Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Survey: Research on QoS of P2P Reliable Streaming Media

Streaming media application has become one of the main services over Internet. As streaming media have special attributes, it is very important to ensure and improve the quality of service in large-scale streaming media. Based on the development of media streaming, it compared and analyzed the typical flow service strategy of media streaming system, and summarized the features and shortcomings of different systems. Moreover, it take the reputation evaluation, node selection, strategy of copy and incentive mechanism as the evaluation index, focus on the quality of service of current typical streaming media system. Finally, future works about the quality of service of media streaming systems in P2P networks are outlined.
Collaborative school leadership in a global society: A critical perspective

In the context of evolving global challenges and opportunities, this article explores the kind of leadership that moves beyond the philosophy of dependence which pervades many of the everyday assumptions of educational leadership practice. The article argues for educational leadership that places relational freedom, self-determination, and critical reflexivity as the driving aim of distributed leadership by teachers, students and others in non-positional leadership roles. A project arising from the International Teacher Leadership initiative is examined in order to offer practical illustration.
Learning About Beta : An Explanation of the Value Premium

We develop an equilibrium model of learning about time-varying risk factor loadings. In the model, CAPM holds from investors’ ex-ante perspective. However, positive mispricing can be observed when investors’ expectations of beta are above ex-post realizations. This model is used to explain the value premium. In a learning framework, the fact that value stocks used to be more risky in the past leads to investors’ expectations of beta that exceed the estimates from more recent samples. We propose an empirical methodology that takes investors’ expectations of the factor loadings explicitly into account when estimating betas. With the adjusted estimates of beta, we can explain the cross-section of average returns on the ten book-to-market decile portfolios, and account for the value premium in the relevant sample. ∗MIT and UPF. Acknowledgments: We are grateful to Olivier Blanchard, Xavier Gabaix, Jonathan Lewellen, Sendhil Mullainathan, Steve Ross, and Dimitri Vayanos for guidance and comments. We would also like to thank Daron Acemoglu, Manuel Amador, John Y. Campbell, Augustin Landier, Jiang Wang, and seminar participants at MIT and UPF for their helpful insights. We thank Ken French for the data. All the errors are the authors’ sole responsibility. Correspondence: Tobias Adrian: Department of Economics, E52-262A; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; 50 Memorial Drive; Cambridge, MA02142; email: tobias@mit.edu; tel: 1 617 4615138; http//:web.mit.edu/tobias/www; Francesco Franzoni: Department of Economics; Universidad Pompeu Fabra; c. R. Trias Fargas 25-27; Barcelona, 08005, Spain; e-mail: francesco.franzoni@econ.upf. es.
Automatically Creating Design Models from 3D Anthropometry Data

When designing a product that needs to fit the human shape, designers often use a small set of 3D models, called design models, either in physical or digital form, as representative shapes to cover the shape variabilities of the population for which the products are designed. Until recently, the process of creating these models has been an art involving manual interaction and empirical guesswork. The availability of the 3D anthropometric databases provides an opportunity to create design models optimally. In this paper, we propose a novel way to use 3D anthropometric databases to generate design models that represent a given population for design applications such as the sizing of garments and gear. We generate the representative shapes by solving a covering problem in a parameter space. Well-known techniques in computational geometry are used to solve this problem. We demonstrate the method using examples in designing glasses and helmets.
Rejection strategies for learning vector quantization

We present prototype-based classification schemes, e.g. learn- ing vector quantization, with cost-function-based and geometrically mo- tivated reject options. We evaluate the reject schemes in experiments on artificial and benchmark data sets. We demonstrate that reject options improve the accuracy of the models in most cases, and that the perfor- mance of the proposed schemes is comparable to the optimal reject option of the Bayes classifier in cases where the latter is available.
An inter-comparison of three spectral-deconvolution algorithms for gamma-ray spectroscopy

