Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Using the Vickrey-Clarke-Groves Auction Mechanism for Enhanced Bandwidth Allocation in Tactical Data Networks

Abstract : A mechanism is an institution such as an auction, voting protocol, or a market that defines the rules for how humans are allowed to interact, and governs the procedure for how collective decisions are made. Computational mechanisms arise where computational agents work on behalf of humans. This report describes an investigation of the potential for using computational mechanisms to improve the quality of a combat group s common operating picture, in a setting where network bandwidth is scarce. Technical details are provided about a robust emulation of a tactical data network (based loosely on the Navy LINK-11) that was developed for the study. The report also outlines the basic principles of mechanism design, as well as the features of the Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) auction mechanism implemented for the study. The report describes how the VCG mechanism was used to allocate network bandwidth for sensor data fusion. Empirical results of the investigation are presented, and ideas for further exploration are offered. The overall conclusion of the study is that computational mechanism design is a promising alternative to traditional systems approaches to resource allocation in systems that are highly dynamic, involve many actors engaged in varying activities, and have varying and possibly competing goals.
Chaos control of a sprott circuit using delayed feedback control: Experimental study

In this paper a linear delayed feedback control is proposed and experimentally applied to eliminate chaos in a nonlinear electrical circuit which is known as Sprott circuit. The chaotic behavior of the system is suppressed by stabilizing one of its first order unstable periodic orbits (UPOs) by a controller designed based on so-called Pyragas method. The effectiveness of this method, firstly, is numerically investigated by stabilizing the unstable first order periodic orbit and then verified experimentally by a laboratory setup.
Detecting and presenting errors for Swedish writers at work An error detection tool for Swedish

The aim of this paper is to discuss the problems of detecting and presenting errors using computer supported language checking. The development of an language checking tool for Swedish to support writing at work will serve as an example. At The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden, there has been a project on developing a writing support environment for supporting the writing process in its different stages (Posten Brev, Prima Vista, 1994). The program will be used by the Swedish Postal Service in their writing courses for business writing. There is also a will to make the program generally available for writers at work. From a scientific point of view the program is a useful tool for experiments and tests on writing support. It is not a full-fledged professional program, rather a prototype developed in Hypercard, but hopefully still usable as a pedagogical and practical tool in the writing courses of the Swedish Postal Service. Beyond supporting the early stages of the writing process such as idea-generation and organisation, the program has an interactive tool for supporting proofreading in Swedish. The language checking tool uses a pattern matching technique that is more or less restricted to finding errors and style deviations on the levels of orthography and phraseology (Domeij, 1994). Still, the experience of constructing the language checking tool has raised problems that, in most cases, generally hold for more or less advanced tools of the same kind.
Artificial Water Point for Livestock Influences Spatial Ecology of a Native Lizard Species

Pastoralism is a major agricultural activity in drier environments, and can directly and indirectly impact native species in those areas. We investigated how the supply of an artificial watering point to support grazing livestock affected movement and activity patterns of the Australian sleepy lizard (Tiliqua rugosa) during a drought year. We observed 23 adult lizards; six had access to a dam, whereas 17 lizards did not. Lizards with access to the dam had larger home ranges, were substantially active on more days (days with >100 steps), and moved more steps per day compared to lizards that did not have access to the dam, both during the early and late period of our observation. Furthermore, while the two groups of lizards had similar body condition early in the season, they differed later in the season. Lizards with dam access retained, whereas lizards without access lost body condition. Local heterogeneity in access to an artificial water resource resulted in spatially dependent behavioural variation among sleepy lizard individuals. This suggests that sleepy lizards have flexible responses to changing climatic conditions, depending on the availability of water. Furthermore, while reducing activity appears a suitable short term strategy, if harsh conditions persist, then access to dams could be of substantial benefit and could support sustained lizard activity and movement and allow maintenance of body condition. Hence, artificial watering points, such as the dams constructed by pastoralists, may provide local higher quality refugia for sleepy lizards and other species during drought conditions.
Sparse Domain Adaptation in a Good Similarity-Based Projection Space

We address domain adaptation (DA) for binary classification in the challenging case where no target label is available. We propose an original approach that stands in a recent framework of Balcan et al. allowing to learn linear classifiers in an explicit projection space based on good similarity functions that may be not symmetric and not positive semi-definite (PSD). Following the DA frame- work of Ben-David et al., our method looks for a relevant projection space where the source and target distributions tend to be close. This objective is achieved by the use of an additional regularizer motivated by the notion of algorithmic robustness proposed by Xu and Mannor. Our approach is formulated as a linear program with a 1-norm regularization leading to sparse models. We provide a theoretical analysis of this sparsity and a generalization bound. From a practical standpoint, to improve the efficiency of the method we propose an iterative version based on a reweighting scheme of the similarities to move closer the distributions in a new projection space. Hyperparameters and reweighting quality are controlled by a reverse validation process. The evaluation of our approach on a synthetic problem and real image annotation tasks shows good adaptation performances.
Advances in Artificial Economics: The Economy as a Complex Dynamic System

Market Structure and Economic Behaviour. - Heterogeneous Beliefs Under Different Market Architectures. - The Allocative Effectiveness of Market Protocols Under Intelligent Trading. - Strategic Behaviour in Continuous Double Auction. - Market Efficiency and the Role of Speculation. - A Broad-Spectrum Computational Approach for Market Efficiency. - The Dynamics of Quote Prices in an Artificial Financial Market with Learning Effects. - Reduction of the Bullwhip Effect in Supply Chains Through Speculation. - Firm-Consumer Dynamics. - Co-evolutionary Market Dynamics in a Peaked Resource Space. - E-Consumers' Search and Emerging Structure of Web-Sites Coalitions. - Agent Based Modeling of Trust Between Firms in Markets. - Investigations into Schumpeterian Economic Behaviour Using Swarm. - Social Interaction - Network Effects. - The Wisdom of Networked Evolving Agents. - Artificial Multi-Agent Stock Markets: Simple Strategies, Complex Outcomes. - Market Polarization in Presence of Individual Choice Volatility. - Is Ignoring Public Information Best Policy? Reinforcement Learning in Information Cascade. - Social Interaction - Connectivity. - Complex Behaviours in Binary Choice Model with Global or Local Social Influence. - Dynamics of a Public Investment Game: from Nearest-Neighbor Lattices to Small-World Networks. - Social Norms, Cognitive Dissonance and Broadcasting: How to Influence Economic Agents. - Methodological Issues and Their Application. - Confronting Agent-Based Models with Data: Methodological Issues and Open Problems. - Equilibrium Return and Agents' Survival in a Multiperiod Asset Market: Analytic Support of a Simulation Model. - Explaining the Statistical Features of the Spanish Stock Market from the Bottom-Up.
Title: Substantia Nigra Output to Prefrontal Cortex via Thalamus in Monkeys Ii. Activity of Thalamic Relay Neurons in Delayed Conditional Go/no-go Physiology and Running Head: Cognitive Role of Nigro-thalamo-prefrontal Projections Corresponding Author

23 The present report investigated the involvement of primate nigro24 thalamo-cortical projections in discrimination of visual signals with behavioral 25 meaning. We tested the extracellular unit activity of mediodorsal (MD) and 26 ventral anterior (VA) thalamic neurons monosynaptically receiving inhibitory 27 input from the substantia nigra pars reticulata (SNr) and projecting to the 28 frontal cortex in Japanese monkeys performing a delayed conditional go/no-go 29 discrimination task. In the task two colored stimuli (S1, S2) intervened by 30 delay period required the monkeys lifting a lever (go) or not (no-go); the same 31 and different colored pairs of S1 and S2 meant go and no-go signals, 32 respectively. Prominent task-relevant responses were sustained activity with 33 color preference to S1 during delay period and S2-related activity with 34 different firing rate between go and no-go trials. Particularly, a high 35 proportion of such go/no-go differential S2-related activity was found in 36 thalamic relay neurons, receiving input from the caudolateral SNr and 37 projecting to the prefrontal area (PSv) ventral to the principal sulcus, in the 38 rostrolateral MD. The findings suggest that the caudolateral SNr-rostrolateral 39 MD-PSv pathways may be possible conduits of signals coding the behavioral 40 meaning of the visual stimuli, and thus may be responsible for generating 41
Managing the International Business Environment: Cases in Political and Country Risk

Political and country risk concepts case political risk in Iran managing instability and expropriation risk case - sigma corporation in Iran case - occidental and Belco petroleum in Peru managing international negotiations case - Honeywell in France managing international legal disputes case - Amco and Finnco - contract termination managing intergovernmental conflicts case - dresser and the soviet pipeline controversy questionable payments abroad case - questionable payment sunder FCPA organising for political risk case - political risk management at American chemical company managing international competition case - the state of the US steel industry case - US competitiveness and high definition television managing country risk case - Portland cement in Rabat case - sovereign lending in Turkey scenario development case - Axy and oil scenarios case - assessing the international debt crisis at American Regional Bank.
Rapid Face Detection in Static Video Using Background Subtraction

This paper presents a method that combines the background subtraction with the Viola-Jones face detector to detect human faces from video sequence captured by a fixed camera. We use a texture based method for background subtraction to extract foreground sub-images for the face detector. It allows the detector to focus on face detection on smaller image regions and thereby reduces its computational cost and lower its false positive rate. Compared to other state-of-the-art techniques, the performance of our method is promising.
Joint Labour Supply of Married Couples: Efficiency and Distribution Effects of Tax and Labour Market Reforms

The paper presents a model of household labour supply that allows for simultaneous decisions of household members, complex and non-convex choice sets induced by tax and benefit rules, and quantity constraints on hours choice. The model is estimated using the 1993 Bank of Italy’s Survey of Household Income and Wealth, and used to simulate three hypothetical tax reforms: namely, a flat tax and two versions of a negative income tax system, under the constraint of equal tax revenue. All the reforms produce a larger household average disposable income, without worsening much the equality of the income distribution, and are supported by a majority of winners in the sample, although the proportion of winners varies considerably across income deciles. We also simulate the impact on labour supply and income of removing the quantity constraints on hours-wage packages available on the market, constraints that in Italy typically make full-time jobs more easily available than other jobs. The results show a considerable increase in participation among women belonging to relatively poor households, and a slight reductions in hours worked – given participation – across all households.
Content-Based Video Copy Detection Benchmarking at TRECVID

This article presents an overview of the video copy detection benchmark which was run over a period of 4 years (2008--2011) as part of the TREC Video Retrieval (TRECVID) workshop series. The main contributions of the article include i) an examination of the evolving design of the evaluation framework and its components (system tasks, data, measures); ii) a high-level overview of results and best-performing approaches; and iii) a discussion of lessons learned over the four years. The content-based copy detection (CCD) benchmark worked with a large collection of synthetic queries, which is atypical for TRECVID, as was the use of a normalized detection cost framework. These particular evaluation design choices are motivated and appraised.
Prediction of the Spectrum of a Digital Delta–Sigma Modulator Followed by a Polynomial Nonlinearity

This paper presents a mathematical analysis of the power spectral density of the output of a nonlinear block driven by a digital delta-sigma modulator. The nonlinearity is a memoryless third-order polynomial with real coefficients. The analysis yields expressions that predict the noise floor caused by the nonlinearity when the input is constant.
CHARACTERISTIC ASPECTS OF CERVICAL SPINE FRACTURES IN ANKYLOSING SPONDYLITIS – CASE REPORT 143

