Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SPOVC: a scalable RDF store using horizontal partitioning and column oriented DBMS

Organizing and indexing RDF data for efficient evaluation of SPARQL queries has been attracting a lot of attention in the recent past. Most of the techniques proposed in this context leverage the existing RDBMS or column oriented DB technologies. In this paper, we propose an organization SPOVC that uses five indexes, namely, Subject, Predicate, Object, Value and Class, on top of any column oriented DB. The main techniques used by the proposed scheme are horizontal partitioning of the logical indices and special indices for values and classes. The SPOVC approach has the advantage of delivering better performance if the underlying column store technology improves. The proposed approach is conceptually much simpler than the state-of-the-art native-storage based proposals and roughly gives the same performance. Our proposal extends an existing approach, SW-Store, that uses column oriented DBs and vertical partitioning and obtains a two/three fold performance improvement. In addition, the proposed system is the only system that can effectively tackle SPARQL queries with filter patterns having range conditions and regular expressions.
Predicting Academic Success from Student Enrolment Data using Decision Tree Technique

The Indian education system has witnessed significant expansion in recent years, both in terms of the number of institutions as well as the student enrollment. There is a massive growth in self financed higher educational institutions in India in the next two decades. This causes a competition among institutions while attracting the student to get admission in these institutions. Therefore, institutions focused on the strength of students not on the quality of student at the time of enrollment. After the enrollment the institution tries to improve the quality of the student. Like other domain educational domain also produce huge amount of data. To improve the quality of education the data analysis plays an important role for decision support. The data mining is used to extract hidden information from large data set/data warehouse. In this paper we present the data mining technique to predict the performance of the students based on the enrollment data. It helps the teacher to take remedial measure for slow learners to improve the performance in the university examination. General Terms Data mining
A Therapeutic Uricase with Reduced Immunogenicity Risk and Improved Development Properties

Humans and higher primates are unique in that they lack uricase, the enzyme capable of oxidizing uric acid. As a consequence of this enzyme deficiency, humans have high serum uric acid levels. In some people, uric acid levels rise above the solubility limit resulting in crystallization in joints, acute inflammation in response to those crystals causes severe pain; a condition known as gout. Treatment for severe gout includes injection of non-human uricase to reduce serum uric acid levels. Krystexxa® is a hyper-PEGylated pig-baboon chimeric uricase indicated for chronic refractory gout that induces an immunogenic response in 91% of treated patients, including infusion reactions (26%) and anaphylaxis (6.5%). These properties limit its use and effectiveness. An innovative approach has been used to develop a therapeutic uricase with improved properties such as: soluble expression, neutral pH solubility, high E. coli expression level, thermal stability, and excellent activity. More than 200 diverse uricase sequences were aligned to guide protein engineering and reduce putative sequence liabilities. A single uricase lead candidate was identified, which showed low potential for immunogenicity in >200 human donor samples selected to represent diverse HLA haplotypes. Cysteines were engineered into the lead sequence for site specific PEGylation and studies demonstrated >95% PEGylation efficiency. PEGylated uricase retains enzymatic activity in vitro at neutral pH, in human serum and in vivo (rats and canines) and has an extended half-life. In canines, an 85% reduction in serum uric acid levels was observed with a single subcutaneous injection. This PEGylated, non-immunogenic uricase has the potential to provide meaningful benefits to patients with gout.
On Analyzing Program Behavior under Fault Injection Attacks

Fault attacks pose a serious threat to cryptographic algorithm implementations. It is a non-trivial task to design a code that minimizes the risk of exploiting the incorrect output that was produced by inducing faults in the algorithm execution process. In this paper we propose a design of an instruction set simulator capable of analyzing the code behavior under fault attack conditions. Our simulator is easy to use and provides a valuable insights for the designers that could help to harden the code they implement.
Factors Affecting the Adoption of a New Technology

What follows is an account and an interpretive explanation of the initial adoption and later rejection by a small community of an information and communication technology designed to fit the adoption criteria listed above. We attempt to show that both the characteristics of a technology and the attitudes and values of potential adopters are more complex and multi-dimensional than may appear upon initial examination.
Increase in Cognitive Complexity: a Comparison of Human Relations Training and Group Psychotherapy.