This paper presents a comparison of three deconvolution techniques, Maximum Likelihood, Maximum Entropy and Linear Regularisation for the unconstrained deconvolution of gamma-ray spectra. These convert the raw energy-loss spectra obtained using a standard scintillation counter, into a good representation of the incident gamma-ray spectrum. This work is based on the use of an industry-standard 3/spl times/3 inch NaI detector. Both simulated and measured data have been deconvolved using the three algorithms to provide a direct comparison between the qualities of the deconvolved spectra. For applications in which it is important to derive an accurate estimate of the number of counts in a particular full-energy peak, the Maximum Likelihood Method has been shown to be superior.
Balancing Constraints and the Sweet Spot as Coming Topics for Creativity Research

The aim of this chapter is the introduction of two new concepts, ‘balancing constraints’ and ‘the sweet spot of creativity’, as promising new paths for creativity research. This is motivated by the fact that creativity research shows a growing interest in the fundamental entwinement of constraints and creativity, with skillful and innovative handling of constraints seen as a prerequisite for apt creative performance. Based on a brief review of current disparate conceptualizations of constraints as both enablers and restrainers of creative activities, we begin by proposing the unifying concept ‘creativity constraints’ to help establish common terminological ground. Since the presence of constraints change over time, we suggest the term ‘constrainedness’ to articulate this total constraint intensity at a given time. This allows us to introduce our main contribution, the concept ‘the sweet spot’, to address the salient situations where the creative practitioner can be said to experience the ‘right’ level of constrainedness conducive to optimum creative performance. We then proceed to consider how the sweet spot can be attained by balancing constraints, i.e., by manipulating the intensity of constrainedness. More concretely, this means by hardening or softening the constraints at hand, resulting in a higher or lower level of constrainedness. Finally, we discuss how future studies can employ and inform these new concepts, which we see as potentially rich for cross-disciplinary creativity research focusing on the essential entwinement of constraints and creativity.
An Emotion Model for Virtual Agent

A cognitive architecture of virtual agents is established. A motivation model is established based on psychological theory, and four motivations are considered in it. Six emotions in OCC model are taken into account in an emotion model. A fuzzy inference system, emotion transformation mechanism and emotion decay mechanism are used to calculate emotion intensities. The impact of mood on emotion is considered in emotion transformation mechanism. Emotion filtering, a mood model are presented at last. The experiment showed that the emotion model could drive a virtual agent to be more believable and more interesting.
Peer designed agents: just reflect or also affect?

Peer Designed Agent (PDA), computer agents developed by non-experts, is an emerging technology, widely advocated in recent literature for the purpose of replacing people in simulations and investigating human behavior. Its main premise is that the strategy programmed into these agents reliably reflect, to some extent, the behavior used by the programmer in real life. In this paper we show that PDA development has an important side effect that has not been addressed to date --- the process, that merely attempts to capture one's strategy, is also likely to affect the developer's strategy. The phenomenon is demonstrated experimentally via the penetration detection game, using different setting variations. This result has many implications concerning the appropriate design of PDA-based simulations, and the validness of using PDAs for studying individual decision making.
Semen quality and frequency of smoking and alcohol consumption--an explorative study.

OBJECTIVE To study the contribution of smoking and alcohol consumption to semen quality. DESIGN Retrospective analysis. SETTING University-based fertility clinic. PATIENTS AND METHODS Smoking and alcohol consumption were investigated in a control group (68) and in a group of 47 subjects with defined poor semen quality (PSQ). The control group was composed of subjects whose semen showed a greater than 60% morphological normality, a greater than 60% motility with a linear progression, and a density of greater than 20 million spermatozoa/mL. The group with PSQ was composed of subjects whose semen showed a less than 30% morphological normality, less than 60% motility, characterized by slow, weak motility, and a density of less than 20 million spermatozoa/mL. Medical dossiers were studied regarding the life style of the subjects. RESULTS The distribution of heavy smokers and light smokers did not differ statistically between the groups. There appeared to be a higher, but statistically insignificant, proportion of heavy smokers in the PSQ group (50%) compared to the control group (32.3%; P < .1); nor were significant differences found between cases and controls with respect to alcohol consumption pattern. In the PSQ group, a comparison of the semen characteristics of the daily drinkers with those of all the other subfertile patients showed no statistical difference concerning semen volume (4.1 +/- 1.9 vs. 3.3 +/- 1.3 mL; P > .1), sperm density (10.6 +/- 7.8 vs. 8.9 +/- 5.8 million spermatozoa/mL; P > or = .1), and percentage of motile spermatozoa (27.0 +/- 15.1 vs. 25.5 +/- 16.1%; P > .1). However, a lower percentage of normal sperm morphology was observed in the daily-drinker group (17.6 +/- 7.2% vs. 23.0 +/- 6.5% for the other subfertile patients; P < .05). CONCLUSION Factors such as smoking and alcohol consumption do not seem to play a pivotal role in the etiology of poor semen quality, but a pattern of excessive alcohol consumption may decrease further an already low percentage of sperm with normal morphology.
Remarks on homo- and hetero-polymeric aspects of protein folding

