Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Customer Involvement in the Scaled Agile Framework - Results from a Case Study in an Industrial Company

The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) has emerged over the last years as an approach which supports the improvement of software and systems development. SAFe claimes solutions for business challenges, such as shortening cycle's times, improving product quality, increasing team members' satisfaction, and involving the customer in product development. However, regarding customer involvement, there is limited research, both in SAFe and in real-life agile software development projects. In previous work we developed an initial conceptual customer involvement model for the SAFe domain in Philips Medical Systems. In this paper this initial model will be extended and enriched on the basis of a case study in an industrial company.
Towards a taxonomy of virtual reality user interfaces

Virtual reality based user interfaces (VRUIs) are expected to bring about a revolution in computing. VR can potentially communicate large amounts of data in an easily understandable format. VR looks very promising, but it is still a very new interface technology for which very little application oriented knowledge is available. As a basis for such a future VRUI design theory, a taxonomy of VRUIs is required. A general model of human computer communication is formulated. This model constitutes a frame for the integration of partial taxonomies of human computer interaction that are found in the literature. The whole model constitutes a general user interface taxonomy. The field of VRUIs is described and delimited with respect to this taxonomy.
Modeling the Probability of Failure on LDAP Binding Operations in Iplanet Web Proxy 3.6 Server

This paper is devoted to the theoretical analysis of a problem derived from interaction between two Iplanet products: Web Proxy Server and the Directory Server. In particular, a probabilistic and stochastic-approximation model is proposed to minimize the occurrence of LDAP connection failures in Iplanet Web Proxy 3.6 Server. The proposed model serves not only to provide a parameterization of the aforementioned phenomena, but also to provide meaningful insights illustrating and supporting these theoretical results. In addition, we shall also address practical considerations when estimating the parameters of the proposed model from experimental data. Finally, we shall provide some interesting results from real-world data collected from our customers.
A Prototype of Underwater Microrobot System with An Artificial Swim Bladder

In this paper, we designed an underwater microrobot system. The system includes a microrobot and an artificial swim bladder. Underwater microrobots are useful in the seabed mining, biology and naval fields. They should have compact structure, easy to be manufactured, efficient locomotion, driven by low voltage, simple control system and upload ability. To attain these purposes, we designed a novel type of biomimetic locomotion with one-DOF legs. The locomotion includes two groups of ICPF (ionic conducting polymer film) actuators to realize the 2-DOF motions. The microrobot, named Walker-2, has 6 ICPF actuators and 3-DOF motion. It is 47 mm in diameter, 8 mm in height (in static state) and 0.61 g of dried weight. A fish inspired artificial swim bladder, named Bladder-1, is also developed. It is 32times14times14 mm3 in dimension and 0.33 g in weight. It is driven by one piece of ICPF actuator. It can float with a maximum upload of 0.17 g theoretically, while the experiment result shows the upload can be as weight as 0.26 g. The analysis and experimental result shows that the Walker-2 has some advantages, such as more flexible moving motion, stability, loads ability and so on. We also compared with some insect inspired microrobots and some microrobots with one-DOF legs, and the result shows a microrobot with this novel type of locomotion has some advantages. This structure has less actuator, less joints, simpler control system, and compact structure. The underwater microrobot system has powerful applications in the biomedical and naval fields
Serious game to train auditory discrimination and identification in children with hearing impairments

This1 paper presents the design of a serious game whose objective is to work the auditory identification and discrimination in children with hearing impairments, both for children using cochlear implants or auditory aids. The design takes into account emotional design issues, serious game development methodologies and the activities carried out by educators and therapists with children to work on these auditory skills.
IFNγ Enhances Microglial Reactions to Hippocampal Axonal Degeneration

