Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL STATISTICS UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE Nr . 2 / 06 Cross-City Hedging with Weather Derivatives using Bivariate DCC GARCH Models by

As monopolies gave their way to competitive wholesale electricity markets, volumetric risk came into play. Electricity supplier can buy weather derivatives to protect from volumetric risk due to unexpected weather conditions. However, contracts can only be negotiated for weather variables measured at few selected locations. To hedge their specific risk, electricity supplier have to correlate their risk with the risk at tradeable locations. In this paper, we concentrate on temperature derivatives. More precisely, we examine if and how bivariate GARCH models with dynamic conditional correlations can help in modelling correlation between two distinct temperature time series. The knowledge of correlation dynamics between the temperature time series enables an electricity supplier to correlate his risk with the risk of a traded city and to construct a sensible hedge. It turns out that the application of bivariate DCC GARCH models to three German temperature time series provides encouraging results.
Voxel Occupancy with Viewing Line Inconsistency Analysis and Spatial Regularization

In this paper we review the main techniques for volume reconstruction from a set of views using Shape from Silhouette techniques and we propose a new method that adapts the inconsistencies analysis shown in (Landabaso et al., 2008) to the graph cuts framework (Snow et al., 2000) which allows the introduction of spatial regularization. For this aim we use a new viewing line based inconsistency analysis within a probabilistic framework. Our method adds robustness to errors by projecting back to the views the volume occupancy obtained from 2D foreground detections intersection, and analysing this projection. The final voxel occupancy of the scene is set following a maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimate. We have evaluated a sample of techniques and the new method proposed to have an objective measure of the robustness to errors in real environments.
On designing an ubiquitous sensor network for health monitoring

Managing chronic health conditions at home, through the early detection of symptoms and subsequent rapid remedial action will be therapeutically and financially more effective. Unfortunately, this widely agreed upon statement implies a significant adaptation and/or evolution of present healthcare delivery, from a technological and social point of view. Designing reliable, embedded, non-intrusive sensors adapted to long-term monitoring; processing and collecting health indicators from multiple data sources; and the development of a connective healthcare delivery spanning the clinical domain and the daily environment of a given individual, are undoubted challenges facing the shift from an historical model based on the treatment of acute diseases. In this paper, we present the key possibilities capable of enabling successful implementation of health monitoring systems at home and on the move, as well as the remaining challenges to be addressed to implement these promising solutions.
A scalable holographic display for interactive graphics applications

We present a scalable holographic system design targeting multi-user interactive computer graphics applications. The display device is based on back-projection technology and uses a specially arranged array of microdisplays and a holographic screen. The display is driven by DVI streams generated by multiple consumer level graphics boards and decoded in real-time by image processing units that feed the optical modules at high refresh rates. An OpenGL compliant library running on a client PC redefines the OpenGL behavior to multicast graphics commands to server PCs, where they are re-interpreted in order to implement holographic rendering. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated with a working hardware and software 7.4M pixel prototype driven at 10-15Hz by two DVI streams.
A CROSS-LINGUISTIC COMPARISON OF VERBAL FLUENCY TESTS

The aim of this study was to compare oral fluency strategies of Spanish-English bilinguals in Spanish and English with Spanish and English monolinguals when given either phonemic (alphabetical) or semantic categorical cues. The use of grammatical words (words that play a grammatical function relating words within a sentence) or content words (words that have a meaning such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives) in the alphabetical categories is analyzed. This study also addresses the relation between productivity and the use of a semantic strategy to organize responses. Eighty-two right-handed participants (28 males and 54 females) with a mean age of 61.76 (SD = 9.30; range 50-84) and a mean educational level of 14.8 years (SD = 3.6; range 2-23) were selected. Forty-five of the subjects were English monolinguals, 18 were Spanish monolinguals, and 19 were Spanish-English bilinguals. Oral verbal fluency was tested asking subjects to generate words within phonemic (F, A, and S) and semantic (animals) categories. In the phonemic condition, performance of English and Spanish monolinguals was similar. Bilinguals produced significantly fewer words than English monolinguals in the categorical semantic condition but not in the phonological condition. In the phonological condition, English monolinguals generated significantly more grammatical words than Spanish monolinguals, and bilinguals produced a significantly higher number of grammatical words in English than in Spanish. Animal subcategories and semantic associations were similar in both languages for all groups. Results were discussed in terms of crosslinguistic differences in the recall of alphabetical words.
Success, activity and drop-outs in MOOCs an exploratory study on the UNED COMA courses