Different aspects of protein folding are illustrated by simplified polymer models. Stressing the diversity of side chains (residues) leads one to view folding as the freezing transition of a heteropolymer. Technically, the most common approach to diversity is randomness, which is usually implemented in two body interactions (charges, polar character,.). On the other hand, the (almost) universal character of the protein backbone suggests that folding may also be viewed as the crystallization transition of an homopolymeric chain, the main ingredients of which are the peptide bond and chirality (proline and glycine notwithstanding). The model of a chiral dipolar chain leads to a unified picture of secondary structures, and to a possible connection of protein structures with ferroelectric domain theory.
Caregiver Perceptions of Stigma Associated with Youth Psychopathology and Its Treatment: Development and Initial Validation of a Novel Measure

According to a National Research Council and Institute of Medicine report (2009), approximately 13-20% of children in the U.S. meet criteria for a mental illness in any year. Of these children, only 50.6% receive treatment (CDC, 2014). Perceived stigma related to mental illness may prevent some caregivers from seeking services (Hinshaw, 2005). However, it is difficult to assess the impact of stigma on treatment-seeking, because a broad and psychometrically adequate measure of caregivers’ perceived mental health stigma does not yet exist. The goal of this study was to develop a measure to address this gap. Initial items for the measure, the Mental Health Stigma Inventory for Caregivers (MSTIC), were developed based on a literature review, semi-structured interviews with caregivers, and stigma theory. Caregivers of children 6-18 years of age (n = 483) completed the MSTIC, and its factor structure was explored. A five-factor solution generally consistent with the literature emerged. INDEX WORDS: Mental health stigma, Measure, Psychopathology, Youth, Service utilization, Caregivers, Treatment, Mental Health Stigma Inventory for Caregivers, MSTIC CAREGIVER PERCEPTIONS OF STIGMA ASSOCIATED WITH YOUTH PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND ITS TREATMENT: DEVELOPMENT AND INITIAL VALIDATION OF A NOVEL MEASURE
Multicolor Optical Imaging of Infrared-warm Seyfert Galaxies. I. Introduction and Sample Selection

The standard AGN unification models attempt to explain the diversity of observed AGN types by a few fundamental parameters, where orientation effects play a paramount role. Whether other factors, such as the evolutionary stage and the host galaxy properties are equally important parameters for the AGN diversity, is a key issue that we are addressing with the present data. Our sample of IR-selected Seyfert galaxies is based on the important discovery that their integrated IR spectrum contains an AGN signature, the "warm" 25-60 μm color index. This being an almost isotropic property, our sample is much less affected by orientation/obscuration effects compared to most Seyfert samples. It therefore provides a test-bed for the orientation-dependent models of Seyferts, involving dusty tori. We have obtained multicolor broadband and narrowband imaging for a sample of mid-IR "warm" (-1.5 ≤ α(25,60) ≤ 0) Seyferts and for a control sample of mid-IR "cold" (α(25,60) ≤ -1.5) galaxies. The two samples span similar ranges of far-IR colors (∼ -3.0 ≤ α(60,100) ≤ 0.5). The warm sample contains 21 Seyfert 1 and 33 Seyfert 2 galaxies with log LFIR = 9.6-11.8 and z = 0.01-0.08, including some of the most extreme warm sources (L60 ≥ 1011 L⊙). The cold sample contains 16 IRAS sources selected to match the warm galaxies in redshift and luminosity range, but show a variety of nuclear types (Seyfert 1, Seyfert 2, and starburst). In the present paper we describe in some detail the sample selection and briefly discuss their IR properties. We then give an overview of the data collected and present broadband images for all our objects. Finally, we summarize the main issues that will be addressed with these data in a series of forthcoming papers: (i) the orientation versus evolutionary Seyfert unification schemes and (ii) the origin of mid-IR excess in the warm Seyfert sample.
Realization of Distributed Arithmetic

