Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Consonant/Vowel Asymmetry in Word-form Processing: Evidence in Childhood and in Adulthood

In the literature, consonants have been proposed to be more important than vowels in lexical activation and access processes. However, despite a large body of evidence in the infant and adult literature, a recent study revealed a disappearance of the bias in newly learned words over the preschool years (Havy, Bertoncini, & Nazzi, 2011). As a first explanation of this developmental change, one might consider that the bias initially applies to all lexical processes to progressively narrow down its influence to specific cognitive and lexical mechanisms. Alternatively, the task used to address this question in Havy et al. (2011) might not have been sensitive enough to capture the bias in new-word learning from a certain age. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the extent to which the pattern observed over this period of development resulted from a lack of sensitivity of the task or from a real disappearance of the consonant bias during word learning. To address this issue, we designed two experiments evaluating the strength of the consonant bias during word learning in preschoolers and adults in ‘congruent’ versus ‘incongruent’ situations. Both experiments tested the recognition of a target object among two objects with similar names. In the congruent situation, the proposed target corresponded to one of the items presented. In the incongruent situation, the target differed from one of the items by a consonant and from the other by a vowel. Both experiments revealed the existence of a consonant bias in childhood and in adulthood. There was no difference between onset and coda processing in the congruent situation, but there was a slight advantage in adulthood for the first congruent information perceived in the incongruent situation.
Does the initial environment impact the future of developers

Software developers need to develop technical and social skills to be successful in large projects. We model the relative sociality of developer as a ratio between the size of her communication network and the number of tasks she participates in. We obtain both measures from the problem tracking systems. We use her workflow peer network to represent her social learning, and the issues she has worked on to represent her technical learning. Using three open source and three traditional projects we investigate how the project environment reflected by the sociality measure at the time a developer joins, affects her future participation. We find: a) the probability that a new developer will become one of long-term and productive developers is highest when the project sociality is low; b) times of high sociality are associated with a higher intensity of new contributors joining the project; c) there are significant differences between the social learning trajectories of the developers who join in low and in high sociality environments; d) the open source and commercial projects exhibit different nature in the relationship between developer's tenure and the project's environment at the time she joins. These findings point out the importance of the initial environment in determining the future of the developers and may lead to better training and learning strategies in software organizations.
OOSP: Ontological Benchmarks Made on the Fly

The demo paper presents OOSP (Online Ontology Set Picker), a tool allowing to select, from major repositories, a set of ontologies that satisfy a user-defined sets of metrics. Its main purpose is allowing ontological tool designers to rapidly build custom benchmarks on which they could test different features. It could also serve for usage studies of different ontology language constructs and for pattern spotting. The web front-end allows to specify a broad range of metrics and delivers benchmarks along with their statistics of metrics, including a graph view.
Intuition and logic in human evolution

Modern science has come to be regarded as an exclusively objective endeavor employing explicit language that attempts to exclude subjective anthropomorphic biases. In doing so it has run the risk of becoming a purely materialistic bias itself, according no proper place to the human spirit or to intuitive insights that have guided the evolution of human cultures, even though this includes the guiding insights of the most important contributors to the sciences. Although this may have been necessary to exclude rampant superstition in the past, a summary overview of the historical evidence indicates a current pressing need to restore a proper balance.
A comparative study of traditional botnets versus super-botnets

Malicious botnets have been around for years. Although the information security community has developed many countermeasures for combating botnets, the recent trend of smaller botnets and the rise of super-botnets (i.e., networks of independent botnets) that are more sophisticated and highly resistant to the current countermeasures pose a serious threat to the entire industry. We have conducted a simulation study to compare major defense strategies against traditional botnets and super-botnets. Our goal was to better understand the current challenge the community is facing and to evaluate the effectiveness of the different super-botnet countermeasures. Our results show that centralized defense measures are more effective against super-botnets.
The Design of a System Architecture for Mobile Multimedia Computers

This chapter discusses the system architecture of a portable computer, called Mobile Digital Companion, which provides support for handling multimedia applications energy efficiently. Because battery life is limited and battery weight is an important factor for the size and the weight of the Mobile Digital Companion, energy management plays a crucial role in the architecture. As the Companion must remain usable in a variety of environments, it has to be flexible and adaptable to various operating conditions. The Mobile Digital Companion has an unconventional architecture that saves energy by using system decomposition at different levels of the architecture and exploits locality of reference with dedicated, optimised modules. The approach is based on dedicated functionality and the extensive use of energy reduction techniques at all levels of system design. The system has an architecture with a general-purpose processor accompanied by a set of heterogeneous autonomous programmable modules, each providing an energy efficient implementation of dedicated tasks. A reconfigurable internal communication network switch exploits locality of reference and eliminates wasteful data copies.
C O N T I N U I N G E D U C a T I O N Spect/ct*