This paper presents an exploratory study about two language learning MOOCs deployed in the UNED COMA platform. The study identifies three research questions: a) How does activity evolve in these MOOCs? b) Are all learning activities relevant? , and c) Does the use of the target language influence? We conclude that the MOOC activity drops not only due to the drop-outs. When students skips around 10% of the proposed activities, the percentage of passing the course decrease in a 25%. Forum activity is a useful indicator for success, however the participation in active threads is not. Finally, the use of the target language course is not an indicator to predict success.
Gender parity in Nunavut

Le 26 mai 1997 les habitants du nouveau territoire independant du Nunavut ont ete appele a s'exprimer quant a la parite electorale entre homme et femme. L'electorat devait voter pour ou contre un nombre egal d'hommes et de femmes a l'Assemblee Legislative Nunavut, avec deux elus, un homme et une femme, pour representer chaque district electoral. Cette proposition fut rejetee par 57% des votants du Nunavut (39% de votants). L'article analyse ce plebiscite
NDSS: A Named Data Storage System

NDSS (Named Data Storage System) is an architecture of distributed storage system which integrates local storage and networking with named data design. In traditional cloud and network storage system, local storage system and networking are separately designed. Storage data and network packet are encoded in different descriptions. NDSS is proposed to integrate the data description in both storage and network to reduce the overhead in data format transition and to provide new method for data operations. In this paper, the architecture and system design are proposed. Initial implementation design is also demonstrated based on Named Data Networking (NDN). The performance and functional comparison are conducted conceptually to show the advantages of NDSS.
Frequency and characteristics of taste impairment in patients with Parkinson's disease: results of a clinical interview.

OBJECTIVE Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) frequently complain of a diminished sense of smell. Less frequently, they may complain of taste impairment. In the present study, we investigated the symptoms, frequency, and severity of taste impairment as well as smell impairment in PD patients and compared the results with those of age- and sex-matched healthy controls. PATIENTS AND METHODS We interviewed 285 PD patients (120 men, 165 women) without dementia or nasal problems. Control subjects comprised 61 (20 men, 41 women) healthy spouses of the PD patients. Alteration of smell and taste sense lasting more than 3 months was defined as abnormal. RESULTS One hundred and sixteen patients with PD complained of smell impairment and 26 complained of taste impairment. Only 5 controls complained of smell impairment, and no control subjects reported taste impairment. Taste impairment was more marked in patients with smell impairment. Impaired taste included diminished taste perception in 21 patients, altered sense of taste in 4 patients and burning mouth in 1 patient. CONCLUSION Taste as well as smell perception is impaired in patients with PD. The frequency of smell and taste impairments tended to increase with disease progression.
Studying Organisational Topology with Simple Computational Models

The behaviour of many complex systems is influenced by the underlying network topology. In particular, this applies to social systems in which people or organisational units collaboratively solve problems. Network rewiring processes are one useful tool in understanding the relationship between network topology and behaviour. Here we use the Kawachi network rewiring process, together with three simple simulation models of organisational collaboration, to investigate the network characteristics that influence performance. The simulation models are based on the Assignment Problem, the Kuramoto Model from physics, and a novel model of collaborative problem-solving which involves finding numbers with certain characteristics, the existence of which is guaranteed by Lagrange's Theorem. For all three models, performance is best when the underlying organisational network has a low average distance between nodes. In addition, the third model identified long-range connectivity between nodes as an important predictor of performance. The commonly-used clustering coefficient, which is a measure of short-range connectivity, did not affect performance. We would expect that long-range network connectivity would also influence the behaviour of other complex systems displaying global self-synchronization. The paper also demonstrates the utility of simple computational models in studying issues of organisational topology.
A machine-assisted human translation system for technical documents