Journal Impact Factor-2.02 Indexed byProQuest, DOAJ and many International Bodies. Abstract— This paper presents efficient distributed arithmetic (DA) based reconfigurable implementation of finite response (FIR) filters whose filter coefficients change during runtime. Conventionally, for reconfigurable DA based implementation of FIR filter, the lookup tables (LUTs) are required to be implemented in RAM and the RAM found to be costly for ASIC implementation. Therefore, a shared LUT design is proposed to realize the DA computation. Instead of using separate registers to store the possible results of partial inner products for DA processing of different bit positions, registers are shared by the DA units for bit slices of different weightage. A distributed RAM based design is used for the field programmable gate array (FPGA) implementation of the reconfigurable FIR filter, which supports up to 91 MHz input sampling frequency.
A Hybrid Prediction for Non-Gaussian Self-Similar Traffic

There is growing evidence shows that non-Gaussian, namely heavy tailness is the key cause of burstiness in self-similar traffic. We present three predictors including autoregressive (AR), moving average (MA) and fractional autoregressive integrated moving average (FARIMA) based on the symmetrical non-Gaussian self-similar traffic model. The three predictors can minimize the dispersion according to the minimum dispersion criteria with infinite variance. The final predicted values are attained by combining the previous three individual predicted values. Our predicted results for the actual trace collected from Bellcore Lab and Lawrence Berkeley Lab show that the three individual predictors are precise and reliable, the compound predictors can enhance the final predicted accuracy.
A camera obscura for ants

Pherographia is a drawing procedure that arises from an artificial life model and addresses the hypothetical relationship between photography and the so-called cognitive maps created by the model. The theme is discussed within the emergent research field called Artificial Art and recent theoretical advances that link Swarm Intelligence and cognitive sciences are also addressed. The system and its equations are given and their outcome is shown in its different forms. Finally, the drawings and other potentialities of the system as a creative tool are discussed within an image-processing framework.
Understanding Fear and Stranger-Directed Aggression in Companion Dogs

UNDERSTANDING CANINE FEAR AND STRANGER-DIRECTED AGGRESSION Hannah Flint Advisors: University of Guelph, 2017 Dr. Lee Niel Dr. Jason B. Coe Stranger-directed aggression is both a public safety and animal welfare concern. The objectives of this thesis were to identify risk factors for stranger-directed aggression in dogs, to assess the effect of targeted owner training on the accuracy of ratings of fear in dogs, and to identify behaviours associated with fear in puppies. Risk factors for stranger-directed aggression were first analyzed using an existing dataset of responses to the Canine Behaviour Assessment and Research Questionnaire (C-BARQ). Fear of strangers, non-social fear, sex and neuter status, age at evaluation, age acquired, where acquired, and breed group were significantly associated with stranger-directed aggression. There was also correlation in this behaviour among dogs from the same participant and country (n=14,310 dogs; 10,951 participants; 67 countries). To further explore the similarities from dogs with the same owner, a survey including the CBARQ, as well as additional questions relating to dog characteristics, temperament, training, environment and owner demographics and personality was distributed. Dogs’ stranger-directed aggression scores were significantly associated with fear of strangers, impulsivity, sex, reason for neutering, training methods, history of abuse, quantity and quality of socialization as a puppy, where kept when left alone, how exercised, breed group, owner extroversion, and whether owners could accurately identify the absence of aggression from videos (n=2,760 dogs; 2,255 households). As fear was found to be associated with stranger-directed aggression, it is important that owners are able to accurately recognize it in dogs. Using a targeted training tool, based on fear behaviours owners were able to reliably identify, recognition of mild to severe fear in videos of dogs improved, but owner ratings of their own dogs’ fearfulness were not consistently altered. Finally, to identify fear behaviours shown by puppies, an approach/avoidance test was developed and used to categorize puppies’ responses to fear-provoking stimuli. Lowered posture, lowered tail, freezing, flinching, retreating, barking, and paw lifting were found to increase with nonsocial fear in puppies. These results can help with identification of dogs at risk of developing strangerdirected aggression, and can direct owners to appropriate training and prevention strategies.
SYSTEM RECONSTRUCTION AND ANALYSIS USING INTERSPIKE INTERVALS