In view of the commercial success of integrated PET/CT scanners, there is an increasing interest in comparable SPECT/CT systems. SPECT in combination with CT enables a direct correlation of anatomic information and functional information, resulting in better localization and definition of scintigraphic findings. Besides anatomic referencing, the added value of CT coregistration is based on the attenuation correction capabilities of CT. The number of clinical studies is limited, but pilot studies have indicated a higher specificity and a significant reduction in indeterminate findings. The superiority of SPECT/CT over planar imaging or SPECT has been demonstrated in bone scintigraphy, somatostatin receptor scintigraphy, parathyroid scintigraphy, and adrenal gland scintigraphy. Also, rates of detection of sentinel nodes by biopsy can be increased with SPECT/CT. This review highlights recent technical developments in integrated SPECT/CT systems and summarizes the current literature on potential clinical uses and future directions for SPECT/CT in cardiac, neurologic, and oncologic applications.
Multimodal Human-Computer Interfaces for Incident Handling in Metropolitan Transport Management Centre

Efficient road traffic incident management in metropolitan areas is crucial for the smooth traffic flow and the mobility and safety of community. Traffic incident management requires fast and accurate collection and retrieval of critical data, such as incident conditions, and contact information for the intervention crew, public safety organisations and other resources. Access to critical data by traffic control operators can be facilitated through various human-computer interfaces. This paper describes the judicious introduction of a multi-modal interaction paradigm to the user interfaces for incident handling in a metropolitan transport management centre. Prototypes supporting speech and gestural interaction have been built based on user-centred design methodology and their evaluations have been conducted through user studies. The presented innovative user interfaces provide traffic control operators with intuitive, cognitively efficient ways to record traffic incident conditions, facilitate fast retrieval of contact details, and support time-critical incident handling
A CONSTRUCTION OF LEVEL 1 IRREDUCIBLE MODULES FOR Uq(ŝp4) USING LEVEL 2 INTERTWINERS FOR Uq(ŝl2)

We bosonize certain components of level l Uq(ŝl2)-intertwiners of (l+1)-dimensions. For l = 2, these intertwiners, after certain modification by bosonic vertex operators, are added to the algebra Uq(ŝl2) at level 2 to construct all irreducible highest weight representations of level 1 for the quantum affine algebra Uq(ŝp4).
3-D mobile node localization using constrained volume optimization over ad-hoc sensor networks

This paper proposes a three dimensional mobile node localization and obstacle avoidance mechanism in ad-hoc sensor networks (AHSN). The localization task is performed through constrained volume optimization. Obstacle avoidance is achieved through weighted distribution method. Constrained volume optimization is performed by minimizing the squared location error and imposing the distance and boundary conditions. Obstacle avoidance is achieved by choosing the angular direction which minimizes the cost function. The solution to the constrained optimization problems ensures that the method is robust to change in environmental conditions and NLOS issues. Additionally, the algorithm is scalable and follows a distributed approach to localization. The performance of this method is assessed by deploying nodes in both indoor and outdoor environments. Improved localization accuracy is noted when compared to conventional methods in terms of statistical location estimates and Cramer-Rao lower bound localization error analysis.
Logistique des exploitations en circuits courts : fondements d'une typologie pour un meilleur ciblage des solutions d'amélioration

Pour les agriculteurs, vendre via les circuits courts a une incidence directe sur l'organisation de la production (Demarque, 2010) et sur le temps a consacrer aux activites de commercialisation (Praly et al., 2009 ; Blanquart et al. 2015 ; Goncalves, 2013). La question economique est egalement souleIe car la rentabilite des circuits est tres variable d'une exploitation a l'autre (Dufour et al. 2010). Face a ce double enjeu, cette communication propose une analyse de la diversite des circuits courts sous l'angle des pratiques logistiques. Des groupes aux pratiques logistiques homogenes sont identifies, ce qui permet de discuter des solutions logistiques a la fois adaptees et acceptees par ces differents groupes.
Prediction of Crop Yield Using Big Data

