Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficient image completion method based on alternating direction theory

This paper introduces a novel, efficient and accurate algorithm for solving the image completion problem, which is a widely discussed topic in recent years. This algorithm is inspired by recent progress in the matrix completion field. Firstly, corresponding to the RGB channels, an input incomplete image is treated as three incomplete matrices. Then each matrix is recovered by solving a convex relaxation problem using the nuclear norm. In this process, an alternating direction method (ADM) is employed, which is quite easily implementable and able to achieve an optimal solution for the problem efficiently. The experiments show that our methodology is fast and effective and the proposed algorithm is able to handle various applications, such as image restoration, object removal and image denoising.
English Intonation Teaching in a Perspective of Communicative Functions

English is an intonation language while Chinese is a tone language. English intonation with some distinctive features from Chinese intonation has communicative functions that endows a speaker’s utterance with various attached meanings. The complexity and subtlety of English intonation cause English teachers and learners considerable troubles. Therefore the ability to understand and use English intonation should be one of the focuses in phonetics teaching and an important criterion to measure one’s language ability. Keywords—English intonation; communicative function; phonetics teaching
Applying Conceptual Graphs for Inference Detection Using Second Path Analysis

Conceptual graphs are applied to a problem in database inference known as secondpath analysis. A sensitive target is proposed, namely to keep secret that a certain company is working on a certain project. Typically available non-sensitive information is introduced in the form of relational database schemata. These schemata are then expressed as conceptual graphs, followed by a series of joins which are performed revealing the sensitive target. It is shown that conceptual graph representations are able to analyze second path problems and achieve the same results as previous techniques. A new inference path was discovered that had not been identified by previous work.
Topic Diffusion and Emergence of Virality in Social Networks

We propose a stochastic model for the diffusion of topics entering a social network modeled by a Watts-Strogatz graph. Our model sets into play an implicit competition between these topics as they vie for the attention of users in the network. The dynamics of our model are based on notions taken from real-world OSNs like Twitter where users either adopt an exogenous topic or copy topics from their neighbors leading to endogenous propagation. When instantiated correctly, the model achieves a viral regime where a few topics garner unusually good response from the network, closely mimicking the behavior of real-world OSNs. Our main contribution is our description of how clusters of proximate users that have spoken on the topic merge to form a large giant component making a topic go viral. This demonstrates that it is not weak ties but actually strong ties that play a major part in virality. We further validate our model and our hypotheses about its behavior by comparing our simulation results with the results of a measurement study conducted on real data taken from Twitter.
Inferring Technical Constraints of a Wireless Sensor Network Application from End-User Requirements

This paper describes a two-step process to infer specific technical constraints and parameters needed for a reliable mission-specific design of wireless sensor networks (WSN). As the first step, we propose a new requirement catalog helping end-users to formulate a complete and consistent specification of WSN mission requirements. Its generality allows the unambiguous characterization of a wide spectrum of applications from the end-user's perspective. As the second step, we introduce a methodology to deduce fine grained technical specifications from the general requirements. The proposed automatic graph-based requirement expansion approach translates the content of the catalog and additional requirements to specific technical terms, which provide the basis for an application-specific WSN design. A real-world use case – a new WSN application in the area of critical infrastructure protection – demonstrates the applicability of the presented approach.
Searchers and searchers: differences between the most and least consistent searches

Differences between the most and least consistent searchers are considered, Attention is payed both to termconsistency and concept-consistency. The paper is based on an empirical study where 32 searchers formulated query statements from 12 search requests. The searchers were stso interviewed to obtain information about their experience. There was a statistically significant dependence between term-consistency and the terminologicat styles of searchers on the one hand and between concept-consistency and searchers’ search strategies on the other hand. There were also clear differences in the experience of most and least consistent searchers both in information storage and information retrieval.
Prognostic Factors for Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma—A Population-Based Study in Golestan Province, Iran, a High Incidence Area

Golestan Province in northern Iran is an area with a high incidence of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). We aimed to investigate prognostic factors for ESCC and survival of cases in Golestan, on which little data were available. We followed-up 426 ESCC cases participating in a population-based case-control study. Data were analyzed using the Kaplan–Meier method and the Cox proportional hazard models. Median survival was 7 months. Age at diagnosis was inversely associated with survival, but the association was disappeared with adjustment for treatment. Residing in urban areas (hazard ratio, HR = 0.70; 95% CI 0.54–0.90) and being of non-Turkmen ethnic groups (HR = 0.76; 95% CI 0.61–0.96) were associated with better prognosis. In contrast to other types of tobacco use, nass (a smokeless tobacco product) chewing was associated with a slightly poorer prognosis even in models adjusted for other factors including stage of disease and treatment (HR = 1.38; 95% CI 0.99–1.92). Opium use was associated with poorer prognosis in crude analyses but not in adjusted models. Almost all of potentially curative treatments were associated with longer survival. Prognosis of ESCC in Golestan is very poor. Easier access to treatment facilities may improve the prognosis of ESCC in Golestan. The observed association between nass chewing and poorer prognosis needs further investigations; this association may suggest a possible role for ingestion of nass constituents in prognosis of ESCC.
UNIFYING THE SPECIFICATION OF BUSINESS COMPONENTS