Glial reactivity is implicated in CNS repair and regenerative responses. Microglia, the cells responding earliest to axonal injury, produce tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα), a cytokine with both cytopathic and neuroprotective effects. We have studied activation of hippocampal microglia to produce TNFα in response to transection of perforant path axons in SJL/J mice. TNFα mRNA was produced in a transient manner, peaking at 2 d and falling again by 5 d after lesioning. This was unlike other markers of glial reactivity, such as Mac-1 upregulation, which were sustained over longer time periods. Message for the immune cytokine interferon-γ (IFNγ) was undetectable, and glial reactivity to axonal lesions occurred as normal in IFNγ-deficient mice. Microglial responses to lesion-induced neuronal injury were markedly enhanced in myelin basic protein promoter-driven transgenic mice, in which IFNγ was endogenously produced in hippocampus. The kinetics of TNFα downregulation 5 d after lesion was not affected by transgenic IFNγ, indicating that IFNγ acts as an amplifier and not an inducer of response. These results are discussed in the context of a regenerative role for TNFα in the CNS, which is innately regulated and potentiated by IFNγ.
Differences in rheotactic responses contribute to divergent habitat use between parapatric lake and stream threespine stickleback

Migration among populations is widely thought to undermine adaptive divergence, assuming gene flow arises from random movement of individuals. If individuals instead differ in dispersal behavior, phenotype‐dependent dispersal can reduce the effective rate of gene flow or even facilitate divergence. For example, parapatric populations of lake and stream stickleback tend to actively avoid dispersing into the adjoining habitat. However, the behavioral basis of this nonrandom dispersal was previously unknown. Here, we show that lake and stream stickleback exhibit divergent rheotactic responses (behavioral response to currents). During the breeding season, wild‐caught inlet stream stickleback were better than lake fish at maintaining position in currents, faced upstream more, and spent more time in low‐current areas. As a result, stream fish expended significantly less energy in currents than did lake fish. These divergent rheotactic responses likely contribute to divergent habitat use by lake and stream stickleback. Although rheotactic differences were absent in nonbreeding fish, divergent behavior of breeding‐season fish may suffice for assortative mating by breeding location. The resulting reproductive isolation between lake and stream fish may explain the fine‐scale evolutionary differentiation in parapatric stickleback populations.
Ozone photochemistry in boreal biomass burning plumes

Abstract. We present an analysis of ozone (O3) photochemistry observed by aircraft measurements of boreal biomass burning plumes over eastern Canada in the summer of 2011. Measurements of O3 and a number of key chemical species associated with O3 photochemistry, including non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHCs), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and total nitrogen containing species (NOy), were made from the UK FAAM BAe-146 research aircraft as part of the "quantifying the impact of BOReal forest fires on Tropospheric oxidants over the Atlantic using Aircraft and Satellites" (BORTAS) experiment between 12 July and 3 August 2011. The location and timing of the aircraft measurements put BORTAS into a unique position to sample biomass burning plumes from the same source region in Northwestern Ontario with a range of ages. We found that O3 mixing ratios measured in biomass burning plumes were indistinguishable from non-plume measurements, but evaluating them in relationship to measurements of carbon monoxide (CO), total alkyl nitrates (ΣAN) and the surrogate species NOz (= NOy-NOx) revealed that the potential for O3 production increased with plume age. We used NMHC ratios to estimate photochemical ages of the observed biomass burning plumes between 0 and 10 days. The BORTAS measurements provided a wide dynamic range of O3 production in the sampled biomass burning plumes with ΔO3/ΔCO enhancement ratios increasing from 0.020 ± 0.008 ppbv ppbv−1 in plumes with photochemical ages less than 2 days to 0.55 ± 0.29 ppbv ppbv−1 in plumes with photochemical ages greater than 5 days. We found that the main contributing factor to the variability in the ΔO3/ΔCO enhancement ratio was ΔCO in plumes with photochemical ages less than 4 days, and that was a transition to ΔO3 becoming the main contributing factor in plumes with ages greater than 4 days. In comparing O3 mixing ratios with components of the NOy budget, we observed that plumes with ages between 2 and 4 days were characterised by high aerosol loading, relative humidity greater than 40%, and low ozone production efficiency (OPE) of 7.7 ± 3.5 ppbv ppbv−1 relative to ΣAN and 1.6 ± 0.9 ppbv ppbv−1 relative to NOz. In plumes with ages greater than 4 days, OPE increased to 472 ± 28 ppbv ppbv−1 relative to ΣAN and 155 ± 5 ppbv ppbv−1 relative to NOz. From the BORTAS measurements we estimated that aged plumes with low aerosol loading were close to being in photostationary steady state and O3 production in younger plumes was inhibited by high aerosol loading and greater production of ΣAN relative to O3. The BORTAS measurements of O3 photochemistry in boreal biomass burning plumes were found to be consistent with previous summertime aircraft measurements made over the same region during the Arctic Research of the Composition of the Troposphere (ARCTAS-B) in 2008 and Atmospheric Boundary Layer Experiment (ABLE 3B) in 1990.
Phoenix Team : A General Agent Paradigm for Rescue Simulation