Quantifying the yield is essential to optimize policies to ensure food security. This paper aims at providing a new method to predict the crop yield based on big-data analysis technology, which differs with traditional methods in the structure of handling data and in the means of modeling. Firstly, the method can make full use of the existing massive agriculture relevant datasets and can be still utilized with the volume of data growing rapidly, due to big-data friendly processing structure. Secondly, the "nearest neighbors" modeling, which employs results gained from the former data processing structure, provides a well-balanced result on the account of accuracy and prediction time in advance. Numerical examples on actual crop dataset in China from 1995-2014 have showed a better performance and an improved prediction accuracy of the proposed method compared with traditional ones.
Generation method of Lanzhou dialect speech based on Gaussian Mixture Model

Dialect generation is one of the most important aspects of Chinese speech synthesis. Using the method of conversion prosodic features we can realize high quality speech synthesis. Firstly, A Lanzhou dialect corpus has been built based on "word-list in dialectal survey" for the generation of Lanzhou dialect. Speech corpus was recorded with contrastive (Lanzhou dialect vs. Mandarin) recordings. A pitch target model is introduced, which is optimized to describe feature parameters of the Mandarin speech and Lanzhou dialect speech in the training set of speech corpus. Secondly, the Gaussian Mixture Model(GMM) can map the subtle prosody distributions between Mandarin and Lanzhou dlialect speech, we train GMM conversion parameter in the training set, and get converted F0 contours of Lanzhou dialect speech by GMM conversion parameter. Using the converted Lanzhou dlialect F0 contours, we can generate high quality Lanzhou dlialect speech by STRAIGHT algorithm. Subjective experiments demonstrated that the generated speech achieve 4.06 of the average mean opinion score(MOS).
Whims of an Accreting Young Brown Dwarf: Exploring the Emission-Line Variability of 2MASSW J1207334–393254

We report the first comprehensive study of emission-line variability in an accreting young brown dwarf. We have collected 14 high-resolution optical spectra of 2MASSW J1207334-393254 (M8), a likely member of the nearby 8 million year old TW Hydrae association with a recently identified planetary mass companion, in three observing runs between 2005 January-March on the Magellan Clay telescope. These spectra show a variety of emission lines that are commonly seen in classical T Tauri stars. The Hα line, in particular, shows dramatic changes in shape and intensity in our data set, on timescales of both several weeks and several hours. In spectra from late January, the line is relatively weak and only slightly asymmetric. Spectra from mid and late March show intense, broad (10% width ~280 km s-1), and asymmetric Hα emission, indicative of ongoing disk accretion. Based on empirical diagnostics, we estimate that the accretion rate could have changed by a factor of 5-10 over ~6 weeks in this brown dwarf, which may be in the final stages of accreting from its disk. March spectra also reveal significant "quasi-periodic" changes in the Hα line profile over the course of a night, from clearly double-peaked to nearly symmetric. These nightly profile changes, roughly consistent with the brown dwarf's rotation period, could be the result of a redshifted absorption feature coming into and out of our line of sight; when the profile is double-peaked we may be looking into an accretion column, flowing from the inner disk edge-on to the central object, indicating that the accretion is probably channeled along the magnetic field lines. Our findings provide strong support for the magnetospheric accretion scenario, and thus for the existence of large-scale magnetic fields, in the substellar regime. We also present the first high-resolution optical spectrum of SSSPM J1102-3431 (M8.5), which has recently been identified as another likely substellar member of the TW Hydrae association. Its emission lines are relatively narrow and fairly symmetric, suggesting that it is accreting only very weakly, if at all.
Poster : Save our passwords

Passwords, despite the problems they entail in terms of security, are widely used for user authentication towards web services, mail boxes, etc. [1] They are often used improperly: • users often use short and easy to remember passwords • the same password is used for different services • passwords are stored in unsafe locations (on the computer) or are written down on paper Many services use Transport Layer Security (TLS) [2], providing confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity, to secure the communication between the user’s host and the service provider’s server, thus securing passwords during transmission. Even if using secure transmissions, passwords are still unprotected on the user’s host. This host may be compromised, i.e. controlled by an attacker (due to malware infections or other reasons). Techniques like certificate-based client authentication as part of the TLS handshake—with the private key stored on the user’s smartcard—solve the problem, but they are not popular in practice as they mostly entail changes on the server side. Few service providers offer such functionality.
A Multimodal Biometric System Using Fingerprint and Face

Biometric identification system, which uses physical or behavioral features to check a person's identity, ensures much greater security than passwords and number systems. Biometric features such as face or fingerprint can be stored on a microchip in credit card, for example. A single feature, however, sometimes fails to be exact enough to identification. Another disadvantage of using only one feature is that the chosen feature is not always readable; a multi-modal identification that uses two different features face, and fingerprint to identify people. With its two modalities, this achieves much greater accuracy than single-feature systems. Even if one modality is somehow disturbed, the ether one modality still leads to an accurate identification. This article goes into detail about the use of face and fingerprint modalities for identification.
Trajectory Planning of Motile Cell for Microrobotic Applications