P r o b l e m . 32 Hypotheses. 41 II. METHOD . 44 Subjects. 44 Free Response Cognitive Complexity Measure . 45 The Shaver. 47 P B Q . 47 Intelligence . 48 Rotter I E . 48 The F o llow-Up. 48 CHAPTER PAGE Sociometric Rating . 49 Participation . 49 P r o c e d u r e . 50 III. R E S U L T S . 54 IV. DISCUSSION. 82 Increase in Cognitive Complexity as a Result of Treatment. 82 Variability in Description of Role Title Categories. 85 Symptomatic Improvement on Staff and SelfRatings: Relationship of Symptomatic Improvement and Cognitive Complexity . 88 Relationship Between Cognitive Complexity, I.Q. j Rotter I-E and Diagnostic Cate­ gories . 92 Follow-Up Report after Two M o n t h s . 95 Relationship Between Cognitive Complexity and Selected Elements of Group Process . 98 V. S U M M A R Y . 102 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 106 A P P E N D I C E S . Ill V I T A . 146
Robust traffic signs detection by means of vision and V2I communications

This paper presents a complete traffic sign recognition system, including the steps of detection, recognition and tracking. The Hough transform is used as detection method from the information extracted in contour images, while the proposed recognition system is based on Support Vector Machines (SVM), and is able to recognize up to one hundred of the main road signs. Besides a novel solution to the problem of discarding detected signs that do not pertain to the host road is proposed, for that purpose vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication and stereo information is used. This paper presents plenty of tests in real driving conditions, both day and night, in which a high success rate and low number of false negatives and true positives were obtained, and an average runtime of 35 ms, allowing real-time performance.
Manipulating the appearance of a badge of status causes changes in true badge expression

Signals of dominance and fighting ability (i.e. status signals) are found in a wide range of taxa and are used to settle disputes between competitive rivals. Most previous research has considered status-signal phenotype as an attribute of the individual; however, it is more likely that signal expression is an emergent property that also incorporates aspects of the social environment. Furthermore, because an individual's signal phenotype is likely to influence its social interactions, the relationships between status signals, social environment and individual quality are probably much more complex than previously appreciated. Here, we explore the dynamic relationship between social interactions and signal expression in a previously undescribed status signal, the frontal shield of the pukeko (Porphyrio porphyrio melanotus: Aves). We demonstrate that frontal shield size is a strong predictor of dominance status within social groups, even after controlling for potentially confounding variables. Then, we evaluate the relationship between social interactions and signal expression by testing whether manipulating apparent shield size influences (i) dominance interactions and (ii) future signal expression. By showing that decreasing apparent shield size causes both an increase in the amount of aggression received and a decrease in an individual's true shield size, we provide the first evidence of dynamic feedback between signal expression and social interactions. Our study provides important insight into the role of receiver-dependent (i.e. social) costs in maintaining signal honesty and demonstrates a unique approach to studying status signalling applicable to future studies on dynamic morphological signals.
Optimal Load Balancing on Distributed Homogeneous Unreliable Processors

We consider optimal load balancing in a distributed computing environment consisting of homogeneous unreliable processors. Each processor receives its own sequence of tasks from outside users, some of which can be redirected to the other processors. Processing times are independent and identically distributed with an arbitrary distribution. The arrival sequence of outside tasks to each processor may be arbitrary as long as it is independent of the state of the system. Processors may fail, with arbitrary failure and repair processes that are also independent of the state of the system. The only information available to a processor is the history of its decisions for routing work to other processors, and the arrival times of its own arrival sequence. We prove the optimality of the round-robin policy, in which each processor sends all the tasks that can be redirected to each of the other processors in turn. We show that, among all policies that balance workload, round robin stochastically minimizes the nth task completion time for all n, and minimizes response times and queue lengths in a separable increasing convex sense for the entire system. We also show that if there is a single centralized controller, round-robin is the optimal policy, and a single controller using round-robin routing is better than the optimal distributed system in which each processor routes its own arrivals. Again "optimal" and "better" are in the sense of stochastically minimizing task completion times, and minimizing response time and queue lengths in the separable increasing convex sense.
Why are (or were) Spanish banks so profitable

This paper analyzes empirically the factors that determine the profitability of Spanish banks for the period of 1999-2009. The results obtained by applying the system-GMM estimator to a large sample of Spanish banks indicate that higher bank profitability during these years is associated with a larger percentage of loans in total assets, a higher proportion of customer deposits, better efficiency, and a lower credit risk. In addition, higher capital ratios also increase the bank�s return, although this finding applies only when using return on assets (ROA) as the profitability measure. We find no evidence of either economies or diseconomies of scale or scope in the Spanish banking sector. On the other hand, all industry and macroeconomic determinants, with the exception of interest rate, affect bank profitability in the anticipated ways. Finally, our study reveals differences in the performance of commercial and savings banks.
s personal copy Contradictory deceptive behavior in online dating