Translation systems are known to benefit from the availability of a bilingual lexicon for a domain of interest. A system, aiming to build such a lexicon from source language corpus, often requires human assistance and is confronted by conflicting requirements of minimizing human translation effort while improving the translation quality. We present an approach that exploits redundancy in the source corpus and extracts recurring patterns which are: frequent, syntactically well-formed, and provide maximum corpus coverage. The patterns generalize over phrases and word types and our approach finds a succinct set of good patterns with high coverage. Our interactive system leverages these patterns in multiple iterations of translation and post-editing, thereby progressively generating a high quality bilingual lexicon.
Genetics of Familial Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating neurodegenerative disorder caused by the selective loss of motor neurones from the cortex, brainstem and spinal cord. For the patient, this results in a progressive loss of muscle function characterised by muscle weakness, atrophy and spasticity that develops into paralysis. Onset is typically in mid-life around ages 50-60 years, however there are juvenile forms with much earlier symptom onset (below 25 years). Disease duration is heterogeneous; however the majority of patients will only survive 2-3 years following initial symptom onset, with death generally resulting from respiratory muscle failure (Worms 2001). A recent meta-analysis of population based studies revealed that 5% of ALS cases are familial (FALS) and the remaining 95% are sporadic (SALS) with no reported family history (Byrne et al 2011). There is a broad spectrum of inheritance for FALS ranging from fully penetrant, dominantly inherited Mendelian forms to recessive disease with weak penetrance affecting only a few family members (Simpson & Al-Chalabi 2006). The majority of familial cases are clinically and pathologically indistinguishable from sporadic cases, leading to the hypothesis that they share common pathogenic mechanisms. In addition, mutations in several of the FALS genes have also been identified in apparently sporadic disease, suggesting some degree of genetic overlap (Alexander et al 2002; Chio et al 2010; Kabashi et al 2008). In ALS, cognitive impairment has been reported in up to 51% of cases, with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) present in up to 15% (Gordon et al 2011; Lillo et al 2011; Ringholz et al 2005). In approximately a third of cases, there is a family history of ALS or FTD or both in the family, and genes initially associated with either ALS or FTD are now being found to be associated with both disease phenotypes. This genetic link, in addition to extensive neuropathological evidence (Mackenzie et al 2010) has led to the widely accepted view that ALS and FTD form part of a spectrum of the same neurodegenerative disease process (Geser et al 2010).
Ricci flow on open 3–manifolds and positive scalar curvature

We show that an orientable 3-dimensional manifold M admits a complete riemannian metric of bounded geometry and uniformly positive scalar curvature if and only if there exists a finite collection F of spherical space-forms such that M is a (possibly infinite) connected sum where each summand is diffeomorphic toS 2 � S 1 or to some member of F. This result generalises G. Perelman’s classification theorem for compact 3-manifolds of positive scalar curvature. The main tool is a variant of Perelman’s surgery construction for Ricci flow.
A Systematic Topology Evaluation Methodology for High-Density Three-Phase PWM AC-AC Converters

This paper presents a systematic evaluation approach of three-phase pulsewidth-modulated (PWM) AC-AC converter topologies for high-density applications. All major components and subsystems in a converter are considered and the interdependence of all the constraints and design parameters is systematically studied. The key design parameters, including switching frequency, modulation scheme, and passive values, are selected by considering their impacts on loss, harmonics, electromagnetic interference (EMI), control dynamics and stability, and protection. The component selection criteria as well as the physical design procedures are developed from the high-density standpoint. The concept of using the same inductor for harmonic suppression and EMI filtering is introduced in the design. With the proposed methodology, four converter topologies, a back-to-back voltage source converter (BTB-VSC), a nonregenerative three-level boost (Vienna-type) rectifier plus voltage source inverter (NTR-VSI), a back-to-back current source converter (BTB-CSC), and a 12-switch matrix converter, are analyzed and compared for high specific power using SiC devices. The evaluation results show that with the conditions specified in this paper, BTB-VSC and NTR-VSI have considerably lower loss, resulting in higher specific power than BTB-CSC and the matrix converter. The proposed methodology can be applied to other topologies with different comparison metrics and can be a useful tool for high-density topology selection.
Cardiovascular Dysfunction Following Burn Injury: What We Have Learned from Rat and Mouse Models

Severe burn profoundly affects organs both proximal and distal to the actual burn site. Cardiovascular dysfunction is a well-documented phenomenon that increases morbidity and mortality following a massive thermal trauma. Beginning immediately post-burn, during the ebb phase, cardiac function is severely depressed. By 48 h post-injury, cardiac function rebounds and the post-burn myocardium becomes tachycardic and hyperinflammatory. While current clinical trials are investigating a variety of drugs targeted at reducing aspects of the post-burn hypermetabolic response such as heart rate and cardiac work, there is still a paucity of knowledge regarding the underlying mechanisms that induce cardiac dysfunction in the severely burned. There are many animal models of burn injury, from rodents, to sheep or swine, but the majority of burn related cardiovascular investigations have occurred in rat and mouse models. This literature review consolidates the data supporting the prevalent role that β-adrenergic receptors play in mediating post-burn cardiac dysfunction and the idea that pharmacological modulation of this receptor family is a viable therapeutic target for resolving burn-induced cardiac deficits.
Significance of Data Mining Techniques in Classifying Dyscalculia