Statistical measures of determinism for spikes train are described and analyzed. The analysis is focused on two dynamical invariants: nonlinear forecastability and correlation dimension. Two simple, generic, biologically motivated methods for generating spikes from the system are surveyed: an integrate-and-fire model (IF) and a threshold-crossing method (TC). The effect on the statistical measures of threshold level, noise and limited amount of available data are investigated.
Policy Gradient Methods for Off-policy Control

Off-policy learning refers to the problem of learning the value function of a way of behaving, or policy, while following a different policy. Gradient-based off-policy learning algorithms, such as GTD and TDC/GQ, converge even when using function approximation and incremental updates. However, they have been developed for the case of a fixed behavior policy. In control problems, one would like to adapt the behavior policy over time to become more greedy with respect to the existing value function. In this paper, we present the first gradient-based learning algorithms for this problem, which rely on the framework of policy gradient in order to modify the behavior policy. We present derivations of the algorithms, a convergence theorem, and empirical evidence showing that they compare favorably to existing approaches.
BAUM: A DNA Assembler by Adaptive Unique Mapping and Local Overlap-Layout-Consensus

Genome assembly from the high-throughput sequencing (HTS) reads is a fundamental yet challenging computational problem. An intrinsic challenge is the uncertainty caused by the widespread repetitive elements. Here we get around the uncertainty using the notion of uniquely mapped (UM) reads, which motivated the design of a new assembler BAUM. It mainly consists of two types of iterations. The first type of iterations constructs initial contigs from a reference, say a genome of a species that could be quite distant, by adaptive read mapping, filtration by the reference's unique regions, and reference updating. A statistical test is proposed to split the layouts at possible structural variation sites. The second type of iterations includes mapping, scaffolding/contig-extension, and contig merging. We extend each contig by locally assembling the reads whose mates are uniquely mapped to an end of the contig. Instead of the de Bruijn graph method, we take the overlap-layout-consensus (OLC) paradigm. The OLC is implemented by parallel computation, and has linear complexity with respect to the number of contigs. The adjacent extended contigs are merged if their alignment is confirmed by the adjusted gap distance. Throughout the assembling, the mapping criterion is selected by probabilistic calculations. These innovations can be used complementary to the existing de novo assemblers. Applying this novel method to the assembly of wild rice Oryza longistaminata genome, we achieved much improved contig N50, 18.8k, compared with other assemblers. The assembly was further validated by contigs constructed from an independent library of long 454 reads.
Handling ambiguity and errors: visual languages for calligraphic interaction

This paper describes error handling and ambiguity in a class of applications organized around drawing and sketching, which we call Calligraphic Interfaces. While errors and imprecision are unavoidable features of human input, these have long been considered nuisances and problems to circumvent in user interface design. However, the transition away from non-WIMP interface styles and into continuous media featuring recognition requires that we take a fresh approach to errors and imprecision. We present new tools and interaction styles to allow designers to develop error tolerant and simpler interaction dialogues.