Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Social facilitation and human – computer interaction q

0747-5632/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier Lt doi:10.1016/j.chb. 2008.05. 003 q This project was completed as a thesis by the fi * Corresponding author. Tel. : +1 815 753 7012. E-mail address: tm0dxh1@wpo.cso. niu.edu (D.D The Computers As Social Actors (CASA) research paradigm has examined how individuals respond to computers programmed to interact in various ways. In the current research, we extend the principles of CASA to determine whether computer icons can be used to produce social facilitation effects. Varying task difficulty and the presence or absence of a computer icon (i.e., Microsoft word’s Clip), performance on a typing task is considered. Overall, results provide some support for the contention that the mere presence of a computer icon may influence task performance. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
THE DYNAMICS OF FINANCIAL MARKETS - MANDELBROT'S MULTIFRACTAL CASCADES, AND BEYOND

This is a short review in honor of B. Mandelbrot's 80st birthday, to appear in W ilmott magazine. We discuss how multiplicative cascades and related multifractal ideas might be relevant to model the main statistical features of financial time series, in particular the intermittent, long-memory nature of the volatility. We describe in details the Bacry-Muzy-Delour multifractal random walk. We point out some inadequacies of the current models, in particular concerning time reversal symmetry, and propose an alternative family of multi-timescale models, intermediate between GARCH models and multifractal models, that seem quite promising.
Ensemble clustering in medical diagnostics

Ensemble techniques have been successfully applied in the context of supervised learning to increase the accuracy and stability of classification. Recently, analogous techniques for cluster analysis have been suggested. Research has demonstrated that, by combining a collection of dissimilar clusterings, an improved solution can be obtained. In this paper, we examine the potential of applying ensemble clustering techniques with a focus on the area of medical diagnostics. We present several ensemble generation and integration strategies, and evaluate each approach on a number of synthetic and real-world datasets. In addition, we show that diversity among ensemble members is necessary, but not sufficient to yield an improved solution without the selection of an appropriate integration method.
Reproduction and seedling establishment of Picea glauca across the northernmost forest‐tundra region in Canada

The northern boundary of boreal forest and the ranges of tree species are expected to shift northward in response to climate warming, which will result in a decrease in the albedo of areas currently covered by tundra vegetation, an increase in terrestrial carbon sequestration, and an alteration of biodiversity in the current Low Arctic. Central to the prediction of forest expansion is an increase in the reproductive capacity and establishment of individual trees. We assessed cone production, seed viability, and transplanted seedling success of Picea glauca (Moench.) Voss. (white spruce) in the early 1990s and again in the late 2000s at four forest stand sites and eight tree island sites (clonal populations beyond present treeline) in the Mackenzie Delta region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. Over the past 20 years, average temperatures in this region have increased by 0.9 °C. This area has the northernmost forest‐tundra ecotone in North America and is one of the few circumpolar regions where the northern limit of conifer trees reaches the Arctic Ocean. We found that cone production and seed viability did not change between the two periods of examination and that both variables decreased northward across the forest‐tundra ecotone. Nevertheless, white spruce individuals at the northern limit of the forest‐tundra ecotone produced viable seeds. Furthermore, transplanted seedlings were able to survive in the northernmost sites for 15 years, but there were no signs of natural regeneration. These results indicate that if climatic conditions continue to ameliorate, reproductive output will likely increase, but seedling establishment and forest expansion within the forest‐tundra of this region is unlikely to occur without the availability of suitable recruitment sites. Processes that affect the availability of recruitment sites are likely to be important elsewhere in the circumpolar ecotone, and should be incorporated into models and predictions of climate change and its effects on the northern forest‐tundra ecotone.
A Survey of Privacy and Security Issues in Social Networks

Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have gained more popularity in recent years. Because of its large user base, and large amount of information, they become a potential channel for attackers to exploit. Many social networking sites try to prevent those exploitations, but many attackers are still able to overcome those security countermeasures by using different techniques. Social network users may not be aware of such threats. Therefore, this paper will present a survey on different privacy and security issues in online social networks. The issues include privacy issues, identity theft, social networks spam, social networks malware, and physical threats. Social network privacy issues, social network security issues, social network threats, identity Theft, social network spam, social network malware, Facebook worms, Twitter Worms.
Off-the-record communication, or, why not to use PGP