Deceptive behavior is common in online dating because personal profiles can be easily manipulated. This study conducts two experiments to examine contradictory deceptive behavior in online dating. The results of Experiment 1 showed that users have lower perceptions of authenticity evaluations of daters’ self-provided photographs with strong physical attractiveness than for those with low physical attractiveness, and the authenticity perceptions of daters’ self-provided photographs have a positive relationship with the authenticity evaluation of online daters’ text-based self-presentations. Although users are suspicious of the authenticity of beautiful or handsome daters’ photographs, the results of Experiment 2 showed that people still employ higher levels of deception in self-presentations toward daters with highly attractive photographs to increase their possibilities of securing a date with those daters. The results also show that women employ higher levels of deception in self-presentation than men in online dating environments. 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A Scalable Algorithm for Tracking an Unknown Number of Targets Using Multiple Sensors

We propose an algorithm for tracking an unknown number of targets based on measurements provided by multiple sensors. Our algorithm achieves low computational complexity and excellent scalability by running belief propagation on a suitably devised factor graph. A redundant formulation of data association uncertainty and the use of “augmented target states” including binary target indicators make it possible to exploit statistical independencies for a drastic reduction of complexity. An increase in the number of targets, sensors, or measurements leads to additional variable nodes in the factor graph but not to higher dimensions of the messages. As a consequence, the complexity of our method scales only quadratically in the number of targets, linearly in the number of sensors, and linearly in the number of measurements per sensor. The performance of the method compares well with that of previously proposed methods, including methods with a less favorable scaling behavior. In particular, our method can outperform multisensor versions of the probability hypothesis density (PHD) filter, the cardinalized PHD filter, and the multi-Bernoulli filter.
How to successfully use software project simulation for educating software project managers

A crucial factor for the success or failure of software development projects is the qualification of project managers. But how can future project managers be prepared for their role? To successfully manage a software project, theoretical knowledge is not sufficient. Practical experience is necessary, too. This paper presents a new approach for teaching software project management based on the interactive simulation of software projects. This approach teaches theoretical knowledge on software engineering and project management and also offers students the chance to gather reality-like management experience. One important feature of this approach is to analyse the course and outcomes of the simulated projects to give students feedback on their management strengths and weaknesses.
Forum New Learning - Wissensaustausch unter Lehrkräften

An den schweizerischen Hochschulen laufen verschiedene Bestrebungen zur Förderung der neuen Lerntechnologien. Die Ergebnisse all dieser Initiativen wären deutlich mehr wert, wenn sie vernetzt und breiteren Kreisen zugänglich gemacht würden. Auf diese Situation versucht das Projekt Forum New Learning eine Antwort zu liefern. Ausgehend von der Idee zur Gründung eines Kompetenznetzwerks hat sich im Verlauf von zwei Jahren eine virtuelle Gemeinschaft von Lehrkräften herausgebildet. Diese "Community of Practice" kann als alternative Form zur Weiterbildung gesehen werden: In den elektronischen Foren findet ein reger Austausch statt, Lernbausteine in Form von 'Learning Objects' werden zusammengetragen, oder didaktische Szenarien werden vor dem Einsatz im Unterricht in der Gemeinschaft ausgetestet.
Homology multipliers and the relation type of parameter ideals

The relation type question, raised by C. Huneke, asks whether for a complete equidimensional local ring R there exists a uniform number N such that the relation type of every ideal I ? R generated by a system of parameters is at most N. Wang gave a positive answer to this question when the non-Cohen? Macaulay locus of R (denoted by NCM(R)) has dimension zero. In this paper, we first present an example, due to the first author, which gives a negative answer to the question when dimNCM(R) = 2. The major part of our work is to investigate the remaining situation, i.e., when dimNCM(R) = 1. We introduce the notion of homology multipliers and show that the question has a positive answer when R / A(R) is a domain, where A(R) is the ideal generated by all homology multipliers in R. In a more general context, we also discuss many interesting properties of homology multipliers.
Efficacy of a Brief Mindfulness Intervention to Prevent Athletic Task Performance Deterioration: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Research has supported mindfulness as a predictor of athletic success. This study used a parallel trial design to examine the benefit of a brief one-session mindfulness training for performance on an individual, nonpacing, closed skill athletic task (i.e., golf putting). All participants (N = 65) answered questionnaires and engaged in two trials of the putting task. Participants were randomly assigned to an intervention or control group using a simple randomization strategy. Between trials, the intervention group received a mindfulness intervention. Mindfulness intervention included psychoeducation, reflection upon previous sport experiences, an experiential exercise, and putting applications. Repeated-measures ANOVAs demonstrated that the intervention group exhibited more successful outcomes on objective putting performance, flow state experience, and state anxiety (p < .05). Results suggest mindfulness may prevent performance deterioration and could produce psychological benefits after a brief training .
Effect of a shock-absorbing pylon on transmission of heel strike forces during the gait of people with unilateral trans-tibial amputations: A pilot study