Component-based software development is a potential reuse paradigm for the future. While the required technologies for a component-style system development are widely available, for instance Sun’s Enterprise Java Beans, a problem inhibits the breakthrough of the component paradigm in business application domains: compared to traditional engineering disciplines there is a lack of standardized methods to describe business components. Such a description has to address several aspects: What services are offered and requested by a business component? How can these services be used? Are there any interdependencies between the services of a set of business components? What quality characteristics do the offered services fulfill? And so on. In this paper, we present a holistic approach to specify a business component. This approach consists of seven specification levels addressing both technical and business aspects. Furthermore, we show the application of this method by specifying a simple business component that deals with German bank codes.
Temperature and Metallicity in the Intra-Cluster Medium of Abell 262 Observed with Suzaku

We studied the temperature and abundance distributions of intra-cluster medium (ICM) in the Abell 262 cluster of galaxies observed with Suzaku. Abell 262 is a bright, nearby poor cluster with ICM temperature of ~2 keV, thus providing useful information about the connection of ICM properties between groups and clusters of galaxies. The observed spectrum of the central region was well-represented by two temperature models, and the spectra for the outer regions were described by single temperature model. With the XIS instrument, we directly measured not only Si, S, and Fe lines but also O and Mg lines and obtained those abundances to an outer region of ~0.43 r_180 for the first time. We found steep gradients for Mg, Si, S, and Fe abundances, while O showed almost flat abundance distribution. Abundance ratios of alpha-elements to Fe were found to be similar to those of the other clusters and groups. We calculated the number ratio of type II to type Ia supernovae for the ICM enrichment to be 3.0 +- 0.6 within 0.1 r_180, and the value was consistent with those for other clusters and groups. We also calculated metal mass-to-light ratios (MLRs) for Fe, O and Mg (IMLR, OMLR, MMLR) with B-band and K-band luminosities of the member galaxies of Abell 262. The derived MLRs were comparable to those for other clusters with kT = 3-4 keV.
Longer and Shorter Forms of Sendai Virus C Proteins Play Different Roles in Modulating the Cellular Antiviral Response

ABSTRACT The Sendai virus (SeV) C gene codes for a nested set of four C proteins that carry out several functions, including the modulation of viral RNA synthesis and countering of the cellular antiviral response. Using mutant C genes (and in particular a C gene with a deletion of six amino acids present only in the larger pair of C proteins) and recombinant SeV carrying these mutant C genes, we find that the nested set of C proteins carry out a nested set of functions. All of the C proteins interdict interferon (IFN) signaling to IFN-stimulated genes (ISGs) and prevent pY701-Stat1 formation. However, only the larger C proteins can induce STAT1 instability, prevent IFN from inducing an antiviral state, or prevent programmed cell death. Remarkably, interdiction of IFN signaling to ISGs and the absence of pY701-Stat1 formation did not prevent IFN-α from inducing an anti-Vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) state. It is possible that IFN-α signaling to induce an anti-VSV state can occur independently of the well-established Jak/Stat/ISGF3 pathway and that it is this parallel pathway that is targeted by the longer C proteins.
SPEAKER-INDEPENDENT NATURAL ARABIC SPEECH RECOGNITION SYSTEM

This paper reports the results of the first phase of a research work for building a high performance, speaker-independent natural Arabic speech recognition system. This work aims at developing an Arabic broadcast news transcription system and a base system for further research. Several concurrent recent advances in Arabic language processing were crucial for the success of this stage, e.g automatic generation of Arabic diacritical marks, and rule-based phoneme dictionary. The developed Arabic speech recognition system is based on the Carnegie Mellon university Sphinx tools. The Cambridge HTK tools were also utilized at various testing stages. The engine uses 3-emmiting states Hidden Markov Models (HMM) for triphone-based acoustic models. The state probability distribution uses continuous density of 8 Gaussian mixture distributions. The system was trained on 4.3 hours of the 5.4 hours of Arabic broadcast news corpus and tested on the remaining 1.1 hours. The phonetic dictionary contains 23,841 definitions corresponding to about 14232 words. The language model contains both bi-grams and tri-grams. The Word Error Rate (WER) came to 9.0%.
Comparative Study of Proactive Protocol of Mobile Ad-hoc Network

