed control system is discussed and experimentally demonstrated.
PAPR Reduction Techniques with Hybrid SLM-PTS Schemes for OFDM Systems

In general, the high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of transmitted signals for OFDM systems reduces the system efficiency and hence increases the cost of the radio frequency (RF) power amplifier. In this paper, a modified hybrid algorithm is developed to obtain better PAPR reduction performance and reduce computational complexity compared with the conventional hybrid scheme. This proposed algorithm combines selected mapping (SLM) with partial transmit sequence (PTS) strategies, and further employs linear addition and exchange of various PTS sub-blocks to create more alternative OFDM signal sequences. As a result, with the same numbers of IFFT and phase rotation sequences, our proposed algorithm has the potentials to provide better PAPR reduction performance with lower computational complexity.
Mind the Gap: A Psychometric Approach to the Reduction Problem

Cognitive neuroscience involves the simultaneous analysis of behavioral and neurological data. Common practice in cognitive neuroscience, however, is to limit analyses to the inspection of descriptive measures of association (e.g., correlation coefficients). This practice, often combined with little more than an implicit theoretical stance, fails to address the relationship between neurological and behavioral measures explicitly. This article argues that the reduction problem, in essence, is a measurement problem. As such, it should be solved by using psychometric techniques and models. We show that two influential philosophical theories on this relationship, identity theory and supervenience theory, can be easily translated into psychometric models. Upon such translation, they make explicit hypotheses based on sound theoretical and statistical foundations, which renders them empirically testable. We examine these models, show how they can elucidate our conceptual framework, and examine how they may be used to study foundational questions in cognitive neuroscience. We illustrate these principles by applying them to the relation between personality test scores, intelligence tests, and neurological measures.
On the Meaning of Certain Cointegration Test

In this paper we examine (some of) the cointegration tests suggested in Engle and Granger (1987), henceforth EG, those suggested by Johansen (1988), (1991), henceforth J, and those suggested in Dhrymes (1994b), henceforth D. We also explore the relations among the models underlying the various procedures. We find that the tests suggested by Johansen cannot possibly test either for the presence of cointegration or for its rank, but they can determine the cointegration vectors, if cointegration is known to hold and its rank is known as well.
Prevalence of hepatitis C virus in Brazil’s inmate population: a systematic review

OBJECTIVE To estimate the prevalence of hepatitis C virus infection in Brazil’s inmate population. METHODS Systematic review on hepatitis C virus infection in the inmate population. Brazilian studies published from January 1, 1989 to February 20, 2014 were evaluated. The methodological quality of the studies was assessed using a scale of 0 to 8 points. RESULTS Eleven eligible studies were analyzed and provided data on hepatitis C virus infection among 4,375 inmates from seven states of Brazil, with a mean quality classification of 7.4. The overall hepatitis C virus prevalence among Brazilian inmates was 13.6% (ranging from 1.0% to 41.0%, depending on the study). The chances of inmates being seropositive for hepatitis C virus in the states of Minas Gerais (MG), Sergipe (SE), Mato Grosso do Sul (MS), Rio Grande do Sul (RS), Goiás (GO) and Espirito Santo (ES) were 84.0% (95%CI 0.06;0.45), 92.0% (95%CI 0.04;0.13), 88.0% (95%CI 0.09;0.18), 74.0% (95%CI 0.16;0.42), 84.0% (95%CI 0.08;0.31) and 89.0% (95%CI 0.01;0.05) respectively, lower than that observed in the Sao Paulo state (seroprevalence of 29.3%). The four studies conducted in the city of Sao Paulo revealed a lower prevalence in more recent studies compared to older ones. CONCLUSIONS The highest prevalence of hepatitis C virus infection in Brazil’s inmate population was found in Sao Paulo, which may reflect the urban diversity of the country. Despite Brazilian studies having good methodological quality to evaluate the prevalence of the hepatitis C virus, they are scarce and lack data on risk factors associated with this infection, which could support decisions on prevention and implementation of public health policies for Brazilian prisons.
Sequential Distributed Coordination

We give a broad characterization of distributed coordination, building on a basic agreement clause, then de ning a generic sequence clause and a generic termination clause. We instantiate these to obtain common problems. Our decomposition isolates communication costs due solely to ordering or termination, giving a clear way of comparing coordination problems. We further explore the notion of exempting processes from participating in the coordination, and show that any problem in which exempt processes must be made to appear as if they had crashed is equally hard irrespective of channel properties (lossy or reliable). While somewhat surprising, this result also exposes why coordination is di cult, and reasonable ways to weaken it for systems prone partitioning.
Osir 2006 Open Source Information Retrieval Osir 2006 Organization Workshop Chairs Program Committee Osir 2005 Open Source Information Retrieval Terrier: a High Performance and Scalable Information Retrieval Platform Ir-wire: a Research Tool for P2p Information Retrieval Tagging in Peer-to-peer Wiki

There has been a resurgence of interest in index maintenance (or incremental indexing) in the academic community in the last three years. Most of this work focuses on how to build indexes as quickly as possible, given the need to run queries during the build process. This work is based on a different set of assumptions than previous work. First, we focus on latency instead of throughput. We focus on reducing index latency (the amount of time between when a new document is available to be indexed and when it is available to be queried) and query latency (the amount of time that an incoming query must wait because of index processing). Additionally, we assume that users are unwilling to tune parameters to make the system more efficient. We show how this set of assumptions has driven the development of the Indri index maintenance strategy, and describe the details of our implementation.
A Survey done on Intelligent Tutoring System : Practical Analysis of SQL Tutor

An Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) is a computer system that is used to tutor students in some domain of study. It is different from other educational systems as it uses knowledge to guide the teaching strategies. ITS tries to optimize the student‘s mastery of domain knowledge by controlling the introduction of new problems, concepts and instruction/feedback. The focal point of the teaching process is student model which lets know what the student knows about a particular domain. Constraint Based Modeling is a new idea proposed by Ohsollon, focuses on learning from errors. The constraint based model says everything is allowed until it does not violate the constraint. Whereas, Student Based Model says about what the student know or what they believe to know. Here we are combining these two approaches. Any particular domain is based on some basic principles, if the student knowledge satisfies those principles (constraints), the Tutoring System is successful. The SQL - Tutor is an existing ITS that uses a constraint-based model. In SQL-Tutor constraints are LISP code fragments, where domain structural knowledge is incorporated into the constraints via ad hoc functions which is as loose as Ohsollon description. I am trying to give a more specific representation of constraints in the form of user defined functions. This approach has two advantages: