Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The design and styling of technology-based innovations: theory and practical cases

This paper addresses the design and styling of future products that are based on innovative technologies. So how should a future electric personal mobility device look like? Or how will an electric vehicle charging station look and work with integrated photovoltaic solar cells? In general we wonder how we can create such designs that people are willing to incorporate new technologies in their daily lives. Because the way that new technologies are embodied in tangible products can have a lot of influence on the perception and adaptation of innovative technologybased products by the intended users. In this paper we propose guidance for the contemporary designer, in order to improve and facilitate the acceptance and domestication of such new technology. At least three complementing design principles play a role in this process; level of complexity, the combination of novelty and typicality, and the framing of meanings with associations and metaphors. This combination of design theories, called “innovative design & styling”, was implemented and tested within an IDE students’ master course “Sources of Innovation”. The initial results that we present here, show that the explicit application of the three design principles had a positive effect on the quality of the proposed design concepts
The Exploration of the Relationship between Participation in Organized Activity and Cross-Group Friendships

Cross-group friendship is an important element in regard to reducing prejudice and increasing positive interracial interactions among young adults. In order to facilitate the formation of cross-group friendships, organized activity participation (e.g., community service and school-based extracurricular activities) may provide an environment that supports positive cross-cultural interactions and contacts. The sample used for this study consisted of 601 college students. We tested whether participation in an organized activity contributes to the formation of cross-group friendships. The results of this study indicate that community service and school-based extracurricular activities significantly contribute to the formation of cross-group friendships among young adults. The findings also suggest that a variety of organized activities should be developed and implemented to facilitate cross-group friendships. We also discuss the practical implications of these findings.
, “ Metastable gravitons and infinite volume extra dimensions , ” hep-th / 0002190 and

In the framework of a five-dimensional three-brane model with quasi-localized gravitons we evaluate metric perturbations induced on the positive tension brane by matter residing thereon. We find that at intermediate distances, the effective four-dimensional theory coincides, up to small corrections, with General Relativity. This is in accord with Csaki, Erlich and Hollowood and in contrast to Dvali, Gabadadze and Porrati. We show, however, that at ultralarge distances this effective four-dimensional theory becomes dramatically different: conventional tensor gravity changes into scalar anti-gravity.
5. Probability Multiplication as a New Principle in Psychophysics

One of Martin Regan’s most interesting, but little tested, ideas has been to generalize the mechanism of the Reichardt detector of motion to spatial vision, in the form of a hypothetical “Coincidence Detector” (Morgan and Regan, 1987; Regan, 2000; Regan and Beverley, 1985). The Reichardt detector (Hassenstein and Reichardt, 1956; Reichardt, 1961; van Santen and Sperling, 1985) works by multiplying the signal from two different spatial detectors, with a delay to one of them. In its full opponent version, the outputs of two such detectors, tuned to opposite directions, are subtracted (figure 5.1). A useful consequence of opponency (discussed at length by Regan in his 2000 book Human Perception of Objects) is contrast independence. Changes in contrast of a stationary stimulus over time (flicker) will not be confoundedwith movement of the stimulus. The same idea can be applied to a coincidence detector for spatial hyperacuity (figure 5.2). Changes of only a few arcsec in separation of two lines or dots can be reliably detected by observers making the decision whether the test stimulus is “wider” or “narrower” than a standard stimulus. Observers do not confound changes in separation with changes in contrast of the component lines (Morgan and Regan, 1987). The same is true of vernier acuity. Opponent pairs of coincidence detectors can account for this independence of spatial decisions from target contrast. In this chapter, we consider psychophysical evidence for opponent Reichardt detectors and coincidence detectors more generally. We begin with motion. Compelling evidence for a multiplication stage in coincidence detection comes from the “amplification effect” (van Santen and Sperling, 1984). The contrast required to detect the direction of movement of a low-contrast, drifting sinusoidal grating is lowered if it is superimposed upon a stationary, flickering grating of the same spatial and temporal frequency. In the case of sampled motion, with a 90◦ phase shift between frames, such
Measuring Land Development in Urban Regions using Graph Theoretical Features

Inferring land use from satellite images is studied extensively. In previous studies, the focus was on classifying large regions due to the resolution of available satellite images. Nowadays, very high resolution satellite imagery (Ikonos and Quickbird) allow researchers to focus on more complex land use problems such as monitoring development in urban regions. Solutions to these complex problems may improve life standards of city residents. To this end, we focus on automatically monitoring construction zones using their very high resolution panchromatic satellite images through time. To monitor land development, we obtain sequential images of a selected region. Then, we extract features from each image in the sequence. Comparing values of these features, we expect to measure the degree of land development through time. Here, we introduce four new graph theoretical features to the existing ones. We test all our existing and new features to measure land development in 19 different urban construction zones. Our test set consists of Ikonos satellite images of these regions imaged in separate times.
Isolated Assamese Speech Recognition using Artificial Neural Network

This paper depicts a way of speech recognition of Assamese Isolated words in both speaker dependent and speaker independent cases by taking the parameters Zero Crossing Rate (ZCR), Short Time Energy (STE), and Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) that are extracted from the utterances of the Assamese words. The system builds with training phase, testing phase and the recognition phase. In the database, there consists of utterances of 100(hundred) frequently used Assamese isolated words whose syllable varies from 1 to 5 (monosyllabic to pentasyllabic) of 20(twenty) numbers of Assamese speakers with the same number of male and female ten speakers each, where each isolated word is spoken by twenty times by every speaker. The recognition/accuracy rate is high in each scenario. For speaker dependent speech recognition, we have got about 99% recognition rate, and in case of speaker independent speech recognition we have achieved 93 % recognition rate.
Biologically Inspired Anomaly Detection and Security Control Frameworks for Complex Heterogeneous Networks

The demand for anytime, anywhere, anyhow communications in future generation networks necessitates a paradigm shift from independent network services into a more harmonized system. This vision can be accomplished by integrating the existing and emerging access networks via a common Internet Protocol (IP) based platform. Nevertheless, owing to the inter-worked infrastructure, a malicious security threat in such a heterogeneous network is no more confined to its originating network domain, but can easily be propagated to other access networks. To address these security concerns, this paper proposes a biologically inspired security framework that governs the cooperation among network entities to identify security attacks, to perform security updates, and to inhibit attacks propagation in the heterogeneous network. The proposed framework incorporates two principal security components, in the form of anomaly detection framework and security control framework. Several plausible principles from two fields of biology, in particular the human immune system (HIS) and epidemiology have been adopted into the proposed security framework. Performance evaluation demonstrates the efficiency of the proposed biologically inspired security framework in detecting malicious anomalies such as denial-of-service (DoS), distributed DoS (DDoS), and worms, as well as restricting their propagations in the heterogeneous network.
Network Assessor: an automated method for quantitative assessment of a network's potential for gene function prediction

Significant effort has been invested in network-based gene function prediction algorithms based on the guilt by association (GBA) principle. Existing approaches for assessing prediction performance typically compute evaluation metrics, either averaged across all functions being considered, or strictly from properties of the network. Since the success of GBA algorithms depends on the specific function being predicted, evaluation metrics should instead be computed for each function. We describe a novel method for computing the usefulness of a network by measuring its impact on gene function cross validation prediction performance across all gene functions. We have implemented this in software called Network Assessor, and describe its use in the GeneMANIA (GM) quality control system. Network Assessor is part of the GM command line tools.
Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm with Adaptive Threshold Mutation

Aiming at the phenomenon of premature convergence and later period oscillatory occurrences, an adaptive particle swarm optimization algorithm with the changes of the population diversity was proposed. In the algorithm, the adaptive exponent decreasing inertia weight and a dynamic adaptive changing threshold were proposed, the satisfied particle of threshold will be mutation by the average distance of particle. Adaptive adjustment of the threshold and the mutation can enhance the algorithm escape from local optima. The results show that the new algorithm of the global search capability has been improved, effectively avoid the premature convergence and later period oscillatory occurrences.
Involvement of Technical Reasoning More Than Functional Knowledge in Development of Tool Use in Childhood

It is well-known that even toddlers are able to manipulate tools in an appropriate manner according to their physical properties. The ability of children to make novel tools in order to solve problems is, however, surprisingly limited. In adults, mechanical problem solving (MPS) has been proposed to be supported by “technical reasoning skills,” which are thought to be involved in every situation requiring the use of a tool (whether conventional or unusual). The aim of this study was to investigate the typical development of real tool use (RTU) skills and its link with technical reasoning abilities in healthy children. Three experimental tasks were adapted from those used with adults: MPS (three different apparatus), RTU (10 familiar tool-object pairs), and functional knowledge (FK; 10 functional picture matching with familiar tools previously used). The tasks were administered to 85 healthy children divided into six age groups (from 6 to 14 years of age). The results revealed that RTU (p = 0.01) and MPS skills improve with age, even if this improvement differs according to the apparatus for the latter (p < 0.01 for the Hook task and p < 0.05 for the Sloping task). Results also showed that MPS is a better predictor of RTU than FK, with a significant and greater weight (importance weight: 0.65; Estimate ± Standard Error: 0.27 ± 0.08). Ours findings suggest that RTU and technical reasoning develop jointly in children, independently from development of FK. In addition, technical reasoning appears partially operative from the age of six onward, even though the outcome of these skills depends of the context in which they are applied (i.e., the type of apparatus).
Triple Tagging : Toward Bridging Folksonomy and Semantic Web

Collaborative tagging is increasingly drawing attention a s a promising source of taxonomic information; it is often referred to as folksonomy. A tag is information that is added to a resource (such as pictur es, a web page, or blog entries); a tag can be represented as an RDF statement. H owever, no explicit study has been undertaken to bridge the gap between an not ted tags and RDF statements. This paper proposes a model to represent tag i formation using RDF statements. Particularly, we give an incremental exten sion path from keyword tagging, which we call single-tagging, to relational tagging, which we call double-tagging, finally to subject-predicate-object tagging called triple-tagging, which (theoretically) corresponds to RDF statements. We bu ild a new tagging system called LegoNote as the first triple-tagging system, a nd report some preliminary experiments. Our work will clarify the natural dir ection from the current tagging system and provide insights to realize a full Semant ic Web vision.
Genetic Algorithms A Self Adaptive Hybrid Genetic Algorithm

This paper presents a self-adaptive hybrid genetic algorithm (SAHGA) and compares its performance to a non-adaptive hybrid genetic algorithm (NAHGA) and the simple genetic algorithm (SGA) on two multi-modal test functions with complex geometry. The SAHGA is shown to be far more robust than the NAHGA, providing fast and reliable convergence across a broad range of parameter settings. For the most complex test function, the SAHGA required over 75% fewer function evaluations than the SGA to identify the optimal solution at a 99% reliability level.
Performance evaluation of host-based mobility management schemes in the internet

The literature lacks theoretical and practical evaluations of Distributed Mobility Management (DMM) schemes which aim to mitigate disadvantages of conventional centralized schemes such as a single point of failure, congestion in home network, and limited scalability. This paper selects Global HAHA, Migrating HA, and Distributed Mobile IP (DMIP) as representative host-based decentralized Internet Mobility Management (MM) schemes, and probes their control and data planes against Mobile IP (MIP) and MIP with Return Routability procedure (MIPRR), using real Autonomous System (AS) level topology data of the Internet. By using different combinations of MM Agent (MMA) placements, random sessions are investigated for host mobility in terms of the total number of hops and the AS load. Comparison of generic results shows that DMIP and Migrating HA outperform the legacy schemes. Further, DMIP overcomes consistency maintenance and scalability problems seen in Migrating HA, maintaining much similar performance, while achieving reliability eliminating an expensive controlling overhead as in MIPRR.
"Die Bereitschaft in den Köpfen ist da" – Einstellungen und Selbstwirksamkeit von Lehrkräften auf dem Weg zur Inklusiven Schule

1 Einleitung Seit im Jahr 2009 die deutsche Bundesregierung die UN-Behindertenrechtskonvention über die Rechte von Menschen mit Behinderungen ratifiziert hat, haben alle Kindereinen Anspruch darauf, in einer Regelschule unterrichtet zu werden. Die Forderung nach Inklusion – und damit verbunden deren rechtliche Ausgestaltung sowie ihre kommunale Umsetzung – kann somit als wesentlicher Paradigmenwechsel in der Bildungspolitik verstanden werden. Diese Forderung löst aufgrund der damit verbundenen Veränderungen im pädagogischen Handeln und der Gestaltung von Bildungsorganisationen oft Unsicherheit auf allen Seiten aus (bei Kinder und Eltern, Schulleitungen sowie der Lehrund Fachkräfte) (Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1996). So stellt der Wandel zur Inklusiven Schule vor allem erhöhte Anforderungen an die in den Schulen beschäftigten Lehrkräfte. Da diese einen wesentlichen Beitrag dazu leisten, die kommende Generation auszubilden, zu betreuen und zu erziehen, ist es wichtig, dass diese den Wechsel hin zur Inklusiven Schule mittragen und eine inklusive Pädagogik praktizieren. Aktuell ist allerdings unklar, inwiefern Lehrkräfte in Schulen darauf vorbereitet sind, den Bedürfnissen von Kindern mit (sonderpädagogischem) Förderbedarf (KmFB) zu entsprechen und einen inklusiven Schullalltag zu gestalten. Das allgemeine Lehramtsstudium bildet beispielsweise bislang nicht gesondert dafür aus, den verschiedenen Bedürfnissen dieser Kinder gerecht zu werden (Sliwka, 2010). Viele Förderschullehrkräfte wurden zwar speziell für deren Förderung und Begleitung ausgebildet, finden sich aber an der Regelschule in einem veränderten Arbeitsumfeld wieder. Lehrkräfte sind, unabhängig ihres spezifischen Abschlusses, Schlüsselfiguren im Leben und in der Ausbildung von Kindern (Ingersoll, 2003). Durch stets steigende Anforderungen und einem schnellen Wandel in ihrer Arbeitswelt, besteht die Gefahr zunehmender Belastung oder steigender Arbeitsunzufriedenheit (die sich etwa in psychischen Syndromen wie dem „Burnout“ zeigen kann). Letztendlich könnte dies die Qualität der
Long-Term Memory in Realized Volatility: Evidence from Chinese Stock Market

In this paper, we examine the long-term memory in realized volatility with different time scales based on high frequency data of Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index (SSECI). We choose R/S analysis method to calculate Hurst exponents of long-term memory, and use ARFIMA model to estimate and forecast. Our results show that long-term memory in realized volatility becomes strong as time scales increases. We also found that the realized volatility is best measured and forecasted by one-minute interval.
Performance Comparison of TCP, UDP, and TFRC in Wired Networks

Internet has to support applications with different requirements. Reliability is the essential requirement for file transfer whereas delay and jitter are the essential requirements of streaming applications. All layers contribute to the successful operation of the Internet. But the layer which has direct impact on the user of the service is the transport layer. TCP is robust protocol tuned to wired networks and is used by many applications. High bandwidth applications like streaming video and on-line game playing are using UDP as the transport protocol. Use of UDP by these applications is considered as threat to the stability of the Internet. TCP friendly rate control (TFRC) is the transport protocol which provides smooth variation of throughput and which is suggested for streaming applications. TFRC is on the standardization process of Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). But before TFRC is accepted by the Internet community it has to be tested thoroughly both independently and also it's interoperation with TCP and UDP. This paper does the performance comparison of transport protocols TCP, UDP and TFRC. The results show that TFRC has to be fine-tuned before it is used in the Internet. NS-2.35 is used as Network simulator.
Colloki : Rethinking local conversations on the web

Local conversations online are an important means of building awareness and increasing participation amongst citizens. However, most local websites are restricted to using forums or collaborative blogs as the medium of conversation. We are designing ‘Colloki’, a local conversation system that aims to utilize a set of social and organizational features for a more effective conversational environment. In this paper we discuss our design and social features for colloki.
When do children generalize the plural to novel nouns?

Despite the theoretical importance of the processes of generalization to the development of morphological rules, not much is known about the basic developmental trend or the relevant processes. The present study seeks to answer the question: at what age are children able to generalize the plural to new nouns. In a six-week longitudinal study, children aged 17.5 to 28 months participated in a spontaneous production task in which they were either provided with the singular form of common and novel nouns and asked to generate the plural form, or given the plural form of those nouns and asked to generate the singular form. The results suggest that very young children do generalize the plural to novel forms. The data also strongly suggest that, long before a truly productive regular plural is evident, very young learners of English know that there is a singular and plural form, and they know how they are related.
One Array Detecting Method Based on Camera Applied in Obtaining Positions of Objects

Camera is demonstrated to be the basic image and video input device and it is widely used in many fields. One of its applications is to locate an object's position and various methods have created. High-capacity of RAM and rigorously required processing speed is necessary in these methods. Utilizing interrupters and counters to monitor the synchronizing pulse signals, changing its scanning model from "line scanning" to "column scanning" by artfully rotating the camera with 90°, an "array detector" is produced. By comparing the recorded line-counter number with the total scanning line number which is determined by the resolution of the camera, experiments have showed that this method can easily obtain an object's position information with an acceptable approximate accuracy and be applied in obtaining positions of objects.
The Cannabinoid CB1 Receptor Mediates Retrograde Signals for Depolarization-Induced Suppression of Inhibition in Cerebellar Purkinje Cells

Action potential firing or depolarization of the postsynaptic neuron can induce a transient suppression of inhibitory synaptic inputs to the depolarized neuron in the cerebellum and hippocampus. This phenomenon, termed depolarization-induced suppression of inhibition (DSI), is initiated postsynaptically by an elevation of intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) and is expressed presynaptically as a suppression of the transmitter release. It is, therefore, thought that some retrograde signal must exist from the depolarized postsynaptic neurons to the presynaptic terminals. Recent studies on hippocampal neurons have revealed that endogenous cannabinoids (endocannabinoids) play a key role as a retrograde messenger. There are, however, conflicting reports that glutamate may be a candidate retrograde messenger for cerebellar DSI that acts on presynaptic group II metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs). In this study, we examined whether endocannabinoids mediate retrograde signal for cerebellar DSI. We recorded IPSCs from Purkinje cells by stimulating putative basket cell axons in mouse cerebellar slices. DSI was readily induced in evoked IPSCs by a depolarizing pulse train. We found that DSI was completely occluded by a cannabinoid agonist, WIN55,212-2, was totally eliminated by a specific antagonist of the type 1 cannabinoid (CB1) receptor, SR141716A, and was deficient in the CB1 knock-out mouse. In contrast, a group II mGluR-specific agonist, (2S,2′R,3′R)-2-(2′,3′-dicarboxycyclopropyl)glycine, did not completely occlude DSI, and an mGluR antagonist, (RS)-α-methyl-4-carboxyphenylglycine, had no depressant effect on DSI. These results clearly indicate that the CB1 receptor mediates retrograde signal for DSI in cerebellar Purkinje cells.