Mobile Ad hoc networks are the collection of wireless nodes that can exchange information dynamically among them without pre existing fixed infrastructure. Due to extremely dynamic in nature, evaluation of routing protocols is an important issue. In this paper, we focus on analysis for impact of proactive protocols by growing the density of nodes in network and keeping source node fixed and movable destination node and lastly, keeping the destination node fixed and move source node. All three cases, behavior of the routing protocol have been analyzed to progress and choose efficient and proficient routing protocol for network setup. The performance matrix contains delivery fraction, packet loss and end-to-end delay. We emphasis and compare the routing protocols from different factors and find best one for smooth functioning our networks.
Contribution of elastic tissues to the mechanics and energetics of muscle function during movement

ABSTRACT Muscle force production occurs within an environment of tissues that exhibit spring-like behavior, and this elasticity is a critical determinant of muscle performance during locomotion. Muscle force and power output both depend on the speed of contraction, as described by the isotonic force-velocity curve. By influencing the speed of contractile elements, elastic structures can have a profound effect on muscle force, power and work. In very rapid movements, elastic mechanisms can amplify muscle power by storing the work of muscle contraction slowly and releasing it rapidly. When energy must be dissipated rapidly, such as in landing from a jump, energy stored rapidly in elastic elements can be released more slowly to stretch muscle contractile elements, reducing the power input to muscle and possibly protecting it from damage. Elastic mechanisms identified so far rely primarily on in-series tendons, but many structures within muscles exhibit spring-like properties. Actomyosin cross-bridges, actin and myosin filaments, titin, and the connective tissue scaffolding of the extracellular matrix all have the potential to store and recover elastic energy during muscle contraction. The potential contribution of these elements can be assessed from their stiffness and estimates of the strain they undergo during muscle function. Such calculations provide boundaries for the possible roles these springs might play in locomotion, and may help to direct future studies of the uses of elastic elements in muscle. Summary: Muscles are full of springs. Some roles for elastic elements are well established; others can be predicted based on the potential for energy storage within individual elastic elements.
Block value based insertion policy for high performance last-level caches

Last-level cache performance has been proved to be crucial to the system performance. Essentially, any cache management policy improves performance by retaining blocks that it believes to have higher values preferentially. Most cache management policies use the access time or reuse distance of a block as its value to minimize total miss count. However, cache miss penalty is variable in modern systems due to i) variable memory access latency and ii) the disparity in latency toleration ability across different misses. Some recently proposed policies thus take into account the miss penalty as the block value. However, only considering miss penalty is not enough. In fact, the value of a block includes not only the penalty on its misses, but also the reduction of processor stall cycles on its hits, i.e., hit benefit. Therefore, we propose a method to compute both miss penalty and hit benefit. Then, the value of a block is calculated by accumulating all the miss penalty and hit benefits of its requests. Using our notion of block value, we propose Value based Insertion Policy (VIP) which aims to reserve more blocks with higher values in the cache. VIP keeps track of a small number of incoming and victim block pairs to learn the relationship between the value of the incoming block and that of the victim. On a miss, if the value of the incoming block is learned to be lower than that of the victim block in the past, VIP will predict that the incoming block is valueless and insert it with a high eviction priority. The evaluation shows that VIP can improve cache performance significantly in both single-core and multi-core environment while requiring a low storage overhead.
O Meio Empreendedor Promovendo Inovação: A geração de capital social no Porto Digital

Os insumos relacionais sao compreendidos no universo dos negocios por conhecimento, informacoes, confianca, ideias, lealdade e compromisso, formadores do bem intangivel denominado capital social. O meio empreendedor evidencia as interfaces das dimensoes territoriais e socioculturais no âmbito local. Esse campo ainda tem carencias, exigindo assim uma maior atencao, tanto por parte dos individuos que interagem no mesmo territorio em busca de objetivos afins, como dos cientistas pesquisadores para o alcance da evolucao e sustentabilidade das instituicoes. O estudo se propoe a descrever o modo como funciona a producao de capital social e seus efeitos de geracao de inovacao no caso empirico do Porto Digital. Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa de carater descritivo com levantamento bibliografico, documental e com analise de reportagens envolvendo dirigentes do Porto Digital. A analise dos dados se deu a partir das entrevistas e comparacao dessas com o referencial teorico e a analise documental. Os resultados revelam que ha um ambiente adequado para o desenvolvimento social e tecnologico, alem de acoes pertinentes a postura e comportamentos decorrentes do aspecto relacional dos atores imersos na rede. Os componentes dos relacionamentos interpessoais sao imprescindiveis a criacao do meio inovador e sua sustentabilidade progressiva.
Autoimmune Profiling Reveals Peroxiredoxin 6 as a Candidate Traumatic Brain Injury Biomarker