Agents are autonomous entities which can sense from and act on environment. Agents could be programs, robot’s control systems or entire robots. We propose a general agent paradigm, in which learning, communication, knowledge, and other key factors are clearly divided and integrated. The agent paradigm tries to integrate learning, communication, and knowledge in a general way regardless of problem domains. We apply this paradigm in rescue simulation with satisfactory results. This agent paradigm can be easily applied in many other domains such as rescue robot, robot foraging, and robot exploration.
In-vitro performance and fracture strength of thin monolithic zirconia crowns

PURPOSE All-ceramic restorations required extensive tooth preparation. The purpose of this in vitro study was to investigate a minimally invasive preparation and thickness of monolithic zirconia crowns, which would provide sufficient mechanical endurance and strength. MATERIALS AND METHODS Crowns with thickness of 0.2 mm (group 0.2, n=32) or of 0.5 mm (group 0.5, n=32) were milled from zirconia and fixed with resin-based adhesives (groups 0.2A, 0.5A) or zinc phosphate cements (groups 0.2C, 0.5C). Half of the samples in each subgroup (n=8) underwent thermal cycling and mechanical loading (TCML)(TC: 5℃ and 55℃, 2×3,000 cycles, 2 min/cycle; ML: 50 N, 1.2×106 cycles), while the other samples were stored in water (37℃/24 h). Survival rates were compared (Kaplan-Maier). The specimens surviving TCML were loaded to fracture and the maximal fracture force was determined (ANOVA; Bonferroni; α=.05). The fracture mode was analyzed. RESULTS In both 0.5 groups, all crowns survived TCML, and the comparison of fracture strength among crowns with and without TCML showed no significant difference (P=.628). Four crowns in group 0.2A and all of the crowns in group 0.2C failed during TCML. The fracture strength after 24 hours of the cemented 0.2 mm-thick crowns was significantly lower than that of adhesive bonded crowns. All cemented crowns provided fracture in the crown, while about 80% of the adhesively bonded crowns fractured through crown and die. CONCLUSION 0.5 mm thick monolithic crowns possessed sufficient strength to endure physiologic performance, regardless of the type of cementation. Fracture strength of the 0.2 mm cemented crowns was too low for clinical application.
Isolation and Identification of Sodium Fluoroacetate Degrading Bacteria from Caprine Rumen in Brazil

The objective of this paper was to report the isolation of two fluoroacetate degrading bacteria from the rumen of goats. The animals were adult goats, males, crossbred, with rumen fistula, fed with hay, and native pasture. The rumen fluid was obtained through the rumen fistula and immediately was inoculated 100 μL in mineral medium added with 20 mmol L−1 sodium fluoroacetate (SF), incubated at 39°C in an orbital shaker. Pseudomonas fluorescens (strain DSM 8341) was used as positive control for fluoroacetate dehalogenase activity. Two isolates were identified by 16S rRNA gene sequencing as Pigmentiphaga kullae (ECPB08) and Ancylobacter dichloromethanicus (ECPB09). These bacteria degraded sodium fluoroacetate, releasing 20 mmol L−1 of fluoride ion after 32 hours of incubation in Brunner medium containing 20 mmol L−1 of SF. There are no previous reports of fluoroacetate dehalogenase activity for P. kullae and A. dichloromethanicus. Control measures to prevent plant intoxication, including use of fences, herbicides, or other methods of eliminating poisonous plants, have been unsuccessful to avoid poisoning by fluoroacetate containing plants in Brazil. In this way, P. kullae and A. dichloromethanicus may be used to colonize the rumen of susceptible animals to avoid intoxication by fluoroacetate containing plants.
The role of behavior modifiers in representation development