Quite often on the Internet, cryptography is used to protect private, personal communications. However, most commonly, systems such as PGP are used, which use long-lived encryption keys (subject to compromise) for confidentiality, and digital signatures (which provide strong, and in some jurisdictions, legal, proof of authorship) for authenticity. In this paper, we argue that most social communications online should have just the opposite of the above two properties; namely, they should have <i>perfect forward secrecy</i> and <i>repudiability</i>. We present a protocol for secure online communication, called "off-the-record messaging", which has properties better-suited for casual conversation than do systems like PGP or S/MIME. We also present an implementation of off-the-record messaging as a plugin to the Linux GAIM instant messaging client. Finally, we discuss how to achieve similar privacy for high-latency communications such as email.
A review of the relationships between mindfulness, stress, coping styles and substance use among university students

Adaptive coping and self-regulation are critical for students' academic and professional development. Mindfulness meditation and mindfulness based programs present a promising option for those wishing to reduce stress and anxiety levels, improve self-regulation and coping strategies and or reduce the need for substance use. This paper sought to review the literature concerning the relationship mindfulness has with stress, coping styles and substance use in student populations. Proposed models and mechanisms of mindfulness are initially considered and reperceiving is identified as a prime mechanism through which mindfulness operates. Studies concerning stress reduction in student populations through mindfulness based programs are considered and a theoretical account of how mindfulness is believed to reduce stress and anxiety is provided. Mindfulness and its association with different coping strategies and styles is considered and it was found higher mindfulness predicts the use of more adaptive, approach coping and less avoidant and emotional coping. Further, mindfulness was found to assist with students wishing to reduce their alcohol and or tobacco use. These findings, along with the myriad of other physical and psychological health benefits present mindfulness as an effective way for students to alleviate stress, improve coping styles and reduce substance use. Researcher: Christopher D. Thomas Supervisors: Dr David Ryder
Verotoxins in Bovine and Meat Verotoxin-Producing Escherichia coli Isolates: Type, Number of Variants, and Relationship to Cytotoxicity

ABSTRACT In this study, we determined vt subtypes and evaluated verotoxicity in basal as well as induced conditions of verotoxin-producing Escherichia coli (VTEC) strains isolated from cattle and meat products. Most (87%) of the 186 isolates carried a vt 2 gene. Moreover, the vt 2 subtype, which is associated with serious disease, was present in 42% of our VTEC collection. The other vt subtypes detected were vt 1, vt 1d, vt 2vha, vt 2vhb, vt 2O118, vt 2d (mucus activatable), and vt 2g. A total of 41 (22%) of the isolates possessed more than one vt subtype in its genome, and among them the most frequent combination was vt 1/vt 2, but we also observed multiple combinations among vt 2 subtypes. Differences in verotoxicity titers were found among a selection of 54 isolates. Among isolates with a single vt 2 variant, those carrying the vt 2 subtype had high titers under both uninduced and induced conditions. However, the highest increase in cytotoxicity under mitomycin C treatment was detected among the strains carrying vt 2vha or vt 2hb variants. Notably, the isolates carrying the vt 1 subtype showed a lesser increase than that of most of the vt 2-positive VTEC strains. Furthermore, the presence of more than one vt gene variant in the same isolate was not reflected in higher titers, and generally the titers were lower than those for strains with only one gene variant. The main observation was that both basal and induced cytotoxic effects seemed to be associated with the type and number of vt variants more than with the serotype or origin of the isolate.
Meta-Heuristic based Adaptation Engine for Cognitive Radio Systems

is a high level mental faculty of the brain that includes functions like adaptation, learning, deciding, and others. Accordingly, a Cognitive Radio must have capabilities that mimic such Cognitive functions. As one of the fundamental cognitive abilities of the radio, this paper proposes a novel adaptation method; which uses Real-coded Genetic Algorithms (RGA) to adapt physical layer radio parameters in response to varying environmental conditions and different user services. The adaptation method is applied in a single objective optimization setting - that's the minimization of BER. Minimum transmitted EIRP levels of the resulting solutions are achieved by using a special Power Limiting Algorithm (PLA) which increments the maximum transmitted allowable EIRP levels during the engine run, if it experienced a slow convergence towards the optimal required solution. Results have indicated the success of the engine in adapting the physical layer radio parameters in response to varying environmental conditions and different user services to minimize resulting link BER, with the minimum possible transmitted EIRP levels.
Reconfiguration and Capacitor Placement for Loss Reduction of Distribution Systems by Ant Colony Search Algorithm

This paper aims to study distribution system operations by the ant colony search algorithm (ACSA). The objective of this study is to present new algorithms for solving the optimal feeder reconfiguration problem, the optimal capacitor placement problem, and the problem of a combination of the two. The ACSA is a relatively new and powerful swarm intelligence method for solving optimization problems. It is a population-based approach that uses exploration of positive feedback as well as ldquogreedyrdquo search. The ACSA was inspired from the natural behavior of ants in locating food sources and bring them back to their colony by the formation of unique trails. Therefore, through a collection of cooperative agents called ldquoants,rdquo the near-optimal solution to the feeder reconfiguration and capacitor placement problems can be effectively achieved. In addition, the ACSA applies the state transition, local pheromone-updating, and global pheromone-updating rules to facilitate the computation. Through simultaneous operation of population agents, process stagnation can be effectively prevented. Optimization capability can be significantly enhanced. The proposed approach is demonstrated using two example systems from the literature. Computational results show that simultaneously taking into account both feeder reconfiguration and capacitor placement is more effective than considering them separately.
Dynamic Task Mapping with Congestion Speculation for Reconfigurable Network-on-Chip

Network-on-Chip (NoC) has been proposed as a promising communication architecture to replace the dedicated interconnections and shared buses for future embedded system platforms. In such a parallel platform, mapping application tasks to the NoC is a key issue because it affects throughput significantly due to the problem of communication congestion. Increased communication latency, low system performance, and low resource utilization are some side-effects of a bad mapping. Current mapping algorithms either do not consider link utilizations or consider only the current utilizations. Besides, to design an efficient NoC platform, mapping task to computation nodes and scheduling communication should be taken into consideration. In this work, we propose an efficient algorithm for dynamic task mapping with congestion speculation (DTMCS) that not only includes the conventional application mapping, but also further considers future traffic patterns based on the link utilization. The proposed algorithm can reduce overall congestion, instead of only improving the current packet blocking situation. Our experiment results have demonstrated that compared to the state-of-the-art congestion-aware Path Load algorithm, the proposed DTMCS algorithm can reduce up to 40.5% of average communication latency, while the maximal communication latency can be reduced by up to 67.7%.
The Super-Turing Computational Power of plastic Recurrent Neural Networks

We study the computational capabilities of a biologically inspired neural model where the synaptic weights, the connectivity pattern, and the number of neurons can evolve over time rather than stay static. Our study focuses on the mere concept of plasticity of the model so that the nature of the updates is assumed to be not constrained. In this context, we show that the so-called plastic recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are capable of the precise super-Turing computational power--as the static analog neural networks--irrespective of whether their synaptic weights are modeled by rational or real numbers, and moreover, irrespective of whether their patterns of plasticity are restricted to bi-valued updates or expressed by any other more general form of updating. Consequently, the incorporation of only bi-valued plastic capabilities in a basic model of RNNs suffices to break the Turing barrier and achieve the super-Turing level of computation. The consideration of more general mechanisms of architectural plasticity or of real synaptic weights does not further increase the capabilities of the networks. These results support the claim that the general mechanism of plasticity is crucially involved in the computational and dynamical capabilities of biological neural networks. They further show that the super-Turing level of computation reflects in a suitable way the capabilities of brain-like models of computation.
Cognitive Control in Cued Task Switching with Transition Cues: Cue Processing, Task Processing, and Cue–Task Transition Congruency

We investigated the processes underlying performance during cued task switching with transition cues. To this end, transition cueing and explicit cueing were compared in a design controlling for sequential effects in the two preceding trials in order to further examine the contribution of cue processes, task processes, and cue–task transition congruency during transition cueing. The study confirmed that the task-switch cost in transition cueing is larger than the task-switch cost in explicit cueing and showed that this larger switch cost is mainly due to cue processing. We also successfully decomposed performance in transition cueing into cue processing, task processing, and cue–task transition congruency on both a theoretical (Experiment 1) and an empirical basis (Experiments 2–3). Our empirical dissociation also demonstrates that cue–task transition congruency affects performance during both cue processing and task processing. We discuss the importance of our findings in relation to the different theories on task switching.
Numerical wave propagation in an advection equation with a nonlinear source term