Our goal is to use motile microorganisms as smart microscale robots for a variety of applications. As a first step, we have achieved microrobotic control of Paramecium cell movement using galvanotaxis (locomotor response to electrical stimulus). Previous studies based on simple empirical rules that did not consider cell dynamics had only limited control. To control cells more precisely as microrobots, we must deal with Paramecium cells in the standard robotics framework. This paper is, to our knowledge, the first attempt in trajectory planning of Paramecium cells under an electric field using a dynamics model for microrobotic applications. Based on the original dynamics model, we propose trajectory planning for cells using a common well-known Lyapunov-like approach and generate cusp-free trajectories. We discuss how to generate stable streamlined trajectories for living cells in a step toward actual control. Numerical experiments demonstrate the successful stable convergence of cell trajectories to the desired location and attitude, which should prove useful in the advanced guidance of cells.
Optimum beamforming in the broadcasting phase of bidirectional cooperative communication with multiple decode-and-forward relays

This letter focuses on the broadcasting phase of bidirectional cooperative networks with multiple decode-and-forward relays. In this phase, the relays first combine the information-bearing symbols transmitted by the sources, and then broadcast them back to the sources in order to achieve bidirectional communications. Two different combining methods at the relays are considered. The first one is that the relays transmit linear combinations of the information-bearing symbols to the sources by beamforming. We develop an algorithm that can compute the optimum beamforming vector in closed form and this beamforming vector minimizes the outage probability of the bidirectional cooperative network. The second method is that the relays combine the information-bearing symbols by exclusive-or and then transmit them to the sources by beamforming. For this case, we show that the instantaneous signal-to-noise ratios at the sources depend on the values of the information-bearing symbols. Based on, the optimum beamforming vector is computed and it minimizes an upper bound of the outage probability of the bidirectional cooperative network.
Binning Optimization for Transparently-Latched Circuits

With increasing process variation, binning has become an important technique to improve the values of fabricated chips, especially in high performance microprocessors where transparent latches are widely used. In this paper, we formulate and solve the binning optimization problem that decides the bin boundaries and their testing order to maximize the profit (considering the test cost) for a transparently-latched circuit. The problem is decomposed into four sub-problems. First, to compute the clock period distribution of the transparently-latched circuit, a sample-based statistical static timing analysis (SSTA) approach is developed which is based on the generalized stochastic collocation method with the sparse grid technique. The minimal clock period on each sample point is found by solving a minimal cycle ratio problem in the constraint graph. Second, a greedy method is proposed to maximize profit considering both the sales revenue and the test cost by iteratively assigning each boundary to its optimal position. Third, an optimal algorithm of O(n log n) runtime is used to generate the optimal testing order to minimize the test cost, based on alphabetic tree. Last, a simple approach is presented to decide the optimal number of bins, which helps to complete the whole binning scheme with maximal profit. Experiments on all the ISCAS'89 sequential benchmarks with 65 nm technology show 10.68% profit improvement in average. Some comparisons with other methods suggest the advantage of our method. The results also demonstrate that the proposed SSTA method achieves an error of 0.70% and speedup of 110X in average compared with the Monte Carlo simulation.
A theory of change for student-led academic integrity

Abstract Breaches in academic integrity are a pervasive and enduring international concern to the overall quality of higher education. Despite students being the group most affected by academic integrity policies, organisational culture is such that students tend to be passive recipients of change initiatives, rather than the drivers. To deliver a paradigm change, a theory of change framework was designed, implemented and applied to explore the viability of a student-led academic integrity society. To achieve this, a national research project involving three stages of data collection (surveys, interviews and focus groups) was conducted to obtain the perspectives of students and student representatives. The key outcome of the project has been the recent launch of an academic integrity student society, a novel initiative outside the United States of America. The theory of change framework presented here seeks to offer guidance to other institutions contemplating the viability of student-led change to academic integrity and the establishment of academic integrity student societies, in particular.
Complexity can enhance stability in competitive systems

Empirical observations often indicate that complexity enhances stability, while most theoretical studies, such as May’s (1972) classic paper, point to the opposite. Despite the wide generality of these latter theoretical analyses, our examination of the well-known competitive Lotka–Volterra system reveals that increasing complexity (measured in terms of connectance) can enhance species coexistence and persistence in model communities (measured in terms of their feasibility and stability). The high feasibility and stability found for tightly interconnected competitive subsystems might provide an explanation for the clumped structure in food webs.