We address the problem of the development of representations and their relationship to the environment. We study a software agent which develops in a network a representation of its simple environment which captures and integrates the relationships between agent and environment through a closure mechanism. The inclusion of a variable behavior modifier allows better representation development. This can be confirmed with an internal description of the closure mechanism, and with an external description of the properties of the representation network.
Language learning in preschool children: an embodied learning account

ABSTRACT In Romanian preschool settings, there is a tendency to use abstract strategies in language-learning activities. The present study explored if strategies based on an embodied cognition approach facilitate learning more than traditional strategies that progress from concrete to abstract. Twenty-five children between 4 and 5 years of age listened to a modified version of the ‘Town Musicians of Bremen’ story. They were split into two groups: one interacted with the content while listening to the story and the other listened to the story and looked at pictures depicting the narrative sequence. Results show that children in the first group subsequently recognized more newly introduced words and idioms and performed better in retelling the narrative sequence in order. Implications are discussed with regard to both learning accounts in general and teaching strategies for language development in preschool settings in particular.
Multi-pass ASR using vocabulary expansion

Current automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems have to limit their vocabulary size depending on available memory size, expected processing time, and available text data for building a vocabulary and a language model. Although the vocabularies of ASR systems are designed to achieve high coverage for the expected input data, it cannot be avoided that input data includes out-of-vocabulary (OOV) words. This is called the OOV problem. We propose dynamic vocabulary expansion using a conceptual base and multi-pass speech recognition using an expanded vocabulary. Relevant words to content of input speech are extracted based on a speech recognition result obtained using a reference vocabulary. An expanded vocabulary that includes fewer OOV words is built by adding the extracted words to the reference vocabulary. The second recognition process is performed using the new vocabulary. The experimental results for broadcast news speech show our method achieves a 30% reduction in OOV rate and improves speech recognition accuracy.
Efficient Algorithm for Jitter Minimization in Time-Triggered Periodic Mixed-Criticality Message Scheduling Problem

The current research in real-time scheduling focuses mostly on the certification of functionalities with respect to safety requirements under conservative assumptions or to achieve efficient resource utilization but with optimistic assumptions. With growing system complexity, the safety certification is becoming hard, especially in event-triggered environments. In time-triggered environments, the network nodes are synchronized by clocks and follow a static schedule hence they are easily certifiable. However, the time-triggered paradigm has two disadvantages. The first one is its general non-flexibility (e.g. message retransmission, efficient resource usage) and the second one is the need for an efficient scheduling algorithm producing the schedule. In this paper, we propose a solution to both of these issues. To address the first disadvantage, we propose a method for non-preemptive message retransmission in time-triggered environments while preserving the efficient use of resources. Based on the message criticality we allow a certain number of retransmissions. The observed prolongation of the processing time of a highly critical message is compensated by skipping transmission of less critical messages. Static schedules then contain all alternatives caused by the retransmissions that can occur during a run time execution. Schedules conform with certification requirements imposed on the highly critical messages while preserving the efficient use of resources. To address the second disadvantage, we propose a novel heuristic scheduling algorithm with an unscheduling step for solving large instances of periodic message scheduling problem. The message periodicity is assumed to be a power of two and the objective is to minimize the maximal jitter. The efficiency of the approach is demonstrated on problem instances with up to 2000 messages.
Introduction to Software Process Improvement