Correspondence to: Ana-Maria Maxim, e-mail: amymaxim@yahoo.com ABSTRACT: Ankylosing spondylitis is a chronic, systemic, inflamatory disease, that affects especially the axial skeleton. In patients with spondylitis, the cervical segment of the spine is the most affected in trauma. The fracture risk appears even after a minor or mild traumatic event and the rigidity of the spine, the kyphosis, the secondary osteoporosis, have a special contribution. The injuries are localized especially on the lower cervical spine, such as segments C5/C6 and C6/C7 and in the cervico-thoracic junction. Traumatic lesions on ankylosing spondylitis spine are commonly succeeded by spine instability and high risk of secondary neurological deficiency, so that surgical intervention is the most indicated. In this article, we reveal some of the special aspects of the spine fractures in ankylosing spondylitis, illustrating a case of a patient with spondylitis, admitted in the department of traumatology „Casa Austria”, University County Hospital Timisoara, with cervical spine trauma, spinal cord injury and tetraplegia, after a medium intensity traumatic event. Patients with ankylosing spondylitis are highly susceptible to cervical fractures, even after a minor or mild trauma. These lesions often lead to secondary neurological deficits, so that CT or/and MR imaging evaluation of the whole spine is strongly recommended regardless of whether mild initial clinical findings are present. In case of a cervical spine fracture detection, the stabilization procedure is needed, and the standard management includes anterior decompression and combined anterior-posterior stabilization. Anterior approach stabilization alone is not indicated because instability of the posterior column may go undetected in the acute phase of the trauma.
Investment and Risk-Taking in Procurement and Regulation

This note analyses investment and risk-taking in a simple agency model of public regulation/procurement borrowed from Laffont & Tirole (1993). We show that the principal will overinvest or underinvest depending on whether investment is marginally more productive in bad or in good states. Due to the incentive problem investment risk will be avoided even though all parties are risk-neutral. Apparently, this 'excessive' risk-aversion extends to a large class of agency problems in organization theory and finance.
SONET over RPR

This article deals with the Synchronous Optical NETwork (SONET) and Resilient Packet Ring (RPR). The two protocols used the same layer (OSI Model) and often are used separately. In our paper, we will demonstrate that SONET and RPR could be integrated together; we will explain and detail the use of SONET over RPR (SONEToRPR) with a simulation that shows the possibility to create a New Large Layer 2 Network and to point the benefits of it with a better performance.
Joint Application-Fabric Layer Optimization in Grid Computing

The paper exploits the interlayer coupling of across-layer design concept in grid computing environment. A joint application and fabric layer resource scheduling algorithm which combines both application-centric and system-centric scheduling benefits is proposed. We formulate the integrated design of resource allocation and user QoS satisfaction control into a constrained optimization problem. The application layer adaptively adjusts user' s resource demand based on the current resource conditions, while the fabric layer adaptively allocates CPU, storage and bandwidth required by the upper layer.
A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE ON REGIONAL INTEGRATION IN NORTH AMERICA

The goal of this paper is to contribute to an evaluation of the degree of regional integration that has taken place in North America in the wake of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The most natural way to do this is to examine what has happened to agricultural trade flows among the three partner countries, before and after implementation of NAFTA on January 1, 1994. In their background paper on North American agricultural trade flows over the 1975-98 period, Steven Zahniser and Mark Gehlhar of the Economic Research Service, USDA, do a nice job reviewing this evidence. The new bilateral trade database developed by Gehlhar, and nicknamed “IBAT”, is essential to this exercise. This unique resource reports reconciled bilateral trade flows over time, where the reconciliation is based on a country’s historical reliability in reporting bilateral flows for any given commodity (Gehlhar, 1998). Such reconciliation is an essential precondition to any analytic exercise since it is very difficult to come to general conclusions about changes in regional trade flows based on reported bilateral trade data, which often differ dramatically between reporters.
A Bipolar Membrane Combined with Ferric Iron Reduction as an Efficient Cathode System in Microbial Fuel Cells†

A N N E M I E K T E R H E I J N E , ‡ H U B E R T U S V . M . H A M E L E R S , * , ‡ V I N N I E D E W I L D E , ‡ R E N EÄ A . R O Z E N D A L , ‡ , § A N D C E E S J . N . B U I S M A N ‡ , § Sub-Department of Environmental Technology, Wageningen University, Bomenweg 2, P.O. Box 8129, 6700 EV Wageningen, The Netherlands, and Wetsus, Centre for Sustainable Water Technology, Agora 1, P.O. Box 1113, 8900 CC Leeuwarden, The Netherlands
Assessing the metabolic cost of walking: The influence of baseline subtractions

Partitioning locomotor metabolic rates into resting and locomotor components is a common practice that has both basic and applied value. Here, we evaluated the quantitative influence of the specific baseline value subtracted (quiet standing vs. resting metabolic rates) from the gross metabolic rates measured during walking. We quantified resting, standing and gross metabolic rates during horizontal treadmill walking at six speeds from 0.2 through 1.9 m•s-1 in 6 healthy, adult subjects. We found that standing metabolic rates were significantly greater than resting values (1.25 ± 0.03 vs. 1.08 ± 0.02 W•kg-1) and that both constituted large fractions of the gross metabolic rate while walking at all speeds examined (range 16-58%). Differences in the respective net metabolic rates obtained by subtracting standing vs. resting values differed most at the slowest speed measured (16.0% at 0.2 m•s-1) and least at the fastest one (2.9% at 1.9 m•s-1). Standing metabolic rates, like walking metabolic rates, include the metabolic cost of muscular activation for balance and maintaining an upright posture. Therefore, the net metabolic rates determined by subtracting standing from gross rates underestimate the total muscular costs that walking requires. We suggest that the net walking metabolic rates obtained by subtracting resting metabolic rate values are more representative of the total metabolic energy that walking requires.
An amplitude-frequency study of turbulent scaling intermittency using Empirical Mode Decomposition and Hilbert Spectral Analysis

Hilbert-Huang transform is a method that has been introduced recently to decompose nonlinear, nonstationary time series into a sum of different modes, each one having a characteristic frequency. Here we show the first successful application of this approach to homogeneous turbulence time series. We associate each mode to dissipation, inertial range and integral scales. We then generalize this approach in order to characterize the scaling intermittency of turbulence in the inertial range, in an amplitude-frequency space. The new method is first validated using fractional Brownian motion simulations. We then obtain a 2D amplitude-frequency representation of the pdf of turbulent fluctuations with a scaling trend, and we show how multifractal exponents can be retrieved using this approach. We also find that the log-Poisson distribution fits the velocity amplitude pdf better than the lognormal distribution.
Motywacyjne aspekty nierówności dochodowych

Niniejszy artykul ma na celu przedstawienie zalezności miedzy nierownościami dochodowymi a poziomem i strukturą motywacji. Motywacyjne oddzialywanie nierowności podkreślane jest jako istotne uwarunkowanie wzrostu gospodarczego; nierowności dochodowe (bądź nierowności w wyposazeniu w inne spolecznie poządane dobra) są bodźcem do dzialania, pracy, inwestycji i samorozwoju [Mirrlees, 1971; Balcerowicz, 1995, s. 53; Bjorklund, 2010; Szopa, 2005]. W kontekście analizy motywacji nierowności w wiekszości prac traktowane są jako zjawisko pozytywne, natomiast ich negatywne konsekwencje powiązane są z innymi aspektami gospodarowania. Zaklada sie, ze roznice w zarobkach pomiedzy ludźmi powodują chec podniesienia swojej stopy zyciowej, dostania sie do wyzszej, bogatszej grupy spolecznej. Tym samym nierowności mobilizują do wytezonej pracy, samorozwoju, edukacji. Wnioskowanie to uzaleznione jest od przyjecia koncepcji homo oeconomicus, ktorej glownym zalozeniem jest racjonalnośc wyborow czlowieka dązącego do maksymalizacji wlasnej uzyteczności. Przyjmując to zalozenie rzeczywiście wydaje sie, ze w warunkach nierownych dochodow krancowa korzyśc osiągana z wytezonej pracy jest wyzsza niz w przypadku spoleczenstwa egalitarnego i dlatego finansowe zachety do pracy zawsze powodowaly bedą wzrost motywacji. Istnieją jednak sytuacje, w ktorych zaleznośc ta jest odwrotna – a wiec wzrost zewnetrznych zachet finansowych do poządanego dzialania powoduje efekt przeciwny do zamierzonego – spadek motywacji i podejmowanego przez jednostki wysilku. W takich sytuacjach krancowa analiza uzyteczności jest bezradna w tlumaczeniu motywow podejmowania dzialan przez jednostki. Za sztandarowy przyklad sluzyc moze preznie rozwijający sie rynek oprogramowania open source czy praca wolontariacka. W celu lepszego zrozumienia zalezności miedzy motywacją a zachetami finan-