Detection of learning difficulties among school children is a topic of research as predicting human behavior is a challenge for entire research community by taking this concern the study aims at predicting and classifying Dyscalculia among primary school children. Basically by following the approach of positive psychology towards learning detecting and designing intervention program for learner is a crucial aspect which actually requires targeted investigation so that right child should get the right help. In the present study we have used three classifiers rule-PART, J48 and SMO to predict the different classes of Dyscalculia.
Culex quinquefasciatus Storage Proteins

Insect storage proteins accumulate at high levels during larval development of holometabolous insects. During metamorphosis they are degraded, supplying energy and amino acids for the completion of adult development. The genome of Culex quinquefasciatus contains eleven storage protein-coding genes. Their transcripts are more abundant in larvae than in pupae and in adults. In fact, only four of these genes are transcribed in adults, two of which in blood-fed adult females but not in adult males. Transcripts corresponding to all Cx. quinquefasciatus storage proteins were detected by RT-PCR, while mass spectrometric analysis of larval and pupal proteins identified all storage proteins with the exception of one encoded by Cq LSP1.8. Our results indicate that the identified Cx. quinquefasciatus storage protein-coding genes are candidates for identifying regulatory sequences for the development of molecular tools for vector control.
Time-based DDoS detection and mitigation for SDN controller

A Software Defined Network (SDN) is a new paradigm in network management that separates control plane and data plane. A control plane has an important role in managing the whole networks. Since SDN introduces control plane as the manager of the network, it also introduces the single point of failure. When SDN controller is unreachable by the network devices, the whole networks will collapse. One of the attack methods that can make SDN controller unreachable is DDoS attack. This paper reports our initial step of our research to develop the method for DDoS attack detection and mitigation for SDN controller. The method considers the time duration of DDoS attack detection and attacks time pattern of DDoS attack to prevent the future attack. In this paper, we present the potential vulnerabilities in SDN controller that can be exploited for DDoS attack and discuss the methods to detect and mitigate DDoS attack.
Leaf mutiscale variation algorithm under feedback control system

A new algorithm using Functional structural plant models (FSPM) employing feedback control system(FCS)to realize the multiscale change of the physiological parameter for leaf growth is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the plant branching structures are generated by Bidimensional Hierarchical Automata (BHA) while the disturbance function is used to realize the interaction between physiological parameter and botanic growth stimulant. Secondly, the growth stimulant changes the organic details and influences the environment parameters. On the other hand, the change of environment parameters modifies the plant branching structure in return. Thirdly, the varying vein texture is synthesized by reaction-diffusion principle based on the canalization hypothesis. Finally, the three-dimension deformation of a leaf is proposed by the controllability grid bending. Simulation results show that proposed algorithm can effectively simulate the varying process of leaf texture and form by changing physiological parameter. It can well meet the requirement of dynamic displaying plant organ in virtual agricultural laboratory.
Dead time compensation for interpolative-type, control systems

Signal transmission in control structures is usually characterized by propagation processes, i.e. existence of time delays. For the interpolative-type control structures the problem is often disregarded, especially in the design step. Undoubtedly, the effect consists in worse real performances that those designed. In this context, the present paper proposes and presents a solution able to compensate, via a discrete-time PD compensator, the effect of the dead times appeared on the feedback channels for both a fuzzy and an interpolative control structure. For systems with variable time delays an adaptive-interpolative type PD compensator is suited. Experimental results, obtained through simulation on a second order positioning system, validate the proposed solution. Finally, the paper discusses the issue of the accuracy of simulation. It is emphasized the manner in which the simulation can be done using initial segment generators for the elementary dead time transfer elements.
Classified VQ codebook index assignment for communication over noisy channels

In this paper, an improved index assignment procedure is proposed to reduce the channel error effect in a communication system employing classified vector quantization (CVQ). The proposed algorithm consists of two parts: inner index assignment (IIA) and cross index assignment (CIA). The IIA reduces the distortion resulting from the error in order bits, presenting the identity of each code vector in a subcodebook. The CIA modifies the indexes assigned by the IIA in such a way that the effect of the channel error occurring in class bits, indicating the class information of the code vector can be minimized. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms enable a reliable communication over noisy channels even without employing the channel encoding.
The Global Geometry of Stochastic L{\oe}wner Evolutions

In this article we develop a concise description of the global geometry which is underlying the universal construction of all possible generalised Stochastic L{\oe}wner Evolutions. The main ingredient is the Universal Grassmannian of Sato-Segal-Wilson. We illustrate the situation in the case of univalent functions defined on the unit disc and the classical Schramm-L{\oe}wner stochastic differential equation. In particular we show how the Virasoro algebra acts on probability measures. This approach provides the natural connection with Conformal Field Theory and Integrable Systems.