The primary objective was to test the hypothesis that walking with a shock-absorbing pylon (SAP) decreases the peak magnitude and frequency content of the heel-strike-initiated shock wave transmitted to the stump. The secondary hypotheses were that walking with a SAP decreases the heel-strike transient force between the ground and the foot and increases function as measured by walking velocity and subjective assessments. Seven people with unilateral trans-tibial amputations walked at self-selected speeds without and with a SAP. As the primary outcome measure, accelerometers were used mounted proximally and distally along the prosthetic pylon to measure the transmitted shock wave. Secondary measures included ground reaction forces from a force plate, a ten-minute walking test to determine walking speed and a questionnaire to evaluate gait function and subjective preference. The SAP provided no significant shock absorption as indicated by either the mean peak proximal accelerations of 3.19 g and 2.82 g (p = 0.28) without and with the SAP respectively or the mean difference between the peak proximal and distal accelerometers, 0.16 g and 0.19 g (p = 0.58). No significant change in the frequency content was found. Variances were high. There were no significant differences noted in the secondary measures. Although this study failed to identify any statistically significant effects due to the SAP, the magnitude and variance of the data will permit an accurate estimation of the appropriate sample size for future studies required to determine the efficacy of SAPs.
Application of SVM Based on Principal Component Analysis to Credit Risk Assessment in Commercial Banks

Credit risk assessment is a crucial area to commercial banks. It's important for banks to discriminate good creditors from bad ones. Support vector machine (SVM) has been applied to classification widely. However, if the index of the training data has much noise and redundancy, the generalized performance of SVM will be weakened, so this can cause some disadvantages of slow convergence speed and low classification accuracy. A SVM classification model based on principal component analysis (PCA-SVM) is presented in this paper, using principal component analysis to reduce the dimensionality of indexes, and then extract principal components to replace the original indexes, and both processing speed and classification accuracy will be improved. At last, apply this model to credit risk assessment, and it shows more generalized performance and better classification accuracy compared with the method of single SVM and BP neural networks.
Understanding consistency in hybrid causal structure learning

We consider causal structure learning from observational data. The main existing approaches can be classified as constraint-based, score-based and hybrid methods, where the latter combine aspects of both constraint-based and score-based approaches. Hybrid methods often apply a greedy search on a restricted search space, where the restricted space is estimated using a constraint-based method. The restriction on the search space is a fundamental principle of the hybrid methods and makes them computationally efficient. However, this can come at the cost of inconsistency or at least at the cost of a lack of consistency proofs. In this paper, we demonstrate such inconsistency in an explicit example. In spite of the lack of consistency results, many hybrid methods have empirically been shown to outperform consistent score-based methods such as greedy equivalence search (GES). We present a consistent hybrid method, called adaptively restricted GES (ARGES). It is a modification of GES, where the restriction on the search space depends on an estimated conditional independence graph and also changes adaptively depending on the current state of the algorithm. Although the adaptive modification is necessary to achieve consistency in general, our empirical results show that it has a relatively minor effect. This provides an explanation for the empirical success of (inconsistent) hybrid methods.
Lesions of the Tegmentomammillary Circuit in the Head Direction System Disrupt the Head Direction Signal in the Anterior Thalamus

Head direction (HD) cells in the rodent limbic system are believed to correspond to a cognitive representation of directional heading in the environment. Lesions of vestibular hair cells disrupt the characteristic firing patterns of HD cells, and thus vestibular afference is a critical contributor to the HD signal. A subcortical pathway that may convey this information includes the dorsal tegmental nucleus of Gudden (DTN) and the lateral mammillary nucleus (LMN). To test the hypothesis that the DTN and LMN are critical components for generating HD cell activity, we made electrolytic lesions of the DTN or LMN in rats and screened for HD cell activity in the anterior thalamus. Directional activity was absent in all animals with complete LMN lesions and in animals with complete DTN lesions, although a few HD cells were isolated in animals with incomplete lesions. Some DTN-lesioned animals contained cells whose firing rates were modulated by angular head velocity. Although cells with bursting patterns of activity have been observed in the anterior dorsal nucleus of the thalamus of animals with disruption of vestibular inputs, this pattern of activity was not observed in either the LMN- or DTN-lesioned animals. The general absence of direction-specific activity in the anterior thalamus of animals with DTN or LMN lesions is consistent with the view that the DTN–LMN circuit is essential for the generation of HD cell activity.