The Cauchy and initial boundary value problems are studied for a linear advection equation with a nonlinear source term. The source term is chosen to have two equilibrium states, one unstable and the other stable as solutions of the underlying characteristic equation. The true solutions exhibit travelling waves which propagate from one equilibrium to another. The speed of propagation is dependent on the rate of decay of the initial data at infinity A class of monotone explicit finite-difference schemes are proposed and analysed; the schemes are upwind in space for the advection term with some freedom of choice for the evaluation of the nonlinear source term. Convergence of the schemes is demonstrated and the existence of numerical waves, mimicking the travelling waves in the underlying equation, is proved. The convergence of the numerical wave-speeds to the true wave-speeds is also established. The behaviour of the scheme is studied when the monotonicity criteria are violated due to stiff source terms, an.
Catalytic activities of recA protein are dependent on the lattice length of the single-strand DNA ligand

recA protein (RecA) performs diverse catalytic activities that require a complex with single-stranded DNA and an NTP. A subset of these functions shows optimal activity at a high DNA/protein ratio and requires NTP hydrolysis, whereas other catalytic activities are optimal in RecA-saturated complexes that require NTP, but do not hydrolyze it. To analyze the mechanism of catalytic discrimination, we investigated the properties of RecA bound to small oligonucleotides (oligos) of defined sizes. We show that RecA bound to (dT)16 is optimal for co-protease activity and not active as ATPase whereas the complex with (dT)24 is competent in ATP hydrolysis but impaired as a co-protease. Thermodynamic measurements of the equilibrium-binding properties of these complexes showed that (dT)24 promoted a more salt sensitive complex than the one formed with (dT)16, indicating more ionic interactions between RecA and DNA in the former. X-ray pictures show that the oligo complexes form helixes. We propose that RecA may change its conformation as a function of the number of phosphates available to the monomer in the interacting DNA lattice, thus promoting an allosteric change in catalytic activities. This model offers explanations for the observed inhibition of co-protease activity by excess ssDNA.
Three-Phase Z-Source AC-AC Converter for Motor Drives

This paper presents a Z-source ac-ac converter system and control for general-purpose motor drives. The Z-source ac-ac converter system employs a unique LC network to suppress the over-current and surge voltage due to the shoot-through or the open-circuit of the two switches. By controlling the duty cycle, the Z-source can provide buck-boost function, produce greater or less voltage than the line voltage. As a result, the new Z-source ac-ac converter system provides ride-through capability under voltage sags, reduces line harmonics, and improves power factor and reliability. Analysis, simulation and experimental results will be presented to demonstrate these new features
A Model of Inequality and Interest Group Politics

In this paper we examine inequality of process and inequality of outcomes in interest group politics. The model has interest groups that compete for rents in a non-cooperative game. It allows for a self-interested rent-setting political decision-maker, and democratic or popular pressure as a check on that self-interest. We consider differences in the effectiveness and pre-commitment abilities of interest groups. We show that: (i) the costs of influence activities may be highest when groups are relatively equal in their effectiveness; (ii) if social welfare incorporates enough concern for equity of outcomes, that ranking is reversed; (iii) depending on voter responsiveness to rent-setting, the political decision-maker may set rents to be higher or lower, when increases in inequality of effectiveness lower the unit costs of rent-seeking. Copyright 2001 Royal Statistical Society.
Conversion of decision tables to computer programs by rule mask techniques

The rule mask technique is one method of converting limited entry decision tables to computer programs. Recent discussion suggests that in many circumstances it is to be preferred to the technique of constructing networks or trees. A drawback of the technique as hitherto presented is its liability to produce object programs of longer run time than necessary. In this paper a modification of the technique is discussed which takes into account both rule frequencies and the relative times for evaluating conditions. This can materially improve object program run time.
Review on retrofit G4 LED lamps: Technology, challenges, and future trends

G4 LED lamps have difficulties to reach high lumen output within the required small form factor. Current technology used in G4 LED lamps was at first reviewed by analysis of 7 current commercialized products. Theoretical limitation was calculated under different design strategy scenarios. Furthermore, a detailed analysis of driver systems were carried out under thermal infrared imager. It has been found that schottky diodes and capacitors are main challenges for drivers. Since current electrolytic capacitors are bulky and not reliable enough, novel capacitor technologies were further analyzed. Finally, a G4 LED prototype based on wafer level packaging were introduced. The prototype was fabricated in 2D and folded to 3D, in order to save space. All processes related are CMOS compatible. Planar rectifier consists of four schottky diodes which were fabricated separately are compatible for monolithic integration on such foldable substrate. With such technology, it is possible to integrate LED drivers, micro channels for heat dissipation, or other silicon based technologies by CMOS processing, together with the flexible hinges, in order to have a G4 LED package with high lumen output and small form factor.