: While software now pervades most facets of modern life, its historical problems have not been solved. This report explains why some of these problems have been so difficult for organizations to address and the actions required to address them. It describes the Software Engineering Institute's (SEI) software process maturity model, how this model can be used to guide software organizations in process improvement, and the various assessment and evaluation methods that use this model. The report concludes with a discussion of improvement experience and some comments on future directions for this work.
Leadership for school-based teacher professional development: the experience of a Chinese preschool

Abstract In recent years, the role of school principals in providing leadership, and the impact of that leadership in promoting teacher professional development for building school capacity has attracted increasing attention worldwide. The study described in this paper explores the practices of leadership for promoting school-based teacher professional development (SBTPD) through a case study of a preschool in Hong Kong, the Special Administrative Region of China. The case study examines leadership and SBTPD. Semi-structured interviews were used for data collection. The research participants were the management team and teachers from the case study school. The findings of the study indicate that direction setting, communication and collaboration were associated with the practice of leadership for promoting SBTPD. We argue that teacher participation in decision-making is an important factor influencing the practice of leadership and its impact on SBTPD. There are implications for developing a critical awareness of the constraints that limit the extent to which SBTPD can be empowering in the hierarchical school structure in a Chinese educational context.
Analyzing and Aligning German compound nouns

In this paper, we present and evaluate an approach for the compositional alignment of compound nouns using comparable corpora from technical domains. The task of term alignment consists in relating a source language term to its translation in a list of target language terms with the help of a bilingual dictionary. Compound splitting allows to transform a compound into a sequence of components which can be translated separately and then related to multi-word target language terms. We present and evaluate a method for compound splitting, and compare two strategies for term alignment (bag-of-word vs. pattern-based). The simple word-based approach leads to a considerable amount of erroneous alignments, whereas the pattern-based approach reaches a decent precision. We also assess the reasons for alignment failures: in the comparable corpora used for our experiments, a substantial number of terms has no translation in the target language data; furthermore, the non-isomorphic structures of source and target language terms cause alignment failures in many cases.
Age-related top-down suppression deficit in the early stages of cortical visual memory processing

In this study, electroencephalography (EEG) was used to examine the relationship between two leading hypotheses of cognitive aging, the inhibitory deficit and the processing speed hypothesis. We show that older adults exhibit a selective deficit in suppressing task-irrelevant information during visual working memory encoding, but only in the early stages of visual processing. Thus, the employment of suppressive mechanisms are not abolished with aging but rather delayed in time, revealing a decline in processing speed that is selective for the inhibition of irrelevant information. EEG spectral analysis of signals from frontal regions suggests that this results from excessive attention to distracting information early in the time course of viewing irrelevant stimuli. Subdividing the older population based on working memory performance revealed that impaired suppression of distracting information early in the visual processing stream is associated with poorer memory of task-relevant information. Thus, these data reconcile two cognitive aging hypotheses by revealing that an interaction of deficits in inhibition and processing speed contributes to age-related cognitive impairment.
Violència i psiquiatria: validació de l'Escala de Valoració de Risc d'Agressivitat (EVRA)

ADVERTIMENT. L'accés als continguts d'aquesta tesi doctoral i la seva utilització ha de respectar els drets de la persona autora. Pot ser utilitzada per a consulta o estudi personal, així com en activitats o materials d'investigació i docència en els termes establerts a l'art. 32 del Text Refós de la Llei de Propietat Intel·lectual (RDL 1/1996). Per altres utilitzacions es requereix l'autorització prèvia i expressa de la persona autora. En qualsevol cas, en la utilització dels seus continguts caldrà indicar de forma clara el nom i cognoms de la persona autora i el títol de la tesi doctoral. No s'autoritza la seva reproducció o altres formes d'explotació efectuades amb finalitats de lucre ni la seva comunicació pública des d'un lloc aliè al servei TDX. Tampoc s'autoritza la presentació del seu contingut en una finestra o marc aliè a TDX (framing). Aquesta reserva de drets afecta tant als continguts de la tesi com als seus resums i índexs.