Abstract Autoimmune profiling in rats revealed the antioxidant enzyme, peroxiredoxin 6 (PRDX6), as a target for autoantibodies evoked in response to traumatic brain injury (TBI). Consistent with this proposal, immunohistochemical analysis of rat cerebral cortex demonstrated that PRDX6 is highly expressed in the perivascular space, presumably contained within astrocytic foot processes. Accordingly, an immunosorbent electrochemiluminescence assay was developed for investigating PRDX6 in human samples. PRDX6 was found to be measurable in human blood and highly expressed in human cerebral cortex and platelets. Circulating levels of PRDX6 were elevated fourfold over control values 4 to 24 h following mild-to-moderate TBI. These findings suggest that PRDX6 may serve as a biomarker for TBI and that autoimmune profiling is a viable strategy for the discovery of novel TBI biomarkers.
A proposal for efficient on-line spam filtering

Sending bulk messages like emails, instant messages, social media messages etc. through an on-line medium to people connected to the medium is known as spamming. Spammers use social-networking sites to instantly spread message, often containing sensitive information, to a wider community of users. Filters for such messages should operate in real time on large volume of data. Also, confidentiality of HAM messages should not be lost. As the channel existing between the service provider and the user in social networking is secure and hence filtering the messages can be only at the service provider end after decryption. This causes considerable overhead at the server side and privacy of legitimate messages are not protected. This paper is a proposal for a novel distributed filtering scheme which can perform SPAM filtering on secure (SSL encrypted) messages without decrypting them. The power of distributed processing solves the filter overhead at the server side and provides the required real time filter without loss of privacy of the HAM messages.
Software Startup growth: the Role of Dynamic Capabities, IT Innovation and Customer Involvement

The rising trend toward entrepreneurism and rapid advances in IT are encouraging many software startups to enter the market place. Software startups contribute to the society by creating jobs and by driving innovation. Research on the business of software development, so far, had concentrated mainly on established firms. This research-in-progress paper seeks to shed light on how software startups develop. IT innovation is considered as the direct source of software startup growth. And dynamic capability, in terms of learning capability, integration capability, and responsiveness capability are posited as influencing IT innovation. Notwithstanding the importance of pursuing IT innovation, software start-ups need to be closely watching market demands and changes. The action of customer involvement is viewed as enhancing the effect of dynamic capabilities on IT innovation. This paper aims to contribute to existing literature by investigating a little-studied phenomenon - software startup and formulating a software startup growth model. Furthermore, this paper attempts to advance the understanding of the theory of dynamic capabilities by specifying three types of dynamic capabilities and by examining their effect on IT innovation. Finally, it opens up an avenue of investigating the impact of the alignment between the customer involvement and dynamic capabilities.
A NEW DYNAMIC-AUTO-STATIC TECHNIQUE FOR DHCPv 4 IP ADDRESS ALLOCATION

One feature of Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) servers is the ability to assign static (fixed) IP Addresses for well-known clients in the Local Area Network (LAN) based on their Medium Access Control (MAC) addresses. This typically involves manual intervention by the network administrator to enter the correct MAC address and IP address information into the DHCP server configuration file, and to restart the DHCP server to apply the changes. Obviously this process tends to be time consuming and error prone, due to mistyping the MAC address or assigning duplicate IP addresses to multiple clients. This paper describes an automated technique called the Dynamic-Auto-Static (DAS) technique to automate the static (fixed) IP assignment process and minimize manual intervention by network administrators. The proposed technique automatically white-lists dynamically assigned IP addresses allocated to new clients joining the LAN for conversion into static or fixed IP address assignments after the client has exceeded a network administrator specified threshold for DHCP lease renewals. The network administrator can review the whitelist to make changes where necessary. The DAS technique comprises the following tasks: (1) Analysis of all MAC addresses and associated IP addresses within the DHCP leases file, (2) Update of the DHCP server configuration file with new whitelisted static IP address assignments, and (3) Restart of the DHCP service to implement the new IP address assignment policy. These tasks were automated using the Linux cron facility.
Software defined networks: It's about time

With the rise of Software Defined Networks (SDN), there is growing interest in dynamic and centralized traffic engineering, where decisions about forwarding paths are taken dynamically from a network-wide perspective. Frequent path reconfiguration can significantly improve the network performance, but should be handled with care, so as to minimize disruptions that may occur during network updates. In this paper we introduce Time4, an approach that uses accurate time to coordinate network updates. We characterize a set of update scenarios called flow swaps, for which Time4 is the optimal update approach, yielding less packet loss than existing update approaches. We define the lossless flow allocation problem, and formally show that in environments with frequent path allocation, scenarios that require simultaneous changes at multiple network devices are inevitable. We present the design, implementation, and evaluation of a time4-enabled OpenFlow prototype. The prototype is publicly available as open source. Our work includes an extension to the OpenFlow protocol that has been adopted by the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), and is now included in OpenFlow 1.5. Our experimental results demonstrate the significant advantages of Time4 compared to